tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58150473334911795192024-03-14T02:21:38.957-05:00Christian Love LessonsReflections on my life as a child of GodKayla Bergerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08304496681532073138noreply@blogger.comBlogger218125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5815047333491179519.post-16900804616189412362013-10-26T22:37:00.002-05:002013-10-26T22:37:59.835-05:00Broken and BeautifulIt would be easy to call myself a failure. I, who value love above all things, have failed in my marriage of eight years. I am 30 and single for the first time since college. I am getting by, but my not-quite-two-year-old daughter has more money in her savings account than I have in mine. I am drawn towards friends who have other priorities, and I want more than they can give me. I am pining for the soulmate I've yet to meet. My heart is full of love, and I have no one to share it with but my young daughter who can only understand the edges of it right now. I am overweight (as I have been my whole life) and growing more and more gray hairs, and I frequently feel mediocre and unremarkable, despite my talents and passions. I don't have a lot of hopes for career advancement because I have already arrived at my professional target, which is unfortunately in the rather underpaid nonprofit sector. I recently learned that I am the target of derisive gossip—by at least one member of my church, no less—and that people are sitting around speculating about my love life (or lack thereof). My friends are constantly warning me not to do anything that will cause me more heartache because they know how impulsive and openhearted and frankly foolhardy I tend to be. I have plenty of reasons to feel like a loser.<br />
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It would also be easy to call myself a success. I have recently been promoted to the job I've been working towards my entire career, and I'm doing very well in it. I'm handling responsibility in tough situations and have gained the trust and respect of my colleagues. I am using my musical talents to contribute to my community. I am a good mother who enjoys spending quality time with my beautiful daughter—even when she's having one of her stubborn toddler days—and I feel that I have really learned to slow down and appreciate moments with her instead of always being in a hurry. I live a pretty sensible and responsible lifestyle, I spend lots of time with my friends who care about me, and I have the chance to do good things for the people I love. I am challenging myself to acquire new skills—like learning crossovers in my ice skating lessons—and there are many days when I feel truly happy when only a year ago that was rarely the case. I am smart and resilient and learning to live alone for the first time in my life, something I used to be terrified of but am handling remarkably well these days. I've been getting lots of compliments these days on everything from my appearance to my choir solo audition to my performance at work. I have plenty of reasons to feel pretty good about myself.<br />
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The truth is that I am both broken and beautiful. I fail sometimes and I succeed sometimes, but in the end I am simply me—a remarkable yet flawed creation of a loving and forgiving God. I am both a stumbling sinner and a saint walking in the light of God. I have doubts that bring me to my knees and faith that makes the sun shine brighter. I am full of love and sometimes fear, and I am well-known for both falling and stubbornly getting back up again. You can count on me to both despair in the night and sing with joy in the morning. Sometimes I shiver in the rain and sometimes I dance in it. I am weakness and strength, flesh and spirit. I will never be so broken that I am beyond God's love or so beautiful that I do not need God's mercy. I will never be such a failure that I am ashamed to look my friends in the eye or such a success that I think myself above them. I will just be one more person trying my best to follow God and use my gifts to His glory. One more girl trying to love and be loved. Sometimes I won't succeed, but, oh, sometimes I will. And that hope is worth holding on to, no matter how many times my heart breaks. Praise be to the God who simultaneously humbles my pride and makes my scars lovely to behold.Kayla Bergerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08304496681532073138noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5815047333491179519.post-88737120659566238332013-09-27T18:49:00.001-05:002013-09-27T18:49:14.521-05:00A Different Kind of Love LetterToday I saw a video about a psychological study showing that expressing gratitude is one of the best ways to increase one's happiness. To demonstrate the point, they did their own experiment in which they had people take a test that rated their happiness and then asked them to write something about the person who influenced or inspired them the most. Then they had the participants call that person and read their statement. Then they took another test that measured their happiness again. Those who were able to call their person rated between 2% and 19% happier on their second test. The most dramatic increase in happiness came from the person who was least happy when he arrived.<br />
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It's a fun video, so check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHv6vTKD6lg<br />
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As anyone who read my previous post will know, I have recently been divorced. I legally became Kayla McGrady again on August 16, and I am on my own for the first time in my adult life. I was always terrified of living alone—I always had roommates in college—but it's turned out to be not quite as bad as I feared, although I'd be lying if I said it was easy. My beautiful daughter helps a great deal, and I also have a new housemate who lives in the basement, but sometimes at night it still gets awfully quiet. Those are the moments when I remember how I don't have the life I wanted—a close, loving relationship with a kind Christian man who loves me inside and out—and I feel sad and, frankly, ugly and disappointing.<br />
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Those are exactly the moments when I try to remind me of the many beautiful things that I do have and value very much. However, this study shows that increases in happiness due to gratitude are much higher when the gratitude is actually expressed. So I have decided to make it my mission to express my gratitude to the people who inspire and influence me most. A friend of mine marked her 30th birthday last year by writing letters to all of her loved ones thanking them for their contributions to her life. I thought it was so beautiful, and I was incredibly touched when I received my letter. I wanted to do the same thing for my 30th birthday, but when it came along—five days before I was legally divorced—I couldn't find the resources inside myself to do it. But there is no time limit on gratitude. Now that I have had a few weeks to adjust, I feel ready to take on this task. I will write letters to the people who have touched me. I will tell them what they mean to me and how much I love them, no matter how long it takes me to get every last letter written.<br />
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But I can't really send letters to all of them. Some are dead, and one of them—the person who inspires and influences me most, in fact—can't read. That's because that person is my daughter, Noelle, and because she is not yet two years old she can't read. She wouldn't even understand if I read this out loud to her. But it doesn't matter. It needs to be expressed, so I will say it to you, my faceless Internet readers, instead:<br />
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Dear Noelle,<br />
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In the two short years that you have been part of my life, you have changed my life more profoundly than anyone else ever has. Before you were even born, you hiccuped every day and made me laugh, reminding me of how amazing life really is. You kept me company, nestled under my heart, while I wrote the first novel I have been able to finish since high school. You lay in my arms—tiny and perfect—on the most magical Christmas Eve of my life, helping me understand the joy of the season in an entirely new way. You were my own little Noelle, my all-year-round Christmas, my joy made flesh.<br />
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At first it was just that you existed. I had been afraid to have children for so long, and then the peace finally came to me and I felt ready for you. And there you were, the tiny little person that I had never been quite sure I would have. I learned how to take care of you, and it wasn't as impossible as had thought it would be. I changed your diapers, and they weren't as gross as I had thought they would be. You slept so easily and smiled so often from such a young age. I remember holding you in my arms while I was alone at home one day during maternity leave watching <i>The Help</i>. Poor Celia kept losing babies, and as she carried her poor miscarried darling out in a shoebox to be buried in the front yard, I cried and cried, looking down at your tiny sleeping form in my arms. I cried to think of the women who couldn't have children, the women who lost their children, the women whose bodies betrayed them and to whom the world was not kind. I cried to think of what it would feel like to lose you, that tiny child I had only known for a couple of weeks, who slept most of the time and didn't really do anything. I loved you before you were born and I will love you until the end of my existence, and I believe that everyone should get the chance to experience that kind of love. It is the most powerful and beautiful gift that God has ever given me or any person.<br />
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But it's not just that you're my daughter, Noelle, although that would be enough. You've also changed me by being you—a joyful little girl who laughs and dances and loves to play. You love twirling in my arms, and I love it too. You love dancing around in the living room, and I love it too. You love touching my face and naming off all of its features—eye, nose, chin—and I love it too. Perhaps you think that I am cuddling you in my lap, rough-housing with you on the floor, bouncing you on the bed, and holding your hand as you walk down the stairs all for your benefit, but the truth is that all of those things make my heart swell with happiness. Getting one of your loud "mwah!" kisses and seeing your angelic little smile makes me feel like stepping outside into spring after a long winter.<br />
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The first time I hurt you you were only about six months old. I was trying to get you to take a bottle, and you were being really fussy about it. I was trying a different angle and tried to position myself above your head as you were lying on the couch. As I pulled my foot under myself, I clumsily bumped your head and scratched you with my big toenail. You screamed. You bled. I felt like the stupidest clumsiest idiot who ever lived. I cleaned up and disinfected the scratch and tried to stay calm so you wouldn't be scared. I thought about how your father would berate me when he saw what I had done. You stopped crying and only five minutes later, when I was still talking to my mom about what an idiot I was, you smiled at me. A brilliant, wide smile that said this injury from only a few minutes ago was already forgiven, forgotten. You reached out your hand to me and giggled. And I loved you so much in that moment that I almost burst into tears.<br />
