General

For anyone that watches Invasion each week, you will know what I’m talking about. By the way, it’s been cancelled 🙁 so we will never know what happens after the season finale.

Anyway…On Monday these students from UNCC came to gear up for their “Leadershape” camp this week. They have been meeting in the room across from the bookstore. I have been observing them as they pass by. They usually have these big coolers and they seem almost like zombies. They are so strange. Then I saw in the window of the room….yes….you guessed it….water! lot’s of water! Do “they” know something we don’t??? I’m staying away from the swimming pool hehe.

Ok that was my fun for the day. Don’t worry I’m not THAT into my shows haha

Is anyone else as excited as me??? Nicholas Sparks is tentatively releasing another book in September or October. I hope it comes out before our trip to Moscow so I can read it on the way.

Today is a very special day…It’s Lorraine’s (Mom) Birthday. I hope you have a really fantabulous day! I love you so much! Make David wait on you hand and foot today….he may be injured but he still has one working arm hehe. Hope to see you soon!

General Description
As a Networker, you enjoy new people, new situations, and new environments. You build relationships and interact with an ever-widening circle of contacts outside of the home. You tend to enjoy using your verbal skills and wit to be engaging and persuasive.

Typical Areas of Strength
Networkers, like you, are normally strong communicators. You are outgoing, engaging, lively, optimistic, gregarious, persuasive, fun-loving, enthusiastic, and inspiring.

Typical Areas of Struggle
You may sometimes be prone to talking too much, being disorganized, impulsive, too emotional, too optimistic, or exaggerating. Sometimes you tend to overcommit and overlook key details.

Your Preferred Activities
Because you function best when given the opportunity to influence, meet, or entertain others, you need variety and opportunities to present your new creative ideas along with a minimum of detail work.

Your Communication Style
You thrive when given the opportunity to communicate new ideas, concepts, or the latest information to a group.

With all this talk going on about Tom Cruise and Scientology, I decided to do a little research. I also decided to look up Christian Science. Both religions just strike me as sad and funny. Scientologists believe that they, themselves are the spiritual being and they believe that everything they need to know can be found in the book they worship written by….”Joe Schmoe”.

This morning I googled Christian Science and found a list of what they believe.

1. God is infinite…and there is no other power or source, S&H, 471:18.
2. God is Universal Principle, S&H 331:18-19
3. God cannot indwell a person, S&H 336:19-20
4. God is the only intelligence in the universe, including man S&H 330:11-12
5. God is Mind, S&H 330:20-21; 469:13
6. God is the Father-Mother, S&H 331:30; 332:4
7. The Trinity is Life, Truth, and Love, S&H 331:26
8. Belief in the traditional doctrine of the Trinity is polytheism, S&H 256:9-11
9. Christ is the spiritual idea of sonship S&H 331:30-31
10. Jesus was not the Christ, S&H 333:3-15; 334:3
11. “Jesus Christ is not God, as Jesus himself declared…” S&H 361:12-13
12. Jesus did not reflect the fullness of God, S&H 336:20-21
13. Jesus did not die, S&H 45:32-46:3
14. The Holy Spirit is divine science, S&H 331:31
15. There is no devil, S&H 469:13-17
16. There is no sin, S&H 447:24
17. Evil and good are not real, S&H, 330:25-27; 470:9-14
18. Matter, sin, and sickness are not real, but only illusions,” S&H 335:7-15;
    447:27-28.
19. Life is not material or organic, “S&H, 83:21
20. The sacrifice of Jesus was not sufficient to cleanse from sin, “S&H, 25:6.
21. True healings are the result of true belief, “S&H, 194:6”

• Additionally, Christian Scientists prefer not to use doctors, medicine, or immunizations. Christian Science Practitioners are used to help people through the false reality of illness.
• Proper prayer and training are employed to battle the “non-reality” of illness.
• They have no ordinances like the Lord’s Supper or baptism.
• Church services are interspersed with Bible reading and readings from Science and Health.
• Mary Baker Eddy is highly regarded as a revelator of God’s word.

