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inspiradodelcielo
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Name: Amy
Interests: loving, talking, reading, laughing, people watching and thinking about the mystery that every person carries around in themselves--a world that is known only by them and God...and wanting anyone who doesn't know how lovingly God knows them to know that He waits for their love...
Expertise: teaching, dreaming, writing, making chocolate chip cookies, making a fool of myself and loving it...
Occupation: Student
Message: message me
Website: visit my website
Member Since:
10/21/2004
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| Well, it looks like the world of Facebook and Wordpress have lured me away from Xanga. Still, I feel think a few updates here and there are worth it.
God is amazingly good and has blessed us with another pregnancy. This one has made it into the 14th week, twice the length of the last one, and I do have hope that we will see and cradle and love and know this baby. He or she is due September 4...Labor Day weekend!
We're gradually building our support to leave for the Philippines. It looks like we will have the 75% required to get to training, which will be May 27-August 6 in North Carolina. I'm hoping it will be a bit cooler there than in Mississippi, where we're planning to have the baby. Ironically, even though the summers are quite mild in coastal Southern California, most homes don't have air conditioning, which makes for hot nights. I'm glad we'll be in the AC of the South for the summer! (What in the world a pregnancy in the Philippines will be like I have only to dread!)
I'm reading through the Bible again this year...that is always good for my spiritual and intellectual life. I am in Numbers now, and constantly reminded of how much like the Israelites I am in my misplaced trust. Even Moses did not simply wait for God's promise for water to rush from the rock, but struck it twice instead. Lord, help me not to strike the rocks for provision, but wait on you! But I do anticipate God's provision and care, just as He has always brought it and supplied us with what we need. Praise Him!
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| I just read a great little article in a campus magazine at Fuller Theological Seminary.
In it, the writer reminds us of what I've been feeling heavily on my
heart lately: that the next president is not the hope of the world;
Jesus is the hope of the world. Governments are manmade institutions;
the Kingdom of God is His own, and He is the One Ruler of it for all
time. I'm concerned about the election tomorrow. Not because
my hope is in the next president, but because this election feels like
a popularity race. It feels like I'm in high school again and everyone
is voting for the suave guy, instead of the guy who's actually going to
do things that help our class. Sigh. Really, I don't love either
candidate; supporters of both sides claim that "their" candidate stands
for the oppressed. So then it comes down to who we define as
oppressed. Is it those who are below the poverty line, those who have
experienced some sort of discrimination, the unborn...? So, even though I want McCain to win, my hope is not in him. My
heart is heavy for the morality reflected (or not) in the way we will
voite. I think that the propositions are the greatest tell-tale of
where we are morally. In California, we're voting on the definition of
marriage. I keep hearing arguments like, "We can't deny people their
rights." Our nation is more concerned about rights that it is about what is right.
You can't blame them...they've been taught by television. But
Christians who support gay marriage you can blame, because they know
which Compass they should be guided by, and they fly in the face of
that Compass. It might sound nice to let gay people marry (and I'm not
saying they shouldn't have rights), but to redefine the biblical
covenant of marriage because it's "what sounds nice," or even, "what I
want," is not living life according to anything buf self-directed
morality. And self-directed morality is wrong. If you are a follower
of Jesus Christ and you don't follow His Word, then you are saying you
don't trust His Word, which ultimately would prove you don't really
believe His Word, which would lead me to say something so bold as, are
you really a follower of Jesus? Driving on the freeway north
toward Los Angeles today I saw written in the back window of a car,
"Don't hate. No on 8." That shows that those who are against
proposition 8 don't understand those who are behind it. Ultimately,
those for a Yes vote on Prop 8
are for healthy families, those which will give children the proven
best situation in which to grow up: with a mother and a father. Those
for Prop 8 are actually acting out of love. That's not to say that
some people have not turned it into an opportunity to express hate in
revolting and unloving ways. Those are not the ones who stand behind
the proposition, although they are the ones who get the most
attention. Ultimately, those who support a biblical definition of
marriage act in love because we know, according to God's Word,
homosexuality to be a sin. To support a sinful lifestyle is to neglect
the responsibility we have as followers of Christ to spread His love
through His Word; and obeying His Word is not always easy. Deuteronomy
30:19-20 says, "...choose life in order that you may live, you and your
descendants, by loving the LORD your God, by obeying His voice, and by
holding fast to Him..." Loving, obeying, and holding fast to God are
not always easy, but they are what He requires.
And then
there's Proposition 4. The people of this country are so concerned
about what we want that we forget, just like with the definition of
marriage issue, that choices in life aren't always easy, and making the
right choice is often the hardest choice to make. Nevertheless, if we
are people who stand for the oppressed, then we ought to be people who
stand for the unborn. We should also be people who are willing enough
to do the dirty work of ministering to and caring for women with
unplanned pregnancies. No, their lives are not easy, but until you've
ministered to women who have aborted children and live with the regret,
don't tell me about the right to choose the life or death of a
baby. (And DON'T get me started on the fact that MY tax dollars go to
support Planned Parenthood. It makes me physically ill.)