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When I was struggling through the later days of my marriage, just before I decided to get a divorce, I thought about death once or twice—wished God would send down a lightning bolt and put me out of my misery. "Just make it an accident so that the people who love me will know it wasn't my fault, so they can get over it," I thought. But then I thought of you. I knew your father loved you. I knew you would be all right without me. But I didn't want to be without you. And although I didn't want to have to live through divorce or experience life as a single, divorced failure, I did want to live through your childhood and experience life as your mom. So I decided to take care of myself so that I could be a good mom for you, so I could teach you about love and God and joy. I decided to try to love myself more because I wanted to be able to show you how to love yourself like I love you. I wanted to do what was best for you, and I realized that meant doing what was best for me sometimes so that I would be healthy and positive for you. I saw your bright spirit and I wanted to foster it, cherish it, help it grow. You, in your childlike innocence, were what I wanted to be. So I decided that I was going to be with you. I was going to be silly with you and patient with you and loving with you. And I have been, for the most part, because you inspire me to try and to feel every single day.<br />
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Even now as you are heading into your "terrible twos" toddler phase, complete with all the frustrations and anger that come with being able to do so much and yet so little all at once, you are still a ray of sunshine in my life. So many people are touched with happiness when they see your smiling face. Yesterday I was nearly an hour late to work because you were just so precious, so adorable, that I couldn't leave you. I just needed to cherish that moment in your presence, see you giggling, feel your soft warm skin snuggled up against mine. (Thank God I have a salaried job where I can get away with that from time to time...) You are everything that I ever wanted when I contemplated parenthood. You remind me of the value of what Jesus said about having faith like a little child. You trust me and your father. You are adapting to your new living situation—going back and forth between homes—so well. Your affection for both your father and me is so touching. You love us, and we love you. You remind me what it means to love unselfishly and to give for the benefit of another. When I look at you and love you, I remember that other people are worthy of love and service, too. Everyone is someone's little boy or girl because all of us belong to God. I look at you and feel so glad that you are beloved by so many people, and then I remember that I am beloved, too. I am still someone's little girl. You and I are both so well loved, Noelle. Thank you for reminding me of that every single day, my darling girl.<br />
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Love,<br />
Mommy<br />
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To the rest of you, thank you for reading my blog. Thank you for taking a moment from your day to share my thoughts. It means more to me than you could ever know.Kayla Bergerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08304496681532073138noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5815047333491179519.post-7227448155806884542013-04-26T23:56:00.002-05:002013-04-26T23:56:42.989-05:00Once Upon a Time, I Believed in LoveOnce upon a time, I believed that love could conquer anything and that all people, deep down inside, are capable of love. Then I saw people reject love and stubbornly cling to prejudice, pride, and solitude. I watched as people rejected my offerings and feared my intrusion into their emotional isolation. I was baffled as people did terrible things to the ones they claimed to love, things they would never want done to them.<br />
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Once upon a time, I believed that marriage was beautiful and holy. Then my parents got divorced after 30 years of marriage and my sister got divorced only one month later, after ten years of marriage. I didn't understand how things could just break down like that—until I arrived at the place where I am now, in the middle of my own divorce, utterly brokenhearted.<br />
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Once upon a time, I believed that the core of Christianity was love. Then I noticed that Christians all too often focus less on love than they do on things like politics, convoluted theological arguments, worship styles, and behavioral rules. Christians love to argue and judge each other and talk about what the Bible says while disparaging someone else. Just like everyone else, Christians love to be right.<br />
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Once upon a time, I believed that I deserved love. Then I realized that the man I loved did not love me the way I loved him. He did not trust me the way I trusted him. He did not value kindness and generosity that way I did. He made me justify myself to him, and I felt like I was always taking a test. I didn't understand why my constant attempts to win his trust and affection were falling short. I didn't understand why he didn't respond to my love.<br />
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Once upon a time, I believed that love was the number one priority in my life. Then I was forced to admit that no matter hard I try, how much I pray, or how much I study the Bible, I still mess up. My love is imperfect. I get jealous and angry and hurt. I committed to my marriage and fought to keep it alive year after year, and I still failed. I could not love without expecting something in return. I could not be as selfless as I wished to be.<br />
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Strangely enough, I still believe all of these things, despite the disappointments that I have endured. I believe in love, Christianity, marriage, and myself as much as ever. I believe that God is helping me and others in spite of our failures. I believe that the wisdom I have diligently recorded in this blog is true, even if I can't live up to it every day. I believe that God will guide my stumbling steps to new love and brighter days. I believe that darkness will come, but then it will pass. I believe that suffering will be a part of my life, but I know that love will outlast it.<br />
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Once upon a time, I was an optimist who believed in the power of love and the brilliance of possibility. The world has shown me otherwise, but I still believe.Kayla Bergerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08304496681532073138noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5815047333491179519.post-64939132432633367452013-01-01T00:00:00.000-06:002013-01-01T00:00:10.150-06:00Your Mercies are New Every MorningIt is New Year's Day—a day of new beginnings, fresh resolutions, starting over. We survived another crazy year (including the so-called Mayan Apocalypse) and we're ready to dig into 2013. Or at the very least, we try to convince ourselves that we are ready.<br />
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I, for one, do not feel ready. Not at all. When I tried to come up with a list of New Year's Resolutions, I didn't know where to begin. There is so much that I feel I need to do that I no longer know what to prioritize. I no longer know what's best for my own health or for others. I just live day to day now, trying to survive, trying to do what little I can.<br />
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Those few of you who read my little blog may wonder what's become of me in the long months since I last posted regularly. The simple answer is that this blog is about love, and for the past year or so I have had very little to say about love because I often feel as though I am failing at it. I strive to follow where God leads, but my efforts rarely result in success. I struggle in my marriage. I flounder with my family. I wrestle with depression. I seek to serve others only in the quiet gaps when my mind stops screaming at me that I need to take care of myself. I am categorically unable to shut out my own fears and pain and anger except when I am caring for my daughter, who is such a beacon of sunshine that no sadness can stand before her for long. Even when she's having a fussy day I feel peaceful when I am with her, but I still feel tired. Bone-achingly, mind-numbingly tired.<br />
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What then can I say about love? I, who could not even live by my own advice when times got tough? I, who prayed and prayed and prayed but could not find comfort or direction? I, whose wisdom has failed, whose church attendance has plummeted, whose heart is heavy? I can say only this: God's mercies are new every morning. I fail again and again, but I am not lost because God forgives. I get hurt day after day, but God heals me so that my pain is not too much to bear. I live to struggle on, to fight another day, to seek love and to give it. I am weary, but I do not fall.<br />
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"I am pressed but not crushed, persecuted not abandoned, struck down but not destroyed. I am blessed beyond the curse, for His promise will endure. His joy's gonna be my strength. Though sorrow may last for the night, His joy comes with the morning." —from "Trading my Sorrows" by Darrell Evans (a paraphrase of 2 Corinthians 4:8–9)<br />
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So then I hope that this New Year's Day reminds all of you about God's unfailing mercy. Today really can be a new day for you, and tomorrow and the next day, too. We do not have to carry the full burdens of our failures and scars with us from one day to the next, because God will gladly ease them for us. No matter how many times we fall or fail, His mercies will still be new every morning.Kayla Bergerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08304496681532073138noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5815047333491179519.post-87518944970086107342012-05-11T17:24:00.001-05:002012-05-11T17:24:29.968-05:00How to Be a "Bible-Believing" Christian and Support Legalizing Gay Marriage at the Same Time Without Being a Hypocrite (Hopefully)I am probably going to take heat from both sides of this argument by writing this post, but considering that I am a political moderate, I'm kind of used to it. These reflections are the result of literally years of intense wrestling and earnest prayer and faithful Bible study on a topic that still confounds me sometimes. The result is that I am the person who understands both sides of the argument. I respect the voices of those who lament the decline of traditional marriage as well as the arguments of those who demand equal rights.<br />
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In many ways, I am a conservative Christian. Some might call me two steps shy of being a Biblical literalist. I believe that Moses really did part the Red Sea and that Jesus really did walk on water. I struggle with many things in the Bible that challenge my ideas about how the world should be, and I work very hard to see the Bible as a complete picture, an Old Testament unified with a New Testament, discipline and grace together supporting each other. I try very hard not to prooftext or take individual statements out of context. There are many people who are arguing about the specific passages in the Bible that relate to homosexuality. Some Biblical scholars argue that Paul's condemnation of homosexuality has been mistranslated and is actually a condemnation of male prostitution. I don't know. I am not an expert in ancient Greek.<br />
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But there are several things that I do know:<br />
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<ul>
