Abortion

I've read a bit on the internet today about abortion and it got me thinking. Where do I stand on the issue? Up until this point I had mixed feelings on the issue. I still do...let me try to explain.

I am pro-life, for me. I would never have an abortion myself, even in the event of a rape pregnancy. I believe that life begins at conception, not at birth. This means that unborn babies should have human rights. In my opinion. While my beliefs make it impossible for me to fathom having an abortion, I can understand why other woman can.

Many women are not emotionally equipped to deal with having a baby that is the result of rape or incest. These woman, if forced to continue with the pregnancy, may end up killing themselves, or doing permanent psychological damage to themselves and their child. While I do not agree with abortion, I can't stop someone who does not agree with me from doing what they think is right.

This sounds terrible...let me try to explain again. If I believed that life happened at birth and not at conception, I would believe that these fetuses could feel no pain, that they didn't have souls. If this were the case, I would have no problem with abortion. Although I know that this is not true, many women do not. I cannot force my opinions on them and make them change their minds.

I am pro-life, but I believe that women should have a right to choose, if there are special circumstances. If the woman was raped or carrying the baby to full term could put her own life in danger, I can see why they would want an abortion. I don't agree with their decision, but I can understand why they made it.

This is my opinion ONLY for these special circumstances. Abortion is not and should never be just another form of birth control. There are tests that can be done now to find out if the child will have any disabilities. In some countries it is legal to abort these babies. This is wrong on so many levels. Just because someone is disabled does not mean we have the right to end their life.

Another thing that I read that disgusted me was late term abortions. With this kind of abortion, the baby is too developed to just be 'sucked out'. A doctor must actually pull the baby out of the uterus and then crush its skull to terminate it. This is murder. When you hold someone's head in your heads and crush it, you are killing it, whether it has been born or not.

Abortion disgusts me and it makes me miserable just thinking about it. While it is something that I hate and would never do myself, I can understand why some women would feel the need too.

Lukewarm...

Just a short blog to help me try and process some thoughts...

The night before last I was reading my bible. I had a conversation with Tyler earlier this week about the end of the world. He has been hearing a lot of stuff at work lately about this Planet X, 2012 end of the world stuff. He asked me what I thought about it and I told him that while I don't know much about that theory, I don't think that it's going to happen. I told him that there are things in that the bible says are going to happen before the end of the world. To make a long story short, I couldn't remember what all of these things were, so when I was reading my bible on Tuesday, I was reading the Book of Revelation.

When I got to the part about the church in Laodicea I read and highlighted this verse:

I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm - neither hot nor cold - I am about to spit you out of my mouth.

- Revelation 4:15-16

This verse struck a chord. I don't want to be lukewarm. I want to have that special relationship with God. I've been longing for it for a while without even realizing it. I want to be hot - on fire - for Christ. I want to change, but I'm still figuring out how.

Tonight I was reading another blog. This blog is written by a friend of a friend - someone that I don't even know. She had quoted this exact verse in one of her recent blogs. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but I think that God is telling me that He doesn't want me to be lukewarm anymore either. Being neither hot or cold is worse that being one or the other.

Routine

Sometimes I feel like I'm falling into a routine. I don't want my relationship with God to be in any way forced, because it doesn't seem real. I need to move outside of my comfort zone more often and really do things for God. I don't want to do all of those thing because I know I should be doing them. I want to pray, read my bible, and do good things because I want to.

I usually pray before I go to sleep because I grew up as a kid doing that. I'm now trying to pray throughout the day, whenever the moment strikes me, rather than just at the 'designated times'. Instead of sitting around and being crabby when I'm stressed out I'll try to pick up my bible to find guidance...but I want to do more. I want to truly live my life in a way that would make God proud of me.

God, as a Father, is just like any parent. This means that I should be trying to please Him in everything I do. Every thought that I have and everything that I do shouldn't be something that I would be ashamed of my parents hearing or seeing, and I shouldn't let God see me that way either.

I've also been trying lately to do something that I've never done before. I'm being open about my faith. I always told myself that I kept my feelings about God to myself because it was personal, now I'm not so sure. I wonder if I wasn't just embarrassed before. Maybe I was scared of how other people would see me. Not even people who don't believe in God. I'm not scared of non-christians knowing about my faith. I'm scared of other Christians looking down on me for what I believe.