The fact that anyone would truly believe any of that is beyond me. I mean, who is this “Mary Baker Eddy” lady? Let’s just say for a minute that I happened to go to school with this lady. One day I see that she has written this book on Christian Science. She was an A student back in school so I’m going to believe everything she says as the one true belief and way. Surely she is right. Surely she is brilliant. Surely she knows more than God. Does that strike anyone else as just a bit weird?

I could take each and every point of this belief and give you many reasons why it is incorrect but I’ll save you the reading. I will however just touch on a couple.

“There is no Devil” and “There is no sin” Even a nonbeliever of anything would have to disagree with that. It’s just common sense. And “Evil and Good are not real” I mean geez! “Matter, sin, and sickness are not real, but only illusions” Yeah right, again, even those who are nonbelievers of anything can see that even doctors have proof of sickness. Then #20 “The sacrifice of Jesus was not sufficient to cleanse from sin” If you don’t believe in sin in the first place, what is the need to put #20 in there? I thought “There is no sin”. Does anyone really believe that true sickness is a “false reality of illness?” I mean, that’s like saying Matt was just imagining his back was hurting. Matt you big liar you lol. And lastly on my rant…they say they use the Bible…apparently they weren’t specific enough for me as to what “Bible” besides this lady’s book. Because the Bible I know says none of this.

I just happened upon this article and found it truly awesome.

One of the nurses, Mary Blome, marveled that two registered nurses, a man strong enough to lift the woman from her vehicle, and the handy defibrillator all happened to turn up at once.”That just doesn’t happen,” she said.

So….never forget that you are where you are at each exact moment for a reason.  So remember that next time you are stuck in traffic.  You either have the possibility of helping someone by being where you are or of avoiding a wreck because you are where you are.

Ok, so Justin doesn’t think they are Grackles so we’ll go with Starlings.  They look similar….

I was listening to WMIT this morning on the way to work and heard Ann Graham Lotts’ (I think that’s how you spell her name) brief message.  She was talking about letting things go in your life that stress you and instead letting God move with it. She had a good point.   She asked, is it that the concept is so easy and straight forward that we have such a hard time doing it? (I don’t remember the exact quote to quote it).  I tend to have a hard time completely letting something go for God to take.  It’s like that trust game where you fall backwards and trust that someone will catch you.  Even if it was Justin behind me saying he would catch me, I still think I would have a hard time letting my body fully relax and not try to stop myself.  It’s something that I try to work on everyday.  To stop worrying about things and just know that they will be taken care of.  They always have before.  I might not like the way things may seem but in hind sight I can see things clearly.  Anyway, I say all this because it makes me think of our Moscow Team Meeting last night.

Jeremy shared with us about the Russian Missionary, Genady and his wife Vica.  He has been jobless for well over a year.  He was jobless when we were there last year.  Eventually they had to give up their apartment and spread their belongings amongst church friends.  For awhile they stayed at an American’s (Mark Sprinkle) apartment while he was visiting the US. Then they had to move out of there because of renovations.  Vica had to take their daughters to stay with her mom in another town.  Genady stayed behind still searching for work.  After over a year of faithful prayers, they have been answered in a miraculous way.  Brad and Lori’s sons (the American Missionaries) started playing basketball this year.  They met another family through playing together and the father approached Brad and told him of his support for what Brad and Lori were doing.  He decided to give them a donation on two conditions (he didn’t know what they spent it on and that Brad never ask him for another dime).  That being said, the man donated enough money to provide Genady and Vica with an apartment for over a year.  In the mean time Genady has found a part time job and is still able to devote time to the church.  After meeting Genady and Vica on our last trip, I have no doubt of the Faith these two have.  I know they were able to “let go and let God” without hesitation.

Praise God for all the awesome things He does in HIS time!  We may not understand the time table but must know there are reasons for everything.