There's an African proverb that says, "Have your baby, for you
never know whose womb holds the chief." How many "chiefs" has our
country aborted? Proposition 4 makes it mandatory that an adult family
member of a minor is informed when she is going to have an abortion.
Some say this may cause risk to the girl. What about the risk of her
being manipulated or molested and forced to have an abortion without
anyone to stand for her, or the risk of her future emotional and
spiritual bankruptcy as she deals with the emotional, psychological,
and spiritual effects of what she has done (or been done to her)? The
Proposition is not about denying girls their rights, it is about
protecting them from making choices alone that they are perhaps
not mature enough to make. To put it in perspective, "In California, a
girl under age 18 can’t get a tan at a
tanning salon, a cavity filled, or an aspirin dispensed
by the school nurse without a parent knowing. But a
doctor can perform a surgical or chemical abortion
on a young girl without informing a parent" (http://www.yeson4.net/). My
heart is weeping today, not because I put hope in government, but
because I see the moral decay and ruin of the people around me. My
heart weeps today because I long for people to make choices based in a
saving knowledge of the loving grace of their Creator and Savior, Jesus
Christ, who died for their sins even while they sinned (Romans 5:8), so
that they might, upon believing in Him and calling Him Lord (Rom 10:9),
walk with Him for abundant life on earth (John 10:10) and eternal bliss
for eternity (John 3:16). My heart weeps because I see the world in
which my children will live. My heart weeps because I know the heart
of Jesus weeps as we watches the people He made choose anything but
True Life, anything but wisdom as it is described and taught in the
Bible. My heart weeps because I see the disdain people have for my
Savior, Jesus Christ, the One in whom I place my hope. | | |
| Dear friends,
Idea time! Christmas is now 56
days away, so here are some more ideas that will give you a chance to
stay in the giving spirit while helping out people in great need.
This week, I'd like to invite you to check out Trade as One,
an organization whose banner says, "Change lives with everything you
buy." There is a variety of things you can buy, from items related to
sports, bodycare, jewelry, purses, food, stationery, and more. So,
check it out! http://tradeasone.com/
~Amy Samson
frontlineministry.wordpress.com
...I have set before you life and death, blessing and curses.
So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants,
by loving the LORD your God, by obeying His voice, and by holding fast to Him... Deuteronomy 30:19-20
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| I think I didn't mention before but Edwin and I are training for a half marathon. It's my "silver lining" from the miscarriage. Gives me a goal and something joyful as we wait to try again. The race is December 7. We're on for a 7 mile run today! It's great, because without trying we're losing weight and getting fit!
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| I'm working on a writing project. For it, I'm looking back at journal and xanga entries from the past few years. I am reminded just how UTTERLY blessed I am. My life has been generously kissed with joy after joy, love upon love, tears that are sown for harvest.
When Edwin and I were dating, we declared Psalm 126 "our psalm." It begins with, "When the LORD brought back the captive ones of Zion, we were like those who dream...the LORD has done great things for us; we are glad." We testified to the joy that God had brought into our lives through each other, despite the tears that we shed through divorce and broken engagement. Our wedding bands are inscribed with the words, "We are like those who dream."
The second half of that psalm talks of seeing the same restoration brought again. The psalm splits from looking at things God has done to things hoped for. In that section of hope, there is a twofold promise: we will have tears again, but also will we have "shouts of joy." The joy is conditional, though: the tears must be sown, worked, given to God for a harvest.
Up until recently, I didn't concentrate much on the second part of the psalm. Understandably, so: often when we're in joy, we don't want to think of the tears to come. Yet now, I see our story, mine and Edwin's, even more deeply written into Psalm 126. When we were married we were not yet living verses 4-6. We were testifying to the place and places from which God had brought us. At the point of our marriage, we were still to experience pain together. But now, after a rejoiced and mourned over pregnancy, we have been in the time to sow our tears. And God-helping, we are sowing those tears and experiencing the joy in them.
My joy will not wait for a viable and healthy pregnancy, but it has already begun, as I've given my tears to my Lord. And I've even now begun to see a harvest in my own soul. I needed to be rescued once again from the captivity of bitterness and doubt. And He has, once again, brought back this captive one of Zion, and I am ever still a dreamer.
When the LORD brought back the
captive ones
of Zion,
we were like those who dream.
Then our mouths were filled with laughter and our tongues with joyful shouting.
Then they said among the nations, "The LORD has done great things for them."
The LORD has done great things for us; we are glad.
Restore our captivity, O LORD,
as the streams in the south.
The one who sows in tears will reap with joyful shouting.
He who goes to and fro weeping, carrying his bag of seed,
will indeed come again with shout of joy, carrying his sheaves with him.
-Psalm 126
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