I fondly remember my first experience of prayer. I was four years old, in my Holly Hobby bed, getting ready to go to sleep for the night. My mother had read to me a bedtime story, as usual, but this night she decided to teach me the “Our Father” as well. As we prayed together, I felt a deep fascination inside. It was as if my mother had given me a new gift far better than any toy. I laughed with joy as she said the word “trespasses.” I loved the sound of that word. I thought it was the funniest word I had ever heard. The laughing subsided until, in the very next sentence, I heard “trespasses” again. My laugh was contagious. My mother could not continue until we were both spent from laughing. As she finished the prayer with the word “evil” I remember a very serious tone overshadowing me. I did not feel fear, but I was sobered. I went to sleep thinking about how good this God was who would protect me from all evil.
I was the oldest child in the family, and the only child at this time. We spent each day together, just Mom and I. As we made our beds each morning, Mom would sing the song from the Disney production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, “Just Whistle While You Work”. After our morning chores, we would take a “coffee break.“ Mom would have her coffee. I would drink my milk warmed up, with a little coffee added to it, just enough to make it a creamy brown color. As the day went on, we did laundry and planned our grocery lists. We baked and shopped together. I had an abundance of craft items to cut, paste, or draw anything I could ever imagine. I would sit on my own little tablecloth in the midst of piles of dirty laundry on wash day and create every craft idea I could imagine.
My mother was tr...
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...ano my entire adult life. Now, the music in life had returned. I had disowned a vast amount of my true self while striving to be nothing like my mother.
I opened myself up to fully trusting another person, thereby learning to love as God intended me to love. My marriage healed significantly. I no longer allowed my perfectionist nature to cripple me, or discourage my husband. I developed a new motto, "Give praise to God and do it imperfectly."
Although the intense closeness I experienced on my private retreat with my Lord has faded away, I realize that it is my job to just keep my lantern lit. Occasionally, fear or self-pity seems to creep it's unsightly face into my life. So, I wait in joyful hope for I know that my Lord will return to me again someday. "Perfect love casts out all fear." Jesus Christ was, is, and always will be my Perfect Love.
provided me with a different outlook of myself, and brought about new responses to some of
Screwtape uses psychology to manipulate the patient into replacing the intellect and will in prayer with imagination and emotion. To remind the patient of his childhood prayers is the fist step; it causes him to repel from this way of prayer, and on his own attempt to create a prayerful mood that is spontaneous and inward, and that is void of will and intelligence. Another way is to keep the patients prayers solely focused on himself instead of God, so that when he asks for favors or graces he will develop imaginary emotions to satisfy these requests; replacing intellect and will with imagination and emotion. Furthermore, Screwtape shows how twisting the patient’s object of prayer so that he is praying to it, a crucifix or an icon, instead of God, inconspicuously deletes will and intellect in prayer. Using effective psychology, Screwtape shows how to successfully replace intellect and will in a persons prayer life with imagination and emotion.
My mother didn’t have a perfect schedule set up for us, but she had certain expectations for me and my siblings. She expected us to go to school, and come back home. Unlike Shell 's neighborhood, we couldn’t have kids just playing outside because you never knew what was going on in the streets. We didn’t have the back and front yard available to us, but me and my siblings will find ways in which to keep ourselves entertained. We did become creative, but also coming from a lower class community there was always one sibling that was always doing more thinking than the
Heritage in a family can be preserved in many different ways. Be it a diary written by your great great grandpa or a pot your grandma passed on to your mum who passed it on to you, nothing compares to the great comfort in understanding ones heritage especially when it involves the deep love and devotion of a strong mother. In the poem "My Mother Pieced Quilts" by Teresa Acosta and the short story "Everyday Use" by Alice Walker, both authors use imagery and figurative language to establish a quilt as a symbol for a mothers love of her children to illustrate their themes.
changed and that was her belief in me… because of her unconditional love I am the person that I am today… her reassurance and patience made all the difference.