<li>When Jesus came, many of the Jews expected the Messiah to lead a revolution that would end with the Jews being in charge of their country again, back to the good old days of theocracy. But Jesus didn't do that. He appealed to them on a personal level, not as a military or political leader. He even advised them to continue submitting to the Roman government by "rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar's". </li>
<li>Later, after Jesus was resurrected, Peter had a vision of the Lord telling him to kill and eat animals that were unclean according to Jewish law. "Do not call unclean what I have made clean" the voice said. Paul went on to argue that Gentile converts to Christianity did not need to follow all of the Jewish laws set down in the Old Testament such as circumcision and dietary restrictions. He even said that those who did not believe in other gods could eat food offered to idols without being guilty of adultery. Earnest Biblical scholars have been discussing the implications of these sections of the New Testament for centuries, trying to understand precisely what Christian Freedom does and does not entitle us to do. I think it's fair to say that today none of us has an absolutely clear or precise answer to that question.</li>
</ul>
I do not live in a theocracy. Jesus did not ask his followers to form a theocracy nor did he advise them to use the government to achieve their work of spreading the gospel. Throughout the book of Acts, the early disciples do not waste any time trying to take over the government or convert government officials to their cause. When they are carted before the authorities and charged with crimes, they speak in their own defense but do not ask the officials to punish those who have interfered with them. Paul does invoke his rights as a Roman citizen in an attempt to save his life, but this interaction with the government is personal and does not reflect any desire on his part to use the government to control others.<br />
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I live in a country with a constitution that guarantees religious freedom. That means that each person must be allowed to practice his or her religion freely unless that practice somehow infringes upon the rights of another person. We cannot legislate that everyone follow Christian beliefs and practices simply because they are Christian beliefs and practices. That would, in effect, be instituting a state religion, and our constitution forbids that. Of course, as a "Bible-believing" Christian, I put God before my country, but as stated above, I do not think that the Bible instructs Christians to combat this constitutional provision or to work towards a theocracy in the United States.<br />
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The laws in this country allow people to make plenty of choices that contradict the morals that I have as a "Bible-believing" Christian:<br />
<ul>
<li>Adultery is legal.</li>
<li>No-fault divorce and subsequent remarriage are legal and are generally not frowned upon at all in this country.</li>
<li>I cannot ask to visit someone in prison unless that person already knows me and has put my name on his or her visitors list.</li>
<li>People can be driven into poverty and be forced to sell off all their possessions to pay medical bills, causing many wait to get medical help until it is too late because they are afraid that will happen to them.</li>
<li>Rich people are allowed to hoard their wealth, and they don't have to give a single penny to charity or to a homeless man on the street if they don't want to. </li>
<li>Sex between any consenting adults is legal, including threesomes, swingers, homosexuality, and a whole lot of other stuff that doesn't turn me on at all and that I would never do. </li>
</ul>
I could go on, but I think these few examples probably make my point. I believe in the Bible, and I study it with dedication. My opinions are not due to ignorance or a belief that the Bible is outdated or irrelevant. I believe in morality and struggle to live the kind of life that I think the Bible as a whole points to. I encourage those around me to do the right thing, and I try to spread the Gospel in whatever way I can. I believe that the Bible encourages us to show people the love of God by example and to preach the good news to them, not to enslave them to our laws and traditions so that they must act like Christians no matter what they believe. I believe that laws are important to protect our rights and that we should be given as many rights as possible. I do not see how allowing gay people to have a legally recognized union would violate anyone's rights in a way that is grievous enough to warrant prohibiting it. The institutional of marriage in this country does not really match Christian marriage anyway (see previous statements about adultery, fornication, and no-fault divorce) because it's set up as a <i>legal</i> construct, not a religious one.<br />
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But if that argument is not convincing, let me try another one. Forget about the marriage concept for a minute. Forget about gay sex and all of the acts that the Bible suggests are sinful. Imagine instead a person in the following situations:<br />
<ul>
<li>I am dying, but the person I love most in the world, with whom I have shared a life for the past several decades, is sitting outside in the waiting room, forbidden to come see me because they are not legally my family. Because of this I will die alone when all I want is to hold that person's hand.</li>
<li>I have spent my life taking care of a person I love very much and letting that person take care of me. We have discussed what we want for the end of our lives—medical directives, funeral arrangements, etc. However, when the time comes I am not legally permitted to make those decisions based on that person's wishes. Instead the parents—who have not discussed this with that person and won't listen to me—have the right to make all the decisions.</li>
<li>The person I have chosen to spend the rest of my life with doesn't have medical insurance. My employer offers generous medical insurance benefits that my coworkers can use to cover their life partners, but if my life partner gets sick, our finances could be destroyed.</li>
<li>I am building a life with someone, and we're still young. But if one of us dies unexpectedly and we haven't had a chance to write a will, everything we've worked for together could be split up with the deceased person's assets going to some other family member.</li>
</ul>
Would these scenarios be OK if they were applied to wholesome heterosexual Bible-believing Christians? What if the State didn't recognize any marriages at all? What if marriage were a purely religious institution and the government didn't afford any rights to married couples? What if hospitals could deny anyone the right to visit their loved ones or the government could give your assets to any member of your family who won their favor? What if only workers were covered by their company's health insurance, and no breadwinners were allowed to cover their spouse? Would that be OK? If we wouldn't be OK with these things happening to us, then maybe we should think about how these issues could be connected to the second-greatest Christian commandment of all—Love thy neighbor as thyself. <br />
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I have just argued in defense of legal recognition for gay couples. However, as I've just explained, that is not the same thing as a total endorsement of homosexuality. I am still struggling to understand how homosexuality fits in with the Bible, and you will not find me suggesting that all churches should immediately get on board with performing gay marriages. You also will not catch me calling people bigots if they don't want gay marriages performed in their church or if they don't want to call a gay pastor. I respect and understand those beliefs along with any beliefs that derive from an earnest desire to understand and follow the Bible.<br />
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I will not tell you that if my daughter grows up to be gay it won't bother me at all. A part of me would probably be uneasy or sad if my daughter turns her back on any of the religious beliefs I hold dear. I would be a liar if I said I wouldn't care at all if she stopped going to church, converted to Buddhism, or had a baby out of wedlock. But those choices would never mean that I would think her undeserving of government protections, freedom to make her own decisions, or my love and support. Paul warned against the dangers of sexual immorality and Hebrew law prohibited sex between men, sure. But Jesus ate with tax collectors and prostitutes, and he loved them. He did not say they were perfect just the way they were, but his action certainly seemed to show that he thought they were worthy of his company and deserved to enjoy a nice meal just like anybody else.<br />
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My parents are divorced, and my father is remarried. My mother hopes to remarry one day. It bothered me a lot when my parents got divorced. They are both devout Christians, and I thought that they understood that divorce was a sin. Jesus called it the result of the "hardness of hearts". Just after my parents decided to divorce, my dad came to visit me. I was so upset about it that the night before he arrived I violated one of my own cardinal rules—never drink when you feel depressed—and I toasted the demise of my parents' marriage on Jack Daniels and ended up throwing up three times. I still think that it would have been better if they stayed married, and by that I don't mean simply that they shouldn't have divorced. I believe that it would have been better if they had recommitted to each other, worked at it until they solved their problems, and learned how to respect, love, and trust each other again. But they couldn't (or wouldn't). So they got divorced and found new people to respect, love, and trust. And while I respect and embrace their efforts to live according to the will of God in their new relationship, I still mourn the imperfect and sinful beginning of those relationships—the breakup of their first marriage. These new relationships are sin and righteousness all wrapped together in one package, and none of it is simple.<br />
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And I respect their right to make that choice and live their lives this way. I recognize that all life is a tangled mess of sin and righteousness, and only the grace of God can sort it all out. I don't even know all the ways I sin each day, and if I am honest with myself I have to admit that my own marriage does not match the lofty ideals set out in the Bible. I am married to a man, sure. But I don't think that my husband loves me the way that Christ loves the church, and I resent him for it. As a result I am often headstrong and I don't even come close to "obeying" him because I act like I have to look out for my own best interests myself even though I am married. I have had lustful thoughts about other men, and a few times I have even thought about whether I would be better off if my husband and I parted ways sometimes. Our relationship is messy, and sometimes I get angry and sometimes I feel hopeless. And yet in the midst of that, there is beauty too. There is our staunch unwillingness to look for love (or sex) elsewhere even when we aren't getting enough from each other. There is our commitment to working through our problems, easing our way through disagreements, and working hard not to trample on each other's feelings. There is the way we help each other out even when we're frustrated with each other. There's the way my husband will rub my shoulders only five minutes after we had a spat and the way that I cry and say that I love him and want him to be happy at the end of every heated argument.<br />