Not anymore.

I need to be completely open about my faith with everyone else, if I'm going to be able to grow in it. I can't grow with God if I don't let the people around me in. I can't help other people to grow with God if I'm not open about it. What kind of Christian would that make me?

I think I need to get right down to it and take a good look at myself. How can I expect to have a proper relationship with God if I'm lying to myself? I'll tell myself so much that something I'm doing is right and ok, that I'll begin to believe it. It has to stop...


This blog is sort of a mess, I have so many thoughts in my head that I'm having trouble completing them. They're all just fragments of a bigger picture that I'm not quite seeing yet.

Funny

Yeah, I know I already wrote today, but this was kinda funny...

I was reading through my old LiveJournal and I came across this entry. I wrote it on June 9th 2004.

Emily should really be in bed.
Well, I've missed three days of school in the last two weeks and my friends are worried about me...I told them not to worry and they said they were anyway because I'm apparently *always* sick. I was just like...uh...How long do you expect me to be sick for? One day? And then they were like "See, we can't even discuss this without an argument."

So now I'm sick and confused. Hopefully I feel well enough to go to school tomorrow or they might call a bloody ambulance to my house.

Right now I should really be sleeping, considering I'm sick. But my dad and sister are out until about 1:30 and I don't really feel comfortable going to sleep when no one's home. I guess I'll go up and try now though...

-Emily.

The little thing where I put in my mood said that I was "Thirsty", I wonder why? haha

I'd just like to say a very late thank you to those friends. I was sick the next day and the then on the 11th I was in the hospital getting diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes.

Haha, it's fun to look at old stuff.

Prayer and Confession

I am not Catholic and have never been to confession, but I've been thinking a lot about prayer and the forgiveness of sins lately. Catholics are supposed to go to confession regularly to relate their sins to a priest and then be told what their penance is. This could be as simple as saying a few "Hail Marys" or the Lord's Prayer, or they may have to do something for the community or apologize to or ask forgiveness from someone else.

I always thought this was kind of stupid. Why not just confess your sins straight to God through prayer? After thinking about this and reflecting on my own prayers, I realized that this is not always as easy as it seems. Prayer can be difficult sometimes. I find that I am always praying through distractions. When I am trying to talk to God, I find myself thinking about other things and quite often (if I am praying before bed) I will simply fall asleep before I am finished.

I am sure that God doesn't mind this so much, but I feel like I am failing at prayer. After a long day I like to talk to God before I go to bed, and I feel rude when I can't stay focused. I wouldn't appreciate it if I was talking to someone and they fell asleep in the middle of the conversation.

A kind of weird thing is, I have an order to my prayers. I first talk to God about the people in my life who I am worried about and I ask Him to stay with them and give them strength. Second I will tell Him about the things in my life that I am worried about and that I would like His help with. Quite often, I fall asleep during this second part and I don't make it to the third. The third part of my prayer is when I confess my sins and ask for His forgiveness. For some reason I've felt that the third is the least important part of my prayer. God already knows all of my sins and that I feel guilty and want to be forgiven for them, so why ask?

I know that this logic is wrong. I do need to ask God for forgiveness, but I'm still not sure if that should be the most important part of my prayer. I still feel that praying for the other people in my life is more important and should come first. Maybe I'm selfish and I should wait til I'm done confessing before I start asking for the things that I want.

So, how does all of this relate to going to confession? While I don't agree with having my sins forgiven by saying Hail Mary or the Lord's Prayer, it may be beneficial to confess my sins to someone out loud. You wouldn't fall asleep in confession and there wouldn't really be any distractions. It also might feel liberating to say your sins out loud to someone, kind of like mailing a secret to postsecret.

Of course, this doesn't mean that I'm going to go to a Catholic Church next Sunday and go to confession, but it might help me to change the way that I pray so that I can be better connected with God. I've already been trying to pray more throughout the day when I am wide awake. I've been trying to thank God for the little things and to remember Him and pull strength from Him during the hard times, but maybe I can do more.

There are things that I can do to keep myself from being distracted during prayer. If I am going to pray before I go to bed, maybe I need to do it sitting up, or even kneeling beside my bed to keep from falling asleep. Maybe I need to recite a prayer (like the Lord's Prayer) before I began to try and set my mind to God. Maybe I need to confess my sins out loud, or even write them down. If I wrote them down I could even go back later to look at them and think of ways to change my life so that I won't commit that sin again.



