Sunday, April 09, 2006

Close my eyes, open the Bible

Long weekend. . .

. . .So I am closing my eyes and opening the Bible.

Luke 1:57The Birth of John the Baptist57 When it was time for Elizabeth to have her baby, she gave birth to a son. 58 Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown her great mercy, and they shared her joy.59 On the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they were going to name him after his father Zechariah, 60 but his mother spoke up and said, "No! He is to be called John."61 They said to her, "There is no one among your relatives who has that name."62 Then they made signs to his father, to find out what he would like to name the child. 63 He asked for a writing tablet, and to everyone's astonishment he wrote, "His name is John." 64 Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue was loosed, and he began to speak, praising God. 65 The neighbors were all filled with awe, and throughout the hill country of Judea people were talking about all these things. 66 Everyone who heard this wondered about it, asking, "What then is this child going to be?" For the Lord's hand was with him.

That's better.

The bad attitude folks melted away. So many nice folks came in tonight. :-}

I Thank God for His people.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey Milly!

Have seen you comment over at the Thinklings and just realized that you had a blog(yeah, I'm slow).

What caught my attention as I read through your posts is your references to the COC. I can't quite tell if you're still in it or have moved to a more "liberal"(hate that word) branch or what.

I was raised in the conservative end of the COC and finally broke with it in my early twenties. There was much dismay from my parents, as I'm sure you can understand. I'm now in my late 30s and am still(told you I'm slow) working through some of the issues that I was indoctrinated with.

I'm be interested in hearing more about your experience and where you are now, if you feel like telling.

BTW, sorry for leaving off-topic comment. Just didn't know where else to pur it.

Milly said...

brian,

I’m glad you asked. Thanks for joining me.


you're still in it or have moved to a more "liberal"(hate that word) branch or what?

Yep, I’m still in it. I actually love my church. My husband and I volunteer as much as we can. We are a bit different than some COCs. Our COC is more accepting of others. I was raised around very un-excepting COCers but not in my household. My parents knew that other people had a right to other beliefs. Some of my family members don’t think any other way than COC. I was raised in a different house, as I said. I also went to several churches when I moved out on my own. I married a Catholic Yankee! He is now a COC and his family isn’t too happy. I wish that they could see how much it has help him and our marriage. You have to have God it every aspect in your life. He wasn’t going to church until after the birth of our second child. I would take them on my own every Wednesday and Sunday. God keep talking to him and now he’s hooked on this church elephants and all.

I understand how hard it is to break away when your family doesn’t accept how much you need to find God somewhere else. My cousin preaches once in a while in his Baptist church. My father and I are the only ones who have gone to hear him. (Being the trouble maker of the family. . .sly smile here) I announced to his mom and sister that we had gone to hear him, and he is quite good. He is married and has two kids. They have had some hardships that would have crumbled most. They have God.

I have also had no problem saying prove it, show me, get your bible out, let’s go. See that’s the difference I wasn’t raised to accept what I was told just because someone said it. That’s part of the reason when I read verses in the Bible I read all around them. It can change how you interpret what your reading.

I also believe that we can read the same verse and get different meanings. I will explain this so that it’s not taken the wrong way. I believe that God speaks to us with the written word. He uses them to help us. Wow, this is harder than I thought. Let’s say you read, The Lord is my shepherd. You might need to hear from God this, I am your leader I am here to guide you. I might need to hear, I am your care taker I will protect you. Does that make a lick of since?

So to answer your question, yes, I am still a COC gal. I love it. I do understand why some have left. I love some of the strictness God knows that this world is becoming too liberal
(the L word :-\ ) I love the music. It never needs a band for me to enjoy it.

We also have a great minister. He can really deliver on Sunday mornings. If you’ve read all that I’ve written you will see that I have not always been happy with things. We are human and we make human mistakes. The great thing is that I have always felt comfortable in telling them how I feel. Yes, a woman. They recognize (ok, some) that women are strong and can speak out. Hey, they must have read the Bible and noticed that women did that then.

As I said our COC is a bit different. We’ve always had that rep. After all this year's ISWW was a blend of COC’s and CC’s. . . Unity.

God Bless ya!
Just stick to the Word your family can argue with that.

I think you might enjoy this one.

familyhoodchurch.blogspot.com

Anonymous said...

Milly,

Glad to hear that your church is of the more accepting variety. :-)

I think that if I would have stayed in the COC I would have been politely asked to leave. My beliefs just diverged too much from the "norm" - even on issues of salvation.

In retrospect, I think avoiding the divisiveness was the best path to take - although I wasn't really worried about that at the time. I was just fed up and wanted to move on. Perhaps the years have made me a little wiser. :-)

I *think* I know what you mean by different meanings. I would something like "one meaning, different applications". What the author meant does not change, but it can be applied differently based on different situations.

Anyway, thanks for sharing. I'll be back to visit!

Milly said...

brian,

Glad to have you visit.

I *think* I know what you mean by different meanings. I would something like "one meaning, different applications". What the author meant does not change, but it can be applied differently based on different situations.

Yes, that's what I was saying. Life differences change how we view things.

I believe God knew and knows that.
Thanks for stopping by.