Shine Today

"...if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,  then your light  will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday." Isaiah 58:10 in a whole new light.  I have read this verse more than once and sat through teachings on it.  But tonight, I was reading a book out loud to my youngest.  Isaiah 58 is in the book and the author encourages the reader to read it.  I did, and man it hit me hard.  I couldn't get through reading it without tearing up. I had to pause in reading because I was so choked up.  Why? Why this time even though I have read this so many times before?  Because it speaks to my heart.  I SO believe we should live differently. I know, of course we do, but I'm not just talking about what we eat, lack of exercise and being nicer.  I'm talking about the fact that we should be trying to figure out how to live WITH each other, even in the same home.  How ...

So many thoughts have been going through my head and heart since I wrote the previous entry. I want to put this into practice. Making a way for those who struggle or have even fallen away to reconnect. But even since I wrote it, I too have struggled. Not with God, but with how to put something together. I so want people to stay connected and yet so many have fallen away, or don’t know where they belong, or are just plain frustrated with the “church” today. I even worry that they won’t trust my intentions, or me. A friend of mine told me that she is not even sure she believes in God. That made me mad. Not at her, but at us, believers. Here’s the thing - We were never meant to do it on our own. We were not created to be separate, but to be together. It was never supposed to be about a building or a place of worship. However, today we have turned Christianity into a religion, a set of rules. And we have made the church about a building, about how well a pastor can speak, ab...