On a slightly unrelated note...

During these last few weeks I've had trouble feeling close to God. When I was younger and I would pray I would get a feeling that is sort of hard to describe. I'll try...It's almost like a feeling of physical warmth, mixed with happiness and extreme relaxation and comfort. This is the feeling that I would get when I felt really close to God. I haven't had these feelings as much lately and I think that it was something to do with the way I was praying.

While I was writing this blog I got that awesome feeling again. It feels like God is hugging me. I want to try and have this feeling during every moment of every day.

Thank you Lord.

Pslam 91

I've been reading my bible more lately. I used to try and pick it up every once in a while before I went to bed. I decided a year ago that I wanted to read the whole thing, I didn't get very far. The last few weeks I've been trying to read it at least once a day and I've been doing pretty well. I even find myself pulling it out on the bus on the way to work some mornings. I wish I had a copy of the Message because I sometimes find it hard to get through parts of my NIV version.

On the other hand, I like reading the beautiful way that some parts are written, like verse 4 of Psalm 91.

He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.
- Psalm 91:4

I love this verse so much. A girl that I went to camp with wrote it in the front of my bible two years ago. I love that it describes God as a protector. I know that many verses in the bible do this, but not like this one. It describes God as something beautiful, welcoming and warming. Like a place that you would want to go to be protected. It describes God in a soft way, rather than a scary, powerful way.

"Because he loves me," says the LORD, "I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name. He will call upon me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him. With long life will I satisfy him and show him my salvation."
- Psalm 91:14 - 16

Another verse from Psalm 91 that I like. It always amazes me that no matter how much I love God, He loves me even more. He loves me, just because I love Him. Not only does He love me, but He wants to give me so many wonderful things, if I will let Him. I need to let God into my life more so that I can give Him good things and so that He can give His gifts to me in return.

I try to bring God into my daily life as much as possible, simply by being as kind as possible to people. I try to be nice to everyone I meet even if they don't deserve it. I've tried to live by this quote in my daily life:

"Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle."

I want God to do wonderful things in my life and I want to bring myself closer to Him. I want to rest under the safety of His wings.

Marriage and Me

I’ve been thinking a lot about marriage lately (especially because of Andrea and all of her blogs about it). Between that and a conversation I had at work today, I decided it was finally time to write about it.

I made a comment today to Matt that I can’t wait to get married and get started with the rest of my life. He said something along the lines of “Yeah that’ll work.” I mean, I haven’t known Matt that long, but I thought he knew me better than that. I was a bit offended and asked him what he meant. He explained that he doesn’t think that young marriage is a good idea. I told him that I didn’t agree. Andrew piped up that he is ok with young marriage. He said “I’m 24 and I’m getting married this year, yeah I think 20 or 21 is too young to get married, but I’m young and I’m getting married.” I don’t personally think that 24 is that young and I want to get married at 20 or 21.

Many people at the age of 18, or 19 are too young to be thinking about getting married, they are more likely to be thinking about partying and having fun. I’m not that kind of person. I’m 19 years old and I know who I want to spend the rest of my life with. Why should I wait until I’m 25 to get married? Why post-pone love?

A lot of people say that you need to “find yourself” before you fall in love. Who says you get to choose when you fall in love? What happens if you find the one for you when you are still trying to find yourself? You might miss out on the life you could have had with that person. And who says you can’t find yourself with someone else? Isn’t it easier to create a life with someone than to create a life for yourself and then try to fit someone else into it?

I mean really, why shouldn’t we marry our first loves? By the time you’re 25 or so, you have a lot of history. Twenty-five years is a lot of life to tell another person about. Why wait until we’re a certain age to look for love? I mean, yeah, if you don’t find the right person for you until you’re 50, don’t get married until then, but if you have the right person with you already at 18 why not?

