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Swipe for some Valentines from God➡ 😉❤

R E L I G I O N 👏 Sometimes in our intentions to do good, we Christians claim that we are “losing our religion”. But sometimes I wonder if that is the best way to describe our faith... Yes, the Pharisees displayed an incredible pride in their religion, in their ability to “do all the right things”, they were extremely legalistic at times, which was all wrong and Jesus totally called them out on that. BUT I believe Jesus was also a “religious man”, and put a new meaning to the word “religion”. Our world has put a weight on the term “religion”, meaning it to be something like “rules, rituals, legalism”, when it doesn’t exactly mean that.

The end of the year usually calls for some good reflection over the past year. I actually don’t often reflect on the year until I fill the last page of my prayer journal - which was back in October for me. I skim through to see what happened from what I recorded. A lot of it is just me telling God how my day went, confessing sins and saying thank you for many blessings, or pouring out my feelings when my mental health is poor. When you read it through from day to day, you don’t see much difference. But when you read the first page and compare it to the last page, my words, the ways I address God, the problems I come to Him with - it shows immense growth. 🌱

Honestly, I think Mary suffered with mental illness. She might have been diagnosed with PTSD after trying to flee someone who was trying to kill her baby. I can only imagine the grief and the hopelessness she faced the day her son died on the cross. Life for women in Bible times was also pretty degrading. There's evidence that a ransom for a cow was higher than a ransom for a missing woman, which tells us women were worth less than animals. Pretty degrading. The few words that were recorded from Mary's mouth was, "I am your servant" (Luke 1:38). When I read these words, the lyrics from the Christmas song come to mind, "Mary did you know?" Did you know, Mary, how much you were going to have suffer for the sake of Christ? I wonder because I think that if I had known, I wouldn't have said "I am your servant". I would have run away and hid and told the Lord "Nope!" 😂 Sometimes I wonder why God allowed her to suffer so much. And I still don't really know why. But I do know that she was one of the FIRST people to see Jesus risen. Women's testimonies were not taken seriously (sometimes still aren't today unfortunately lol), but God appeared to the women first anyway, and he asked them to tell the others! Surely Jesus knew that no one would believe them. Yet he used them, and they got to see Jesus' face FIRST. What an INCREDIBLE honour that would have been!!

It wouldn't be an "empowering creativity" photo without the brick wall 😂Ok obviously we don't know how to take our own engagement photos haha (I call this pose the "empowered" pose 😜) so SWIPE ➡ to see the REAL photos that my super talented friend @katrinalaine.photo took of us!

December 23rd this year will mark a year without my brother’s best friend. I still remember growing up with him and working at camp with him. I even once thought I’d see him standing next to my brother at my brother’s wedding. This will also be about the 5th Christmas without my grandfather, who used to spend Christmas at our place, sometimes dressing up as a Shepherd to go carolling with us.

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Swipe for some Valentines from God➡ 😉❤

R E L I G I O N 👏 Sometimes in our intentions to do good, we Christians claim that we are “losing our religion”. But sometimes I wonder if that is the best way to describe our faith... Yes, the Pharisees displayed an incredible pride in their religion, in their ability to “do all the right things”, they were extremely legalistic at times, which was all wrong and Jesus totally called them out on that. BUT I believe Jesus was also a “religious man”, and put a new meaning to the word “religion”. Our world has put a weight on the term “religion”, meaning it to be something like “rules, rituals, legalism”, when it doesn’t exactly mean that.

The end of the year usually calls for some good reflection over the past year. I actually don’t often reflect on the year until I fill the last page of my prayer journal - which was back in October for me. I skim through to see what happened from what I recorded. A lot of it is just me telling God how my day went, confessing sins and saying thank you for many blessings, or pouring out my feelings when my mental health is poor. When you read it through from day to day, you don’t see much difference. But when you read the first page and compare it to the last page, my words, the ways I address God, the problems I come to Him with - it shows immense growth. 🌱

Honestly, I think Mary suffered with mental illness. She might have been diagnosed with PTSD after trying to flee someone who was trying to kill her baby. I can only imagine the grief and the hopelessness she faced the day her son died on the cross. Life for women in Bible times was also pretty degrading. There's evidence that a ransom for a cow was higher than a ransom for a missing woman, which tells us women were worth less than animals. Pretty degrading. The few words that were recorded from Mary's mouth was, "I am your servant" (Luke 1:38). When I read these words, the lyrics from the Christmas song come to mind, "Mary did you know?" Did you know, Mary, how much you were going to have suffer for the sake of Christ? I wonder because I think that if I had known, I wouldn't have said "I am your servant". I would have run away and hid and told the Lord "Nope!" 😂 Sometimes I wonder why God allowed her to suffer so much. And I still don't really know why. But I do know that she was one of the FIRST people to see Jesus risen. Women's testimonies were not taken seriously (sometimes still aren't today unfortunately lol), but God appeared to the women first anyway, and he asked them to tell the others! Surely Jesus knew that no one would believe them. Yet he used them, and they got to see Jesus' face FIRST. What an INCREDIBLE honour that would have been!!

It wouldn't be an "empowering creativity" photo without the brick wall 😂Ok obviously we don't know how to take our own engagement photos haha (I call this pose the "empowered" pose 😜) so SWIPE ➡ to see the REAL photos that my super talented friend @katrinalaine.photo took of us!

December 23rd this year will mark a year without my brother’s best friend. I still remember growing up with him and working at camp with him. I even once thought I’d see him standing next to my brother at my brother’s wedding. This will also be about the 5th Christmas without my grandfather, who used to spend Christmas at our place, sometimes dressing up as a Shepherd to go carolling with us.

Empowering Creativity

Empowering Creativity

Follow Blog via Email

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 562 other subscribers

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