So I just started this thing...I'm not sure yet whether or not I'll actually add my friends so they can reguarly read it or not. The only reason I'm thinking possibly not is because I might want to post more private things on here that I wouldn't necessarily want my friends to be reading, but need to just get out. Hm, but that sounds kind of stupid since this is the internet. We shall see...
I read this book called Mistaken Identity. It was absolutely amazing...so much so that I started it last night and have been so into it that I've been reading practically all day and just finished it a few moments ago. For anybody who hasn't heard of it, it tells the story of how Whitney Cerak and Laura Van Ryn were mistaken for each other after a tragic car accident that killed five people, including Laura Van Ryn. Whitney Cerak is one of the only survivors, but is mistaken to be Laura and for the first five weeks following the accident Whitney's family deals with losing their daughter while the Van Ryn's spend every day in the hospital watching who they think to be their daughter fight for her life. Eventually it is discoved that it is in fact Whitney who survived and Laura is the one that was buried in Whitney's grave. The families of the two girls wrote the book as a way to show how God worked in their lives through such a tragic time.
It inspired me so incredibly much. Both families, after hearing they had lost their daughter, continued to praise God, maybe even more so. I worry that if I were to ever lose a family member that I am so close to I might not have that some passionate faith they did. I sincerely hope and believe that I will still think of Christ as my savior and try to maintain a relationship with Him, but I don't know if I could possibly spend two hours in prayer and worship time with God each day. I don't even do that now...could I do that when I'm hurting so much and wondering why God took that person from me? The faith these families had and the love for God just makes me feel so lacking in my relationship with Him.
It's kinda weird, but just from reading this book, I feel so connected to these people. I want to meet them. I want to talk to them about God and to sit and pray with them, sing songs of worship with them. Just reading about their lives and how they faced all this by leaning on God to give them strength inspires me so much. It makes me want to just walk outside the walls of this dorm and stand by the river and sing my heart out to Him. It makes me just want to sit and pray and conversate with God.
He is my creator, my savior, my love. He gave me everything I have, from my wordly posessions to the very breath in my lungs. He gave me EVERYTHING. Jesus Christ came to this world to be criticised and put down and then eventually tortured and beaten and hung on a cross, to die so I can one day sit next to him in heaven. He did that for ME. He did that for YOU. When I think about all this, it amazes me how selfish humans, including myself, can be. So often I sit down to meals and just don't feel like taking the time to pray. It's ridiculous...Jesus did all of this for me, yet I can't do something so simple? It hits me when I think about all this, "Wow...Jesus did all this for me. He gave me everything, including his own life, so I could be truly free. Why is it that I can't seem to lay down everything I have right down at his feet and say 'You gave this to me, but it truly belongs to you. Take everything I have, including my own life, and use it according to your will.' It's so simple, yet I make it so hard."
Ephesians 2:8-10--"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."
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