Kindness

I was struck by a realization earlier this week when thinking about how every good thing comes God. I hadn't ever conceptualized what some of these good things are. In particular, I was struck with the concept of kindness. Simple, kind actions allow God's light to shine forth to others in a way I hadn't considered in the past.

On paper, I usually find plenty of words to say what I'm thinking, but in person I'm rather shy. I was listening to someone who needed an ear to bend, and found myself not knowing what to say in reply. A smile and more listening was enough. How much more, then, is God's capacity to listen to us? How is God kind to us?

I hadn't ever put the word, "kind," on God when I've prayed, thought about him, or talked about him with others. Almighty, sure. All loving, absolutely. Friend, without a doubt.  Kind?

My recent experiences and prayers have led me to contemplate how God's kindness is so great that in this life we experience it through other people in a very special way.

When have I experienced God's kindness through the kindness of someone else? When have you? Are you the face of God in regard to kindness toward other people?

My struggle has always been when I see kindness within myself that has been acted upon, I have to fight down the urge to credit it to myself rather than to God. There are so many times I would rather attend to myself than to others, and when kindness flows from me in spite of my selfishness, it is God at work. The Holy Spirit helps me not always get in the way of myself.

I'm also amazed how kindness doesn't  carry any negative connotations for me, even as a word on paper. So many words have multiple meanings, but I don't think kindness does. There is one definition for kindness in my heart's and mind's way of knowing what kindness is because it stems forth from God.

Does kindness carry more than one definition for you?

A Letter from a Stranger

A few months ago, one of the street people I know went to prison.  I didn't find out about it until he was there for a few months.  As soon as I found out, I wrote him a letter and then sent him a Bible.  A little time passed, and I didn't expect to receive any correspondence from the jail since it takes money to buy stationary and stamps from the commissary.  

Yesterday, when I came home, I saw a letter in our stack of mail from the Sheriff's office.  The letter was from a friend of the street person I know.  In painstakingly good handwriting, the friend asked for a Bible for himself.  

I was blown away.  I probably read the letter 100 times last night for a few reasons:

1) I have no idea how he got my address or last name (I didn't put either on the letter I sent to my homeless friend.  He has only ever called me by my first name).

2) There really is truth -- "Ask and you shall receive."  There was no way I could refuse to send this man a Bible.

3) I often feel like what I do for others isn't enough or isn't good enough.  I often feel like the actions I take are insignificant.  I often feel like I shouldn't bother when I see someone who looks like they need help because I internalize the action too much.  "What difference could I possibly make?"

The lesson for me today is that God works wonders through us all.  

I had been really down and sad lately because I felt like I am afraid to evangelize, that I'm afraid to talk about Jesus openly outside of my parish and church community.  Yet, this total stranger who asked me to help him to receive the Word of God has really touched me.  I am evangelizing, though it is through a different medium than I had originally imagined.

Jesus says that whoever gives a cup of cold water to someone in need does it for him.  The action doesn't need to be large, it just needs to be done in love.  

Please pray for my friend and his friend in prison.

Getting Caught Up

How easy it is to get caught up in situations and want nothing more then to vent, howl, moan, groan, wail, and curse at how horrible ________ situation is.  It's human nature, and I think we all do it.  I found myself in a situation like this today.  I thought I had everything all planned out, all worked out, and all mapped out regarding an ongoing "problem" I've been facing.  Everything was all neat and tidy.  It had been a struggle, but it was figured out.

In today's situation, it was regarding money.

Today I found out everything wasn't nearly as neat as what I thought, and the budget is blown over something completely out of my control.

Yes, I vented.

Yes, I moaned and groaned.

Yes, I am wailing inside.

"Why can't this all work out the way I thought it would work out?" I said inside my head.

This has been my mantra for the past year.  Why can't everything work out the way I thought it would work out?  Why does this have to be so hard?  URG.

Enter dramatic pause as I remember that I'm supposed to be reflecting on the big picture and not just this one facet of my existence in time.

"Oh yeah," I said to myself, "That's right.  I'm not the one who is supposed to have to work everything out.  I'm supposed to be trusting that everything will work out according to God plan."

