I don't deserve Him, with the sins I carry, When I feel hate and anger, I hate the way I feel. It's a sin, and when I feel hate, to Jesus I must appeal, to be forgiven from the same old sins. Why can't I change? I ask myself over, and over again. Jesus said hate, is just like murder how will I ever make it, to myself I wonder. So much hate, such a senseless war. So many injustices in this cruel, cruel world. All the cruelty and insults, will they ever end? This isn't God's will, this isn't God's plan.
He radiates power, And when His presence enters a room, worry is something you just can't do. His presence brings peace, His presence brings love, His presence is tranquility. I want to feel His presence again, it's better than seeing a long, lost friend. When I feel His presence, I just want to praise. He is power, He is love, He is peace. That is my God, That is my Savior, That is my Prince of Peace.
Today is the most important day besides the birth of Jesus in Christianity. It is the day Jesus came back from the dead. He was resurrected and walked out of his grave and conquered death. By believing in Jesus, we no longer have to fear death. The devil is the author of death is defeated by Jesus, because Jesus crushed the devil’s head the moment he was resurrected. time is limited and so is his power. He isn’t omnipresent like God. He can’t be everywhere at once. The name of Jesus Christ conquers evil. He is powerful. He created us and He loves each and every one of us, and even when we mess up, He still forgives us.
While I was young and going to the Catholic church with my parents I dreaded going to the Good Friday service. I hated saying “Crucify him! Crucify Him!” with the congregation during the service because I felt bad saying it and didn’t like the fact that Jesus was crucified. I also was not a fan of standing in line, and then when it was my turn, kissing the feet of Jesus on a crucifix attached to a pole. Thinking back, I wonder how many people got sick after going to Good Friday mass. After people would kiss the crucifix, the priest would wipe feet of Jesus with a cloth. It definitely wasn’t sanitary, but that was a long time ago. They no longer kiss the feet of Jesus on the cross.
I understand now why Jesus had to die, I appreciate Good Friday and the sacrifice Jesus made. He willingly died for each and every one of us so we can have a relationship with God the Father. He resurrected from the dead and is alive today.
It isn’t only the Catholic church that prays to saints. The Greek Orthodox church, Coptic Chistian church in Egypt, the Syrian Christian Church, Armenian church and the Ethiopian church pray to the saints. The Anglican church believes in praying with the saints which is asking for intercession and praying with the saints, which is what I believed in.
Martin Luther had prayed to the saints but then changed his mind. John Calvin who started the Calvinism movement was against praying to saints. He believed in predestination which I do NOT believe in. I don’t believe God predestines some people to go to heaven and some people to go to hell. If that is the case, how to you explain free will. God wants all His children to go to heaven, and He gives all of us that chance.
Some modern mainstream Evangelical protestant churches talk about how the Catholic Church is leading people astray. And they say that praying to the dead is a sin. The reason why they think Catholics are sinning is because King Saul consulted a witch and asked her to contact the dead to know the future. That is NOT what Catholic’s are doing.
America attacking Iran with Israel is something a lot of people in America are not happy about, including myself. I think it’s reckless. Are America and Israel going to destroy Iran like Israel has destroyed Gaza?
Trump lied when he said no new wars, prices would come down, and he would bring people together when he was campaigning for president. None of those things happened. He refuses to help Ukraine, and I am not sure why. Trump decided to attack Iran, and I still don’t know why. First, he said Iran would have a nuclear weapon in two weeks, then he said it was for regime change, and then he said it was because he wanted to bring peace to the Middle East.
From what I have heard, the US military and government is trying to make things bad in order to have Jesus come back in the ” rapture.” They are trying to bring on Armageddon. And that is exactly what Evangelical extremists want. They want the rapture to happen. They think Jesus is going to come back three times not twice. They think he will come back and take all Christian’s up to heaven for three and a half years and let all other the people (including a lot of Christian’s) suffer. I used to believe that while I was an evangelical. While growing up catholic, being a practicing Catholic in my twenties and later on in life, the priests didn’t talk about it. And Lutheran church I watch doesn’t talk about the rapture either. Jesus does not come to earth three times, only twice. First at birth, and then at the final judgement, but not in-between. That rapture wasn’t even thought up until the late 1800s by a woman in a Christian cult in Scotland who had been in an insane asylum once. Charles Darby took the idea from her and was made famous from because of it.
I know Iran has done a lot of bad things over the years, I am well aware of that. I just don’t want this war to turn into World War 3 or some never-ending war. It has had a ripple effect on neighboring countries of Iran and Iran is bombing them now and that is not good.
I just wish all the bombing would stop. People could die from hunger and thirst if this war doesn’t end. 100 million people who live near Iran are fed from the food that comes through the Strait of Hormuz. Israel bombed a desalination plant in Iran. Desalination is the process which turns salt in sea or ocean water into drinking water by taking the salt out of the water. And now trump is threatening to bomb more of those plants.
Another year just went by for me. My birthday was recently and I can’t say that I look forward to getting older, but the people in my life who make the day special, make it better. More than once, I have heard different pastors say ask God for something on your birthday, so today I told God I wanted to be able to hear Him better and hear his voice. I rarely hear the still small voice of God, but when I have, it’s unmistakable. Once you hear that voice you will never forget it. I haven’t heard it with my ears but within my spirit. Some people have heard God’s voice out loud, usually in a situation that immediately needs their attention, like if they are in danger.