Obviously I’m not saying that everyone should marry their high school sweetheart. It varies from person to person. Like I said before, not everyone is that mature at 18 or 19. But for those of us who are, why should we be ridiculed for it? I remember a couple of months ago when I first starting wearing the promise ring that Tyler gave me at work. One of the girls noticed it and asked me if I was engaged. When I told her no she said “good, I would have said you were crazy!” Why? I don’t understand why people have it in their heads that I (or anyone else my age) is too young to get married. I mean really, I’ve been with Tyler a long time (for someone my age anyway). Why is it ok for someone who is 30 years old to marry someone that they’ve been with for five months, but not ok for me to want to marry someone I’ve been with for five years? Is it because they’re old and “ready to settle down”?

Another thing that a lot of people think is that you should get your education before you get married. Again, why post-pone love? Why are people forcing themselves to be alone? When did education and a good job become more important than love? Since when is anything more important than love?

Easter

So I was expecting to have a pretty laid-back, uneventful Easter. It hasn't turned out that way, and I'm glad.

I woke up this morning to hear Tyler saying "Wake up baby, I think the Easter Bunny was here." I rolled over and smiled at him and was about to go back to sleep when I looked around and saw what he had done. There were chocolate kisses and eggs all over the room. He had put them on the TV and the DVD player, on the aquarium, even on the window sill. I got up and even got me a basket to put them all in.

Tyler isn't much of a romantic, but sometimes he does some really sweet things that surprise me. He knew that I wasn't doing anything for Easter with my family and that I had never really done an Easter Egg Hunt as a kid and he made it for me.

After I collected up all of the chocolate his parents called us downstairs for breakfast. Tyler and I have been together almost five years, and we have never sat down in his kitchen and had a meal with his parents and his sister. It was really special for me to sit down there with them and have a nice Easter brunch.

After all of this we went upstairs to watch a movie before I left shortly after one. Andrea came over about an hour later and I showed her all of the pictures from the morning. My mom had bought each of us a chocolate bunny and left them sitting on my pillow. She had also made us a chicken stew that was sitting on the crock pot on the counter. Andrea and I had a nice meal and a nice afternoon together before she left to go and visit her mom.

Holidays have never been a huge deal in my family and now that I'm older I'm starting to regret that. Today I realized that it doesn't have to be a big deal, it's nice to just sit back and enjoy the time you're spending with the people who mean the most to you.

Holy Week

This week, religiously, is one of the most important that there is. Starting with Palm Sunday and ending with the death and resurrection of Christ. So far for me, it's been a week of reflection.

My last blog post was pretty down. Sometimes I feel like I'm being pulled backwards and I can't move forwards until I forget about my past. The problem is, I don't want to forget about it, it's a huge part of me. I also don't want to waste time feeling sorry for myself. I've had some hard times in my life, but I've had so many good times and have so many things to be thankful for.

Something serious happened in my best friend's life this past week and it got me thinking about my own life. It reminded me that even in hard times, I know that there is (to risk sounding very cliche) a light at the end of the tunnel. For every terrible thing that we have to endure, God and life itself will give you good things in return. I want to praise God this week and thank him for all of the wonderful things and people I have in my life, despite it's many flaws.

I mean, my parents may be divorced and my dad lives all the way across the next country, but at least I have loving parents. I am so thankful for the people that my parents are. They are both strong and inspiring people who have also had a lot of things to get through in their lives.

I'm thankful for the friends that I have, even though I have very few. For those of you who have stuck by me through everything, good and bad, I'm grateful to you and I owe part of my life to you. Especially Andrea, who inspires and awes me more and more every day with her strength and compassion.

I am thankful that I have Tyler. He may smoke too much weed and have alcoholic parents, but I love him from the bottom of my heart and I can't imagine my life without him. I don't know how I would ever manage to get through my life without him. He gives me support when I need it most and I support him back in everything he does. I am so happy that I am going to get to spend the rest of my life with this man. I don't know what I would do if we hadn't found each other.

A girl who used to be one of my two best friends once said to me "The greatest thing you'll ever learn is to love and be loved in return". She said it to hurt my feelings and to make me feel bad for taking love away from her. It took me a while to see the beauty in this quote because at first it just made me angry. But it really is true. I can't imagine a better feeling than loving someone and having them return that love. Every feeling I have for him, I know he has for me as well.

I just need to remember at all times, to rely on God to bring good things into my life, even in hard times.



This video makes me cry every time I see it.

Untitled

This blog may be re-added in the future, but right now I'm not really ready to have it open for the whole world to read.