Once I decided that it was time that I not let depersonalization get the best of me, was the time when I finally felt unrestrained to live life to the fullest again. To this day I use my depersonalization as motivation to try new things and never give up. I am very glad that everything that happened did because if it did not, then I would not be open to new things or even finish things that I have started, I would also not have the amazing friends that I have now or be able to even talk to people face to face. Yes, it was a long process full of tears and agony but it all payed off, without that big event that happened I would not be the person that I am
He has forced me to reflect on my lack of compassion, forced me to understand what it means to take incalculable risks in the pursuit of a better life, and to understand that fear of the unknown and the passion to overcome that fear can coexist.
According to Linda, education was an important matter in her home growing up. Her parents wanted their children not only to achieve an education but to master it. Linda’s said the she recalled her mother reading to her and her siblings every night when they went to bed when she was younger, and she mentioned that both of her parents would help with any homework questions that they had. In her adolescent years, Linda said, “my life was boring and uneventful compared to what kids do these days.” Throughout all of her childhood, Linda mentioned not being able to remember doing anything but going to school, doing homework, and coming home to work on the farm. She said that there was no time for sports or social events, that things needed to be done around the home. However, Linda mentioned that “on Sundays, after church, we went to grandmas to eat and we would get to go swimming in the creek behind her house”. Linda also mentioned that she sometimes stayed with her grandmother, and one of the activities they did together were some hobbies like knitting, Crocheting, and sewing. In the summers in their free time in the evenings the Doll family would sit in the yard and watch the sunset and look at the stars as a
I began studying personal development. I taught myself how to love myself without the acceptance of others. Although I still struggle from time to time. Overall I am fixing an issue in my life. I will forever believe change is always possible.
At one point or another in one’s life you are faced with God, eye to eye and you know it. You can feel the Holy Spirit’s presence, like a humming sound that’s too low to hear, but it’s there and you can feel it, a feeling that you are not alone. For some, this feeling lasts for eternity, and for others God works within them again and again because the Lord’s love is persistent. The feeling I had came and went, for it was not strong enough as a child. But now, I am the strongest I have ever been.
Today's Gospel reading shows us that the Lord is with us through times of trial… or when the storms of life get to be too much to handle. Whether He calms the storm as he did for the disciples, or asks us to let him walk through the storm with us, as Paul talks of in 2 Corinthians, or gives us the strength to fight against it, as He did for David while up against Goliath; he is always with us. He does not ignore the cry of the afflicted.
Many changes for the good and some were bad but, there were some learning experiences that help make me a better person. The events in my life, was dealing with the Birth and The Death of my first daughter.
...of my life, such as family, school, and work. Suddenly I was easily succeeding in all these areas, where as I had always struggled with them in the past. My health was better than it had ever been before which kept me from having to make visits to see the doctor, let alone the emergency room. I also had money saved up that would have previously been spent on fast food, cigarettes, and drinks at the bar.
I was really blown away by the movie War Room, it is all about prayer and the power of prayer. It opened my eyes to the dimensions of prayer and the value of prayer. It’s no religious chant, or an act of repeating words or showing off in-front of others to appear Holy or that we are doing the church thing.
One of my family members had lived her life for the Lord for quite some time and even attended Bible College and then later in life stopped attending Church and doing what the world does and thought there was no hope for her after that because in her mind she had done too much wrong in life which was a bondage that she was in! The devil constantly beat her up with that mindset telling her that she had done too much wrong and that God wouldn’t forgive her and take her back in his loving arms. I encouraged her to never stop seeking the Lord no matter the enemy was telling her! A while later she was delivered from that mindset - Praise God! She knows the Lord would never forsake her because Hebrews 13:5 tells us so. I’ve seen many people get into religious bondage to meaning various groups set rules for people and if they don’t abide by those religious rules and rituals then they 're under pressure or suppression causing them to be in bondage. Bondage is a terrible thing and is constantly hindering people, in the back of their minds they are beaten up and tormented. Jesus remains the only answer and is our deliverer! The enemy knows if we are living in fear of not been accepted by God any more then He can torment us with that. That’s why 1 John 4:18 says “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made