One year on my birthday, I asked God to let me see what He looks like. I was working in the late 1989 and one of my co-workers gave me a photo someone in her church had given to her. A nun had taken a photo from an airplane window when it was storming. The photo showed dark clouds, lightening, and Jesus in the clouds and I was so happy to get it.
I asked God to see Michael the Archangel on my birthday in March of 1987. One morning December after taking a shower I was about to walk up the stairs to get ready for work and so I turned the light on and looked up. All of the sudden all I could see was light, then I looked down then up again then everything looked normal. All day long I wondered why I saw that light, and I couldn’t figure it out. It reminded me of Jacob seeing a heavenly staircase and angels going up and down on it with the Lord at the top of the stairs. Not long after seeing that light, I started to feel the peace that only comes from God. It was like God had a bucket filled with liquid peace that he poured on the top of my head, and it would wash over my body. I was twenty-two years old then and I still didn’t have a driver’s license because driving made me very anxious. Long story short, because God gave me His peace during the next four months, I was able to finally get my driver’s license in March of 1988.
When your birthday rolls around try asking God for something that will glorify him and help you in your spiritual life. I am hopeful I will hear God’s voice better this year.
One day closer,
to those streets of gold.
Days fly by,
and the weather has gotten cold,
A light in the sky,
and all of heaven sang.
The shepherds,
didn't ever need,
to wonder why,
A miracle of a virgin birth,
the presence of God,
here on earth.
God the Father,
sent down His Son,
so that we could all be one.
A gift that Mary treasured,
a gift that is without measure.
The Father will walk with you,
The Father will walk with me,
and together we will walk,
right into eternity.
I have dealt with physical pain since I was a teenager. I started getting terrible pain in my stomach when I was fifteen years old. I did not know what was causing it. I had a test done at the hospital that consisted of drinking a white, chalky, terrible tasting liquid and getting an x-ray of my stomach. The doctor didn’t find anything wrong with me. Years later, I heard about irritable bowel syndrome, known as IBS, which is what I have.
Years later in my forties, I developed excruciating pain in my thumbs, near my wrist from work. For years the doctors told me I had tendonitis but never did an x-ray. After dealing with that pain for 4 years, I was adamant about getting an x-ray. and it showed arthritis. Then my shoulder started hurting and I had a good doctor then, and she ordered an x-ray. I had arthritis in my shoulder.
I fell down the stairs in 2021 and as a result of that I ended up with a sprained right ankle and a terrible case of sciatica on the left side of my lower back, hip, and leg. It was the worst pain I think I ever had. I had to walk on my sprained ankle because I couldn’t use crutches because I couldn’t put weight on my left leg. I was miserable.
I tried everything; physical therapy, chiropractor, and drugs, but nothing took the pain away completely. I did a lot of praying for healing, but I still deal with pain. I am not mad about it now. After the first five months of having really bad sciatica I did get mad at God and yelled at him when the pain was bad. Then I asked to be forgiven because I felt bad. There I was yelling at God, and I don’t even deserve Jesus.
Now I know better than to get mad at God and yell at Him. I take comfort in the fact Jesus understands our pain. When He was whipped and beaten and nailed to the cross it was very painful for Him. He has experienced extreme pain, and He understands how we feel.
Jesus went through everything we have gone through in our lives. Some people have experience worse things than others. He was homeless for three years. He experienced pain, hunger, depression, stress, anxiety just like everybody else. There is a medical condition that is extremely rare, that people go through when they are under extreme fear or stress where their body sweats blood called, hematidrosis. Jesus sweat blood the night before He was crucified because he was so anxious and felt so much stress.
I fell down after I missed the last step when I was walking down the stairs without the light on and I didn’t have my glasses on saturday night when it was starting to get dark. I ended up landing on my hands and knees. A first my right foot hurt, so I wore my compression wrap on it, and that helped a lot. I have a big bruise on my knee, but it doesn’t hurt to walk. My Sacroiliac (S1) joint which is the joint that connects the back to the pelvis bone hurts a lot. I have bilateral arthritis in it anyway and most times it does not bother me. I experience sciatica pain on the left side of my lower body most of the time. But right now, the lowest part of my back hurts the worst and it is chronic pain.
When I am in pain, I think God is punishing me for my sins. Then I wonder if He even loves me at all. Back in 2022 when my sciatica pain was at its worst I yelled at God and called Him a liar and rejected the love God had shown me when I was in my early twenties. I think I said to God “you don’t love me.” Then I repented after that, but it’s like God put a block in my mind so now I can barely remember that love now.
Another thing happened a month or two later in 2022. I decided to pray a prayer of protection over this home. I looked up prayers for protection over a home online, and I found a bunch of them, and I prayed them out loud. As soon as I was done praying one of the prayers, I felt the presence of Jesus. His presence was so strong and I felt so peaceful, I couldn’t have worried if I tried. That feeling stayed all afternoon and most of the night. It was so wonderful. I thought, “this has got to be what heaven feels like.”
I know what it says in the bible about God loving us. I know Jesus would have gone through the torture he endured and the crucifixion just for me, but there are times I doubt. I have had depression and anxiety for years and the physical pain just makes it worse. I take medications for anxiety and depression, but the antidepressant I take makes me feel emotionally numb most of the time and I rarely cry now. The last time I really cried was when I was mad at God and yelled at him and called him a liar.
Jesus gave me a gift when He let me feel his presence of peace so strong. I can remember that presence, and I need to cling to it. When He was being whipped, beaten, and crucified, His pain was a lot worse than what I am going through. But He understands our pain and I take comfort in that.
MKR Prodigal Daughter-Christian Perspectives from a Prodigal 