And that's just it.  A big part of the journey is remembering to remember.  God created the heavens and the earth simply by willing them all into existence.  He'll help me with this problem.  It might not even be a problem in God's eyes.  It's probably just a way for me to learn to see reality through eyes of faith with God's help.

Now, I just need to chill out enough and calm down enough to sleep all night rather than obsess.

Did God maybe create chill pills on the 8th day?  I think my mom would tell me to take a proverbial chill pill and cool it.  I'll pray for one of those too.

I'm Still Here

I'm still here.  I haven't been writing lately due to a dear family member who was ill and in the hospital in December.  I needed to spend my time focusing on helping in the recuperation and rehabilitation but am grateful to say that the journey has been worth it, and my family member is very much looking to be able to return to the same quality of life he had before falling ill.

With God all things are possible.  He asks that we also do our part so that he can work through us, but it is through his grace, mercy, and strength that we can walk on the journey with him and toward him.

I will be actively writing on this blog again soon now that life is hopefully going to settle back into a time period in which I am able to be home and in front of my computer.

Learning From Sin: Lies About Sexuality: Service and Humiliation vs. Service and Humility

Humility and service to others are deeply written onto our hearts because it is God's will.  We ought to live in humble service to God and to each other.  Seeing Christ in others and then offering ourselves to others is a fundamental part of the four Gospels.

This is why service and humiliation within a BDSM context are so easily sought, especially within fantasy.  It is easy for the mind to say that there is no harm in these kinds of fantasies or actions because they are a direct perversion of service and humility.  It is no wonder that BDSM grabs hold of people within the context of fantasy. For someone who has shut out God or who is confused and not actively focused on God, service and humiliation are made to feel right by the twisting of the world, the flesh, and the evil one.  It is humble service to God and to others that the soul truly seeks.

Just as food is not a sin but gluttony is, service taken into the wrong context confuses a wandering soul.  Unfortunately for many, wandering souls truly seek God, but stumble upon evil that appears to be good.  Evil is seductive.  It rarely jumps up and down, proclaiming itself for what it truly is.

I praise and thank God for showing me why my own sins were able to hold me hostage for so long.  Now I must put this knowledge to good use, making sure I am serving him and serving others.  Knowledge is the first step.  Action must follow.  I will continue to write about this journey for many reasons.  One reason is that I feel called to do so.  Another is that this message must be heard.  Sexual perversion within the world of fantasy and within the world of BDSM exists for a reason.  It isn't evil for the sake of evil.  It is a twisting of one of our most intimate threads of a human fabric.  God created us as sexual beings, and praise be to him for doing so!  He is wise indeed!  He is a creative creator who gave us such a wonderful gift in our sexuality.

Sexuality, in my opinion, draws many people away from God because God desires intimacy with us.  Intimacy and all of its mysterious ways is what we desire.  Intimacy with God and intimacy with others.  False intimacy is destructive, but we can't see its destructiveness until we are removed from it, as is the case of someone who has committed sexual sins but later returns to Jesus.  Because of the private nature of sexual sins, we must always pray for those who have wandered away from Christ in this way.  People don't feel comfortable talking about sexual sins.

I don't feel comfortable writing about my own sexual sins, but I feel that I must because there are so, so many who are sinning in this private way behind closed doors.  The doors may be the doors of their houses, but so many times it is behind the closed doors of their minds.  The mind is both a spiritual haven and a spiritual battle ground.  Prayer is an effective weapon because the Holy Spirit uses prayer to open the doors and windows of our minds so that our minds, bodies, and souls can clearly see each other within the houses of our whole person.  They are interconnected in a way that only God understands, for he made us.  He made us well.

Let us rejoice in the wonder of his creation, in us!  Let us rejoice that God has designed us specifically for intimacy.  Let us seek true intimacy with him and with others with joyful hearts.  He calls us to draw near to him and take refuge, to delight in his peace.  Let us serve him with humility.