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The idea of legalizing same-sex marriage or giving gay couples similar rights to heterosexual couples is not black and white when it comes to the Bible and Christianity. (As a matter of fact, most moral issues aren't, if you study the Bible as a whole and work at understanding the way passages interact with each other. Debates about slavery, just war, and women's rights are a few illustrative examples.) I want very much to follow the Bible and to do what is right, and I want to be a role model who brings others to the truth as well. But after much deliberation, I don't think banning gay marriage is the way. (Nor do I think that fully embracing gay marriage in the church with no discussion or reference to problematic Biblical texts is the way, either.) I think that churches should do what they think the Bible is calling them to do but that the government should do what its constitution bids it do: protect the rights and freedom of its people. And if gay couples embrace a religion that permits them to marry like heterosexual couples do, then so be it. I cannot see how that could be construed as a violation of either party's rights or as a violation of a non-religious objective code of ethics.<br />
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Anyone who has made it to the end of this post probably disagrees with at least one thing I've said here, and that's totally fine with me. I'm not writing this in order to argue that my position is the only defensible one. I am simply trying to illustrate that it is possible to support legalizing gay marriage without throwing out the Bible, denying the existence of sin, or completely disregarding Christian morality.Kayla Bergerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08304496681532073138noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5815047333491179519.post-68400928887961922682012-03-30T14:59:00.000-05:002012-03-30T14:59:25.344-05:00Where the Magic HappensToday as I was puttering around on Facebook, I saw an illustration. There was a small circle with the words 'your comfort zone' inside it. Near it was a much larger circle that said 'where the magic happens'. These two circles did not overlap. It was meant to be an illustration about why we should challenge ourselves—because if we never leave our comfort zone we will never make it to where the magic happens.<br />
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Most of us like to stay inside our comfort zones. We don't all have the <i>same</i> comfort zone, but whatever it is, we rarely stray from it. We don't like to do things that scare us. We are afraid to test the unknown. But when we cross that line, when we take a chance, sometimes magic happens.<br />
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When I talk about the importance of taking risks, most people think I mean little things—try a dish you've never had before, take a class on a subject that's unfamiliar to you, introduce yourself to the people around you even if you're shy, give $5 to a worthy cause even if your budget is tight. And in part, that <i>is</i> what I mean. These little risks are worthwhile. But please don't stop there. Do something big from time to time. Something that terrifies you. Something that's just too hard. <br />
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Trust someone with your deepest most vulnerable secrets, even if you're afraid they might let you down or break your heart. Spend time and money you aren't 100% sure you can afford to give. Stand up against injustice even if you seem to be the only one speaking. Go see something you've never seen before and share that experience with the people around you. Invite people into your life instead of shutting them out. Tell the truth when a lie would be easier and safer (and a cop-out). Learn new things. Struggle with your convictions and tangle with ideas you cannot fully comprehend. Fight on the losing side. Embrace joy. Stop being embarrassed about what others think. Live abundantly, and share that life with others. Watch, listen, and pray—and then <i>act</i>.<br />
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We feel like plain old regular people, and we are. But we can also be extraordinary. We can do <i>anything</i> through God. We can perform miracles, save lives, change the world. But not if we are too afraid to try. We were not put in this world to be safe. We are here to live and to learn about joy and pain and the nature of God. We are here to earnestly seek that which we cannot imagine, to journey towards a heaven we cannot see. We are here to serve a God who is invisible and yet present in everything we see and inside our very hearts. We are here to be more than mere humans—we are to be children of God.<br />
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It's tempting to focus too much on probability. If we don't think something is likely to work, we don't even want to try it. And yet when were odds ever a problem for God? What was the chance that a carpenter and a bunch of fisherman could spearhead a religious movement that would be one of the largest in the world 2,000 years later? Probably pretty small. Plus, there was absolutely zero chance that Jesus could successfully walk on water or feed 5,000 people with five loaves and two fish, and yet... Earthly rules don't always have to apply. <br />
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We are so afraid to trust each other, to give what we aren't sure we can spare, to open ourselves up to rejection, to risk rejection or pain or even death. Even when the reward could be so amazing: saving a life, discovering joy, changing the world, seeing God in the world around us. Most of us will take these crazy risks when we feel we have no other choice, but what about before then? What about now while we're safely sitting on our couches surfing the web on our laptops? What will we do today, when we could easily choose to do nothing? Will we tempt fate? Will we fight the odds? Will we trust God and each other? <br />
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Do it. I want to see your face when the magic happens.Kayla Bergerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08304496681532073138noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5815047333491179519.post-74655846514448083152012-02-14T17:38:00.000-06:002012-11-16T12:03:48.285-06:00The Fellowship of All BelieversI was raised in the Episcopal Church, and my friends were mostly Baptists and Methodists. I volunteered with a youth group at a local Methodist Church, and the fact that they so warmly welcomed me into their church was so special. I learned and experienced things in that church that I hadn't found in my own church. Later when I traveled to Ireland in college, I worshiped at Catholic and Presbyterian churches, and those experiences were also very meaningful and beneficial to me. At school I worshiped and prayed with friends from all walks of Christianity. Some were so new to the faith that they hadn't claimed any denomination at all. Every one of them enriched my life and supported me in my faith.<br />
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Before I moved to the Midwest and met my husband, I didn't know much about Lutherans, and I knew nothing about WELS—the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod. I was completely unprepared by how different their approach to Christianity was from mine.<br />
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I got my first lesson when my husband and I were planning our wedding. Everyone in his family was WELS. I only had a vague idea of what a big deal it was that he was marrying me even though I wasn't WELS. It all became clear to me when I suggested that we ask his grandfather—a WELS pastor—to marry us. I suspect my husband already knew what the answer would be, but we did ask. We didn't get very far—when it came out that the friend we had asked to play the organ at our wedding was MLS (Missouri Lutheran Synod) instead of WELS, my husband's grandfather indicated that that would pose a significant impediment to him performing the service. It is WELS policy that all worship leaders (including musicians) must be WELS if a WELS pastor is to lead the service. My organist was the wrong kind of Lutheran. I didn't even bother mentioning that I had a Baptist and two people who went to the Metropolitan Community Church (a gay church) slated to sing at my wedding.<br />
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I had known from childhood that I wanted a wedding mass—when my husband asked me why while we were planning the wedding, I told him that I wanted the first act we performed as husband and wife to be taking communion together and sharing the meal with our assembled friends and family. My wish almost came true. Only half of the family participated. My husband's WELS family would not accept communion from the Episcopal priest who married us. They would not celebrate the sacrament with anyone who did not belong to their own church. According to my husband, they aren't even supposed to pray with Christians who aren't WELS. They sat firmly in their seats while we celebrated our unity in Christ with the rest of our family and friends, and later when I visited their churches I was informed that I would not be permitted to receive communion there because I was not a WELS member. I sat through one or two such communion service in which I was excluded, fighting back tears all the time, and then I refused to ever go to their churches on a communion Sunday ever again for fear that I would make a scene by sobbing uncontrollably in the middle of the service. It rent my heart that I wanted so much to worship fully with them and yet was denied, and even more that they were denying themselves the love and friendship of millions of other Christians besides me who could have helped them in their faith and mission.<br />
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I was so upset that my husband's family would not participate in my lovely wedding mass that I chose a communion hymn that would drive home my opinions on the matter:<br />
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<i><span style="font-size: small;">I come with joy to meet my Lord,<br />
forgiven, loved, and free,<br />
in awe and wonder to recall<br />
his life laid down for me.<br />
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I come with Christians far and near<br />
to find, as all are fed,<br />
the new community of love<br />
in Christ's communion bread.<br />
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As Christ breaks bread and bids us share,<br />
each proud division ends.<br />
That love that made us makes us one,<br />
and strangers now are friends.<br />
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And thus with joy we meet our Lord.<br />
His presence, always near,<br />
is in such friendship better known:<br />
we see and praise him here.<br />
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Together met, together bound,<br />
we'll go our different ways,<br />
and as his people in the world,<br />