Gifts

I try to reframe my attitude about my day.  Often, I am unsuccessful and need reminders of what is truly important.  Today's thought is, "What have I given today?  What have I given to make somebody's day better?"

I also try very hard to think this way before the end of the day so that there is time left.  Have I given time to others?  Have I given my attention to others?  Have I given any of the many gifts God has given me back to others?

Many times the answer is no.  Why not change that?  Why not change the answer to yes?

This is the pep talk I gave myself today.  I need lots of pep talks.  I'm tempted to set a reminder on my cell phone to give myself a pep talk when I need it.

Was my day about myself?  About my aches and pains, my frustrations and fears?  Or, was it about others?  Was it about living in the present and giving of myself so that when I lay my head on my pillow at night that I haven't held myself back in reserves out of fear or selfishness?

There is always something that can be given, even if prayers are it.  Prayers can be the most important of all.  Even if I think about my little pep talk right before falling asleep, I can always give prayers.  I can always give thanksgiving.  Thanksgiving is a gift to others as well, even if it is made in private.

Why?

The more thanksgiving I give, the better able I am to recognize that everything I have is a gift.  Everything is mine only because it was given to me by God or by others.  I can then give away anything I have because nothing is mine to begin with.  (Oh, and I hate dangling prepositions, but even those are given to me by God, so they're free to hang out-- Praise be to God for the ability to speak, to write, to read, and dangle prepositions!)

There are so many gifts in life.  I pray for the ability to recognize them, to give thanksgiving for them, to give them freely, and to always remember to pray.

Amen

Learning From Sin: Lies About Sexuality. Having a Master/Being a Master in a World of Fantasy

Upon attending church today, I swallowed hard when I heard today's Gospel reading from Matthew 23:1-12.  The verse that stopped me in my tracks was, "Do not be called 'Master;' you have one master, the Christ."

As I have written elsewhere, I will repeat briefly here in case someone randomly reads this post without reading any of my previous posts.  Before I returned to the Church and sought forgiveness for my sins, I had been writing erotica and erotic romance as well as an erotica blog as a side business/hobby.  The works I had been writing all had BDSM themes, and usually the characters were in service to a master or masters as part of one of the main themes of my writing.  Many of those same characters had dilemmas because they had to choose between different masters.

Ok, this is perhaps more than you, my reader, wanted to know, but I have to put it all out there because I felt called to leave church and immediately write a blog post on this topic because it is so important.

The human person seeks to have a master.

Jesus addresses this fundamental human longing in today's gospel, and it is a key idea to why some perversions of sexuality (BDSM) draw people so strongly, especially with the written word.  There are people who act out BDSM but there are many, many more who buy written works containing BDSM themes as an escape to reality.

It has been my experience that when one shuts out Christ, the soul still seeks its master.  We were made with this longing, this yearning for God so boldly written upon our hearts that when we shut out Christ we cannot stop seeking a master.  We take many paths through dark valleys and then wonder why we experience discontentment with seeking out a human master, even if it is only within the world of fantasy.

"It's only a fantasy," I told myself time and time again when writing erotica.  "It hurts no one."

What a lie!  I lied to myself over and over again.  The many rooms of our minds contain parts of hearts, parts of our souls, our yearnings, our longings, our passions, our emotions, and so many other parts of ourselves.  When we fill many rooms with destructive fantasy, our minds become a house of mirrors in which those good longings become perverted until we no longer recognize them for the good things that they are.

Christ is our master, and he wants us to be of service to him and to others in his name.

And the desire to be master over someone else?  This desire isn't something I wish to address in today's blog post because it contains too many subtopics for a single blog entry.

In Christian, married life, there is much freedom to living in the present.  In contrast, seeking to always distract oneself from the present with fantasy is destructive on multiple fronts, not the least of which is that it opens the door to losing site of the many gifts one's spouse gives in the married life.  It opens the door to disappointment in one's spouse because a person can never live up to a fantasy, regardless of how harmless the fantasy may seem at the time.

My prayer as I learn from my past is to be ever mindful of who my spouse is, how wonderful a man he is, and how blessed I am that God gave him to me to be my husband.