we'll live and speak his praise.</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">This is what I envision as the Fellowship of All Believers, the Body of Christ. I believe that all Christians are united through Christ and that He intends for us to live as brothers and sisters, not divided up into factions that exclude one another. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">I have yet to be satisfied with an explanation that justifies refusing to pray with other Christians or excluding them from communion. The members of WELS claim to follow Martin Luther's teachings, but in his large catechism, even he argues for the need for all Christians to receive communion frequently and for only a very few—who do not desire the forgiveness promised by Christ in the words of institution—to be turned away from the table<i>:</i></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: small;">"Those who are shameless and unruly must be told to stay away, for they are not fit to receive the forgiveness of sins since they do not desire it and do not want to be good. The others, who are not so callous and dissolute but would like to be good, should not absent themselves, even though in other respects they are weak and frail. As St. Hilary has said, 'Unless a man has committed such a sin that he has forfeited the name of Christian and has to be expelled from the congregation, he should not exclude himself from the sacrament,' lest he deprive himself of life. No one will make such progress that he does not retain many common infirmities in his flesh and blood. People with such misgivings must learn that it is the highest wisdom to realize that this sacrament does not depend upon our worthiness. We are not baptized because we are worthy and holy, nor do we come to confession pure and without sin; on the contrary, we come as poor, miserable men, precisely because we are unworthy. The only exception is the person who desires no grace and absolution and has no intention to amend his life. He who earnestly desires grace and consolation should compel himself to go and allow no one to deter him."</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">I hardly think that a visiting Christian who desires to receive communion could be automatically assumed to be so unruly and sinful that he/she has utterly turned his/her back on Christianity. Quite to the contrary—anyone who desires to receive the sacrament in remembrance of Christ is worthy, according to Luther. Why then was I turned away? Why then did these people refuse to take the sacrament with me and my family and friends at our church, after the priest had dutifully proclaimed the words of institution which Luther writes is what differentiates Holy communion from a regular meal? Is it because I don't belong to right sect, don't have the correct label: 'Lutheran'? The folly of that idea is laid out in the third chapter of Paul's first letter to the Corinthians:</span></div>
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<i>For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere humans? For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not mere human beings? What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. So then, no more boasting about human leaders! All things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, and you are of Christ, and Christ is of God. (1 Corinthians 3:3–7, 21–23)</i></div>
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Why then segregate ourselves based on whose teachings and theological explanations we follow? Are we not all disciples of Christ? Do we not all believe in the salvation he offers through his death and resurrection? If so, why can we not focus on this important commonality and on the two great commandments—to love God and love our neighbors as ourselves—without separating ourselves based on every single detail of our faith? Why do we quarrel and break ranks when we should be supporting and learning from each other? Why do we pretend that the foot can function independently of the hand when we are all meant to be one body in Christ? </div>
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I have used the WELS church as a specific example here because of my own personal experience, but this is not a diatribe against one particular denomination. I believe that to some degree, almost all Christians are guilty of this standoffishness. We are wary of those whose worship practices differ widely from ours—those from liturgical backgrounds want to know why others are clapping and dancing in the aisles, and those with more free-form practices want to know why others are standing in their pews like statues with no sign that their hearts are moved at all. We segregate ourselves based on many things—theological opinions, worship preferences, even race or economic class—and we rarely cross those boundaries. </div>
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I want to feel comfortable worshiping in any church with any group of believers. I want to be able to pray with any Christian anywhere. I want to be able to support any person—even someone I do not know well—in his or her faith whenever I have the opportunity. I do not want to always focus on what I think each person is doing wrong and which opinions I disagree with. I would rather celebrate our common faith in Jesus and build up each believer's hope in the salvation of our Lord and the promise of blessings to come. By working together and supporting each other, we make the entire body of Christ stronger and more effective.</div>
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It is important that the Christian Church is not simply a scattered confederation of Catholics, Lutherans, Episcopalians, Baptists, Methodists, and dozens of other denominations. We must strive to become a Fellowship of All Believers so that we might stand united for Christ.</div>
Kayla Bergerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08304496681532073138noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5815047333491179519.post-53743365265122039232012-02-14T00:16:00.001-06:002012-02-14T00:17:39.194-06:00BaptismI have been thinking about baptism lately. My daughter is nearly two months old, and I will be planning her baptism very soon. But not soon enough for some—I was admonished by one of my husband's relatives not to wait too long to baptize her because if she were to die (God forbid) I would want the comfort of her baptism to know she had gone to heaven. The person who expressed that opinion most likely took it out of Martin Luther's large catechism. Luther quotes Mark 16:16 ("He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned."). Then Luther interprets that verse thus: "It is solemnly and strictly commanded that we must be baptized or we shall not be saved."<br />
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I think that Luther made a big mistake with this interpretation. Although Jesus pairs belief and baptism in the first part of the sentence, he omits baptism from the second part of the sentence. Therefore, a literal reading suggests that one cannot be condemned for failing to be baptized if one has faith; likewise, baptism cannot save a person who does not believe. It is easy to simply assume that faith and baptism are inseparable, but that is not a logically sound assumption given the grammatical structure of the sentence.<br />
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Baptism IS important. Jesus did command his followers to go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19), and nothing Jesus tells us to do is worthless. Our faith is built on the Word, but that means that we must not put words in Christ's mouth (by proclaiming that we cannot be saved without baptism) any more than we should disregard his explicit commands.<br />
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Baptism is not a magic spell that grants us entry to heaven whether we believe or not. Baptism is nothing more or less than an outward sign (and a powerful one, at that) of the promise God has made to everyone to save us through his son, Jesus, and our acceptance of that promise. In our willingness to be baptized, we show that we do believe, that we accept the salvation that God has offered, and that we want to be washed clean of our sins. We say, "Yes, Lord! Your will be done!" For it is God's will to save us. When we baptize our children, we show that we want that promise for them, that we will teach them to understand and accept it, and that we welcome God's help in transforming the lives of our children in accordance to His will. When we do it publicly, we also ask others to help support us and our children in our faith. When we are struggling in our faith, we can look back and remember the promise that was affirmed with our baptism and recall that we are marked as Christ's own forever.<br />
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The simple fact is that the promise exists for us before we are baptized. Even Luther himself argues that we cannot believe without the help of the Holy Spirit. How then can we say, "Yes, I believe and I want to be baptized," if the Holy Spirit cannot touch our lives before we are baptized? The act of baptism is an invitation to the Holy Spirit to descend on us, but we are fools if we think that the Spirit cannot touch our lives before we are baptized. How then could we ever seek baptism? By that argument, everyone would have to have someone make the choice for them before they could receive the Spirit and by its assistance believe for themselves. The Bible contradicts that idea with many illustrations of adults coming to belief and requesting baptism for themselves.<br />
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I do not believe that God condemns people or withholds his Spirit from them for being unbaptized any more than He damns them for being uncircumcised. After all, the Holy Spirit came upon the group gathered in the house of Cornelius BEFORE they were baptized (Acts 10), and Peter used that as a justification for baptizing them even though they were Gentiles. So in the minutes between their receiving the gift of the Spirit and being baptized, were they still damned, even if they had received the promise of salvation with joy?<br />
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The reason that baptism is paired with belief is that there is simply no good reason for believers NOT to be baptized. If we believe that Jesus died for us and wish to accept the promise of eternal life, why should we not make an outward sign of it through baptism? Just because we know that the Holy Spirit goes wherever God wills, why should we not actively invite it into our lives? Why should we not cherish the memory of the promise by remembering that our sins are continually being washed away? Why should we not want the cross marked on our foreheads so that the Devil and all his minions can see that we belong to Christ? Jesus had a good reason for instructing that believers be baptized, and that is a good enough reason for us to do it without the threat of damnation hanging over our heads. Must every good deed and act of obedience we perform be about gaining heaven and avoiding hell? Why can we not do it simply out of love for the one who commanded us and out of joy for his incomparable gift to us? Baptism is traditionally the outward sign of an inward conversion to the faith (or a parent's promise to raise a child in the faith), and I think that's a good thing.<br />
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Perhaps you may wonder why this is worth quibbling about at all. Others' opinions of the state of my child's soul will not affect her salvation. My trust that God will strive for my daughter's soul and carry her off to Heaven if she were to die before her baptism should be enough. And it is, for me.<br />
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But I am very sad that so many Christians believe that God would damn an infant over a technicality. It makes me fear that they don't truly understand God and His boundless grace and love. You see, God WANTS us to be saved. He's not rolling the dice here and letting us decide our children's fate by choosing when and if to baptize them. He loves my daughter, and already He is doing everything He can to draw her to Him, no matter what actions I do or do not take on her behalf.<br />
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A booklet on baptism lent to me by my pastor (<i>Let the Children Come: A Baptism Manual for Parents and Sponsors</i> by Daniel Erlander) makes the following point: "[It is a popular misconception] that unbaptized babies who die go somewhere other than into God's loving embrace—places like 'limbo' or 'hell'. If death comes to an unbaptized infant, we trust the mercy and steadfast love of God. We believe that God gives the gift of baptism for our salvation, comfort, and assurance. We do not believe God is limited by our act of baptizing. We commit all who die into God's tender mercy." I agree wholeheartedly.<br />
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Some argue that infants need baptism to save them because they cannot believe in Jesus themselves. They make the mistake of assuming that belief in Jesus is an intellectual choice that only a mature mind can make. But children love before they understand what love is. Babies smile at the person holding them because that person is smiling down at them, not because they have an intellectual opinion about that person's goodness. Somehow, my daughter already knows that I am her mother, even if she doesn't understand what a mother is. She knows that being held by me is a good thing. <br />
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If my precious daughter were to die today, I believe that she would go straight into the arms of a loving God where she would be content because she would know that His arms are a good place to be, just as she knows that my arms are a good place to be. She has not yet been poisoned by the lies of this world that draw us from God, and even though she was born with the stain of sin, she was also created in the image of her God. Just as her instinct tells her that my arms are a good place to be, I believe that her instinct would lead her straight into the arms of God if she were to die. Why should we over-think this issue like a bunch of pessimists instead of trusting in God's mercy? <br />
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After all, sin only entered the world when Adam and Eve refused to be what God made them to be. They believed a lie—that they could be like God instead of what they were—and that's where it all went wrong. They were created to love and trust God, and they only got into trouble when they defied their own nature. We are bombarded with the same lies, the same sin, that draw us away from God. But at our heart, we too are created in God's image to love and serve him. Believing in Jesus and going to God is nothing more than doing what ought to be natural to us, what God designed us to do in the first place. It is our exposure to sin and Satan's lies that makes us deny our true natures and reject God (and in so doing reject our very selves).<br />
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Frankly, I think that babies are the last people we should be worrying about when it comes to salvation. We adults are the ones who assert our independence and no longer accept God's love without question. We are the ones who fear damnation more than we trust the promise of salvation. We are the ones who need our baptism the most. And I fully intend to give my daughter the gift of baptism in due course, because one day she too will have those struggles, and I hope that her baptism will bolster her faith in times of trouble.<br />
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I also agree with another point that Erlander makes in his booklet: "Baptism is [not] mainly an insurance policy for life after death. While God promises the hope of eternal life in baptism, baptism is much more—the beginning of a relationship with Christ, a way of life, and a lifelong identity as a Christian in this earthly existence." That's why I want to plan the baptism at a time when as many family members and friends can attend as possible. I want them to witness this milestone in my daughter's life and in so doing pledge to be a continuing part of it, to pray for her and support her in her Christian upbringing. I know she's going to need help along the way, and I hope that all those who witness her baptism will feel moved to give it.<br />
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So I am very much looking forward to my daughter's baptism day. I wouldn't cheapen it by talking about it like something I 'must' do, or else. It is something I <i>want</i> to do, and I will do it out of joy, not fear.Kayla Bergerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08304496681532073138noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5815047333491179519.post-83860815857648525582011-05-31T16:47:00.000-05:002011-05-31T16:47:04.391-05:00We Are FamilyToday at bible study, we were discussing Jesus' prayer for his disciples in John 17, specifically the line, "<span class="woj">Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one." (John 17:11)</span><br />
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<span class="woj">What does it mean for us to be one? We talked about the Body of Christ and how Paul called the believers many members of the same body and brothers and sisters in Christ. "Do we have to agree to be one?" asked one person. "How do we know whether someone is part of the Church? How do we know if we're one?"</span><br />
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<span class="woj">Christian unity is an important topic for me. I feel that this is the number one way that we can show the rest of the world that we are different in a good way. When we are one, we love each other, we support each other, we look after each others' needs, we respect each others' opinions. I believe that what Jesus was praying for is that we really would be family in the most positive sense of the word. Jesus called himself the Son and prayed to a God he called Father, claiming that he was in the Father and the Father was in him. In the same way, Jesus wants us to be united to each other through him. He wants us to truly be brothers and sisters in Christ.</span><br />
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<span class="woj">So here are a few of my thoughts about how the imagery of family can help us understand the concept of oneness through Christ:</span><br />
<ul><li><span class="woj"><b>You don't get to pick your family.</b> If I become estranged from a family member, I cannot change our biological heritage. That person is my relative whether I acknowledge him or her or not. Likewise, God is the one who is putting together this Christian family, and the fact is that we Christians <i>are</i> brothers and sisters whether we want to be or not. I can no more declare who is and isn't a real brother or sister in Christ any more than I can say my biological sister isn't my sister. It's all up to God. I don't get to choose.</span></li>
<li><span class="woj"><b>Family members don't always agree.</b> I currently worship at a Lutheran church, so during the course of this Bible study conversation, one of the group members was talking about how Lutherans traditionally group themselves together on the basis of common ideology and theology. Lutherans split from Catholics during the Reformation because they didn't agree on several key points, and the Lutherans have continued to split from each other down through the years as more differences in opinion cropped up. It may be true that I could be uncomfortable having people whose views differ wildly from mine in the center circle of my spiritual circle, but I would be a fool to write off every family member with whom I have a significant disagreement. Others may take different approaches to serving Jesus, but as long as Jesus is our master, we are united in a very real way, whether we like it or not.</span></li>
<li><span class="woj"><b>You ought to be able to rely on your family.</b> Families are meant to be nurturing, supportive structures that help us grow to be the best and most successful versions of ourselves throughout our lives. Our family members are often the ones who help us when the going gets rough and celebrate with us when times are good. Jesus wants us to work towards having that same personal and supportive relationship with our brothers and sisters in Christ. That is the future that we are working towards—a heavenly family that lives in harmony, centered in Christ.</span></li>
<li><span class="woj"><b>We are not the head of this family.</b> God is. God calls the shots, and God decides what the family's goals are and who is doing a good job. If anybody gets kicked out of the family, it will be up to God to do the expelling, and if anyone is welcomed into the family, it will be because God invited that person to join. We may have hierarchies on Earth, but in God's family we are all equals, all brothers and sisters in Christ. We are all called to do different tasks, and some of us are called to lead, but none of us has God-given authority to force other family members to do what we want. We should instead appeal to each other with love and humility, recognizing that God has created us as equals.</span></li>
<li><span class="woj"><b>Harming or forcibly separating your family members should never be done lightly.</b> It is true that sometimes when one family member gets violently out of hand, that person needs to be dealt with for the good and safety of the rest of the family. However, in a healthy family dynamic, no one would ever consider a family member to be disposable or replaceable. We do not engage in personal attacks on cherished loved ones lightly. Instead we try to have reasonable conversations. We talk about our feelings. We debate the issues. We try to find solutions to conflicts. We compromise and figure out whether we can agree to disagree. We apologize when we hurt one another. We put love before pride or anger. Each one of our brothers and sisters is special and unique, and we should think long and hard before trying to remove someone from the family dynamic. Sometimes when things go terribly wrong, estrangements can be necessary, but they should never be the result of a rash decision or a minor disagreement. We should be sad to have rifts with our brothers and sisters in Christ instead of aggressively partitioning ourselves off as we so often do. And we should remember that even if we become estranged from some of our fellow Christians, we cannot unilaterally declare that they are no longer members of the family.</span></li>
</ul><span class="woj">I don't think of Christianity as an institution or a collection of church buildings or synod/diocese assemblies. It's not a conglomeration of bishops or a network of people who worship together on Sundays and try to ignore each other the rest of the week. We're a family. And while it's true that we're closer to some family members than to others, we ought to value everyone in the family. The center of this family is love, and we should remember that what unites us is the fact that we believe in Jesus, who commanded all of us to love God and one another. </span>Kayla Bergerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08304496681532073138noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5815047333491179519.post-16282610765552805512011-05-25T10:36:00.000-05:002011-05-25T10:36:12.497-05:00Ice CreamMy college roommate Elizabeth was a great person for me to live with. I tend to be a rather emotional individual, but Elizabeth was generally a very calm person. She didn't seem terribly perturbed by my occasional tears or my rants about the crazy things that were happening in my life. She was also a very thoughtful person who always tried hard to do and be her best. I was inspired by what a strong, confident person she seemed to be. I was frequently at war with myself, but Elizabeth seemed to be far more at peace with herself. I still wish I knew what her secret is.<br />
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Still, even the most steady people come up against roadblocks sometimes. There were a few occasions when Elizabeth couldn't figure out what to do. She would feel stuck or discouraged (rather like I felt most of the time). And when those times came, I would take her out for ice cream. "Ice cream solves everything," I would say, and we'd head off campus (a rather rare occurrence at our small college) and find some ice cream. Afterward, Elizabeth inevitably felt better, even if we hadn't managed to find a solution to her problem. After ice cream, the problems seemed more manageable, somehow. It worked every time.<br />
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So does ice cream really solve everything? Not for me, anyway—believe me, I've tried. But it wasn't the ice cream that was the point, really. It was the fact that I wanted to take her out and buy it for her. It was the act of friendship, the chance to stop worrying and feel happy for a little while, that made the difference for Elizabeth. Since she and I had a history of happy outings involving ice cream dating back to our freshman year, that was the best choice for me to make her feel happy. With a different friend it might have been something else, but with Elizabeth the magic cure was ice cream. (That, or the "possessed leg trick," a silly little spectacle that would probably still make her laugh every time if I could still get myself into a goofy enough mood to do it properly.)<br />
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I never had the power to solve Elizabeth's problems or to take away the fear or pain they might have caused her. Today I am still surrounded by people I care about whose lost loved ones I can't bring back, whose illnesses I can't cure, whose marriages I can't save, whose pain I can't take away. But taking away their pain isn't my job. As their friend, I'm supposed to give them joy and happiness to mix in with the pain so that its bite no longer feels so strong. I'm not supposed to solve their problems for them; I'm supposed to take them out for ice cream. Every bit of love I give makes a difference, even if the problems are still as large as ever. My friendship and support gives the people I love the strength to face their challenges, the will to keep going in spite of the pain.<br />
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I know that I am not the only person who feels helpless sometimes when I look into the tear-streaked face of someone I love, or I read the heart-wrenching words of someone who has lost something that she can never get back. All I can do is try to love and support that person in whatever way I can. I may never be able to make what happened to them OK, but I can help THEM feel OK about their lives in general, I can help them feel strong and happy enough to keep going in spite of it. I can let them know how special they are, how much their beautiful hearts transcend whatever dark thing has happened to them. I can take them out for ice cream. I can meet them for coffee and chocolate cake. I can hang out with them at their homes or write them a heartfelt letter or make them a present. I can take them to a movie or babysit their kids or bake them cookies. I can smile and tell them that I love them and that I care. I can be an ear to listen, a shoulder to cry on, a friend to laugh with.<br />
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It's easy to feel powerless when we think about the things that we can't do or change. But the truth is that we all have an amazing amount of power to improve the lives of the people we care about just by loving them. Something as seemingly insignificant as going out for ice cream can make all the difference to a friend in need.Kayla Bergerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08304496681532073138noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5815047333491179519.post-68255557524455186892011-05-04T00:00:00.000-05:002011-05-04T00:00:07.495-05:00How Do I Know For Sure?Most of us are troubled at one point or another by the lack of proof behind our faith. Most of us haven't seen a big flashy miracle to prove to us that God is real. We haven't seen a vision of the risen Christ to convince us that he is risen and is offering us salvation. We have to trust our hearts, take it on faith. So the skeptics are asking, "How do we know God loves us? How do we know there's life after death?" The answer is that we don't. We just trust based on what evidence we do have.<br />
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It's not like religion is the only thing that demands faith without proof from us. We make huge choices with limited information throughout our lives. How do we know which career to pursue? Where to live? Who to befriend? What priorities to set for our lives? We can't know for sure how those things will turn out, whether we'll be happy, whether we've made the right decision. But we take the information we have and we trust our hearts and we make a decision. What else can we do?<br />
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When I married my husband, I was 21 years old. He was my first boyfriend. I had been with him for less than two years, although we had been friends for about a year and a half before that. I had just finished college, and I didn't know what it was to live on my own as an adult, much less to do it with someone else. I didn't know how Michael would manage priorities or what kind of father or husband he would be. We hadn't lived together yet, and I didn't know how his habits and mine would integrate. I felt in my heart that he was the person I was supposed to marry, but I had no proof. Was he the right one? Would we be happy? How could I know for sure? I didn't. I was shaking from nerves when I walked down that aisle.<br />
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I'm glad I trusted my heart and made the choice to marry Michael. We're approaching our sixth anniversary, and while I've had my doubts from time to time, I truly believe that our marriage was the right choice and that we'll make it long-term. I trust what I see. I trust my heart.<br />
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Why do I believe in God? Because I know deep down inside that the Bible is right. I've read it and I've seen signs of Scriptural truths in my own life. I don't have proof—but I don't need proof. I have faith. Life has taught me that some things—often the most important things—have to be taken on faith. We'll never have enough objective proof to make a perfectly reasoned decision, but we have to keep on living anyway. That's what faith is all about. We don't know for sure, but we trust anyway. And it feels really wonderful when that trust is rewarded.Kayla Bergerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08304496681532073138noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5815047333491179519.post-18517953374839221162011-04-27T00:00:00.003-05:002011-04-27T00:00:05.230-05:00With God All Things Are PossibleOne of my favorite books is <i>Pawn of Prophecy</i>, the first installment in the five-book <i>Belgariad</i> series by David Eddings. It's a fantasy tale set in a fictional world in which a boy, Garion, is growing up in a country full of solid, practical, hardworking values, not knowing that there is magic all around him that will eventually become an integral part of his life. His idea of reality is challenged for the first time by an old storyteller who is more than he seems:<br />
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<blockquote> "It's only a story," Garion said stubbornly, suddenly feeling very hardheaded and practical like any good Sendar. "It can't really be true. Why, Belgarath the Sorcerer would be—would be I don't know how old—and people don't live that long."<br />
"Seven thousand years," the old man said.<br />
"What?"<br />
"Belgarath the Sorcerer is seven thousand years old—perhaps a bit older."<br />
"That's impossible," Garion said.<br />
"Is it? How old are you?"<br />
"Nine—next Erastide."<br />
"And in nine years you've learned everything that's both possible and impossible? You're a remarkable boy, Garion."<br />
Garion flushed. "Well," he said, somehow not quite so sure of himself, "the oldest man I ever heard of is old Weldrik over on Mildrin's farm. Durnik says he's over ninety, and that he's the oldest man in the district."<br />
"And it's a very big district, of course," the old man said solemnly.<br />
"How old are you?" Garion asked, not wanting to give up.<br />
"Old enough, boy," the old man said.<br />
"It's still only a story," Garion insisted.<br />
"Many good and solid men would say so," the old man told him, looking up at the stars, "—good men who'll live out their lives believing only in what they can see and touch. But there's a world beyond what we can see and touch, and that world lives by its own laws. What may be impossible in this very ordinary world is very possible there, and sometimes the boundaries between the two worlds disappear, and then who can say what's possible and impossible?"<br />
"I think I'd rather live in the ordinary world," Garion said. "The other one sounds too complicated."</blockquote><br />
Sometimes we are all a bit like Garion, stubbornly wanting to believe only in what we can see and touch because it's less complicated. But as Christians, we also claim to believe in another world—a world in which God acts directly through signs and miracles, in which the sick are healed and the dead are raised and each of us has a part of God—the Holy Spirit—living inside us. Still, we're terrified to say that anything can happen. We need rules, restrictions, laws of nature to make us feel safe. We need to be able to say what is and isn't possible. But unfortunately for us, God doesn't work that way because He has no limits.<br />
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How often have we heard Christians around us making definitive statements about what is or isn't possible in our faith? Some people say that there aren't prophets anymore, that God doesn't speak directly to people like He did to Moses at the burning bush. Some people believe that the stories in the Bible are fables—that Jesus didn't really walk on water or feed 5,000 people. Others argue that even if miracles happened in the Bible, the same sorts of things don't happen anymore. Some think that God is nothing more than some sort of universal cosmic force and that angels and demons and even Satan don't exist at all. That stuff sounds like it came straight out of a fantasy book like the one I quoted above. It can't be real, can it?<br />
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Jesus tells his disciples (Matthew 19:23–26) that we as humans cannot achieve the things he talks about. We can't save ourselves from death. We can't make the world perfect or work miracles with our own power. But God makes anything possible. God made the laws of gravity and can defy them if He chooses. God made things both visible and invisible—who are we to say there are no angels or demons when not so long ago we didn't even know about bacteria? Who are we to say that miracles can't happen while also professing that Christ died for us? The rules don't matter to God as much as they matter to us. He made them and He can break them if He chooses to. He is wiser and more powerful than we could ever comprehend. The limitations that we try to place on God and His creation for our own peace of mind mean nothing to Him. With God, all things are possible.<br />
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If we want to truly be a part of God's magnificent plan, then we need to be open to all the possibilities—even the ones we never could have imagined were possible. What if on the day I began this blog I had decided instead that I couldn't possibly be wise enough at age 25 to say anything useful? What if Mother Theresa had decided that one woman couldn't make a difference? What if the disciples had decided that their experiences with the risen Christ must have been delusions brought on by excessive grief or mental illness? What then? There is more in this universe than we can see or touch. There's more even than we can imagine. When God calls us, He gives us the power to do things that we shouldn't be able to do on our own. Throughout our lives we may find ourselves succeeding when the odds were against us, surviving when doctors said we ought to have died, experiencing things so strange and wonderful that we may even question our own sanity. But if we are truly filled with the Spirit, we will ultimately accept the things that come from God, even if we didn't believe they were possible before they came into our lives.Kayla Bergerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08304496681532073138noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5815047333491179519.post-73793431475280141222011-04-20T00:00:00.000-05:002011-04-20T00:00:03.627-05:00Radical LoveChristianity is about love. People who say that it's about judgment, righteousness, morality, belief, or even grace have all named aspects of the religion but not its heart. Christianity has judgment tempered by love, righteousness and morality fueled by love, belief that leads to love, and grace that comes from love. Without love, none of the rest of it makes sense. Jesus himself told us that the whole thing boils down to two commandments: 1. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind; and 2. Love your neighbor as yourself. The wonderful thing about these commandments is that they support each other. The more we love God, the more we want to love people because God loves them. The more we devote ourselves to loving each other, the more we understand and appreciate the God who loves us.<br />
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There is nothing more important in a Christian life than love. Nothing should take precedence over it. But if we look around us, we see all kinds of things coming between us and love. Cultural values like privacy, independence, self-sufficiency, pride (or self-respect as we call it), and even some standards of propriety become walls between us and our neighbors that limit how we interact with them. We hold people at arm's length because we are afraid of so many things. We don't want others to see our innermost thoughts and feelings because they might judge us. We don't want to ask for help or be asked to give more than we think we have to give. We're afraid of wasting time or energy. We're afraid of getting hurt or letting someone else down. We're afraid that getting close to someone will upset our social structure or community. We're afraid of being seen as presumptuous or nosy. We don't want to interfere or do something that could be perceived as inappropriate. We don't want to risk devoting ourselves to people who might not reciprocate. And I'm not saying that those fears aren't valid or important—but I am saying that they are less important than the absolute necessity of love.<br />
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Loving, intimate, and personal relationships with other people teach us about healthy spirituality and being in relationship with God. We learn to trust and to accept and to work together. We learn to give and to take, to admit when we need help and to ask for it. We stop being so afraid when we know we have a network of close friends to support us. We become more generous. We're more willing to take risks and to grow. That's what Christian living is about. Christian love is not the kind of love that pats you on the head and tells you you're perfect just the way you are. It's the kind of love that challenges you to keep striving towards the best possible version of yourself both for your sake and the sake of the people whose lives you touch; it's the kind of love that says "It's going to be hard and it might hurt, but you'll be better for it, and I'll be there to hold your hand and support you every single step of the way." It's the kind of love that doesn't let us sit in our pews thinking about how lucky we are to be saved—instead it sends us out into the world to discover that the treasure we've been given is even greater than we had imagined.<br />
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When Jesus came into this world, he was considered by his society to be a radical. Although his message was based on Scriptural themes people were already familiar with, he was taking them to a whole new level. Today's American Christians are used to being mainstream, and it's time for us to remember what it means to be radicals. There's a hymn I love whose refrain proclaims "they'll know we are Christians by our love." Will they? If we want to stand out from all the rest of the mainstream "decent" people, we need to love more passionately, more radically than basic morality demands. We can't just stop at the boundaries of social convention—we need to be willing to break the rules if they get in our way. Right now the only Christian radicals people are talking about are the ones who are screaming about how people are going to Hell because God hates them for their sins. That's not what our religion is really about: "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16) That's the real point. That's what we need to be radical about. God loves us, and He wants us to love each other.<br />
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What does this mean? It means that we should be actively working to have more close friends and to be more open and honest with them. It means that we should be finding ways to go out of our way to be kind and helpful to other people. It means that we should be actively supporting our fellow Christians in their faith. It means we should be trying to get to know the people around us on a more personal level and taking more opportunities to tell them how special and beloved they are. It means that we should take the same loyalty we feel to our blood relatives and apply it to every person who reaches out to us. It means we should be thinking more actively and consciously about what's most important in our lives and going beyond what feels comfortable. We should be asking people to help us and offering to help others, including with very personal things. We should volunteer to comfort those who are mourning, celebrate with those who are happy, and support those who are working hard for God. We should be working together with one another to ensure that no one in our community feels alone or unsupported. Be a friend. Be a neighbor. Be a brother or sister in Christ.<br />
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If this is starting to sound like a lecture, it's only because I'm excited. The truth is that what I've written here is a message of hope. I am here to tell you that more is possible than we ever imagined. Relationships that we don't yet dare to have could one day be more rewarding than we could ever have predicted. Connections and growth that our cynical minds deem improbable are possible with the help of God. We have not even dreamed the wonders that God has in store for us, the marvelous experiences He is offering for the nourishment of our souls. God wants us to love each other because He knows we will benefit from it. He knows that love will make us happier and wiser and stronger. He will bless our love and make it fruitful in all the corners of our life. We needn't limit ourselves for the sake of fear or social conventions. When we break the rules for the sake of love, for the sake of God, God will support us and carry us far beyond the derision of the world. Don't settle for "good enough". Don't give up. Don't be afraid. There's more. I promise.Kayla Bergerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08304496681532073138noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5815047333491179519.post-18052842549788616362011-04-13T00:00:00.000-05:002011-04-19T16:29:55.506-05:00Be Still And Know That I Am GodI spent last weekend at a hermitage center called <a href="http://www.paceminterris.org/">Pacem In Terris</a> in St. Francis, Minnesota. I went there at the recommendation of a coworker to spend some time alone with God. I sat in a tiny little cabin with no electricity or plumbing (just a gas heater and light from a gas lamp) or out on the attached screened-in porch and I walked around in the woods and the prairie. I even sat down by a lake for a little while and looked out over the loose chunks of ice still dotting its surface even though it was 55 degrees out.<br />
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The point of the center is to give Christians a place to be alone with God. I was there to have a private conversation with God, to bask in his presence, and to rest from the hectic life that sometimes distracts me from him. I digested a lot of things that have happened in my life and talked with God about what was coming next. I asked for guidance and I thanked God for everything I have received so far. More than anything, I embraced the peace of being alone with God and recognizing that He has everything under control. He is my refuge, my strength, and my help in times of trouble.<br />
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Something very important happens when I am quiet and calm and fully aware of God's presence and His majesty—I stop being afraid. I'm not afraid of the challenges that are coming in my life, because I know God will be with me. I'm not afraid of failing at my calling, because I know that God designed me specifically for it so that I could do His work simply by following my deepest instincts. I am not afraid of being defeated or destroyed by naysayers or adversaries because God will give me strength. I am not afraid of being thought foolish for the choices I make in following God because God's wisdom so far surpasses ours that human wisdom is like foolishness in God's eyes. I am not afraid of being alone, rejected, or unloved because God loves me. I am not afraid of Satan or even of my own sinfulness because God saves me. <br />
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So many fears creep into my life when I am busy and distracted. Will God make my monthly budget work out? Will God get my husband a teaching job in this lousy economy? Will God help me get pregnant? Will God help me say the right thing when I am nervous about telling others about Him? Will God cure the nagging self doubt I feel or give me a future worth working for? The truth is that God will do much more than any of those things. He has given me life and a purpose and is providing every single thing I truly need to grow and thrive as a living soul. He does not spare me from all trials and challenges, but He rides them with me and carries me through to the other side. With God in my life, there are no limits—all things are possible.<br />
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God is more than I could ever imagine, and it is only when I am quiet and in communion with Him that I fully appreciate that concept. No matter what I learn or don't learn in this life, God will know more. No matter how well I understand myself or those around me, God understands us better. No matter how weak or strong I feel, God will lend me the power to do whatever He has asked of me. If God is with me, who can be against me? What is there to be afraid of?<br />
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<b>Psalm 46</b><br />
God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. <br />
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, <br />
though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging. <br />
There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells. <br />
God is within her, she will not fall; God will help her at break of day. <br />
Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall; he lifts his voice, the earth melts. <br />
The LORD Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. <br />
Come and see what the LORD has done, the desolations he has brought on the earth. <br />
He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth. <br />
He breaks the bow and shatters the spear; he burns the shields with fire. <br />
He says, “<i>Be still, and know that I am God</i>; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” <br />
The LORD Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.Kayla Bergerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08304496681532073138noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5815047333491179519.post-65415451978543738682011-04-06T00:00:00.002-05:002011-04-19T09:36:11.115-05:00WINNING!Actor Charlie Sheen has been making headlines for months now with his rants about what's wrong with everybody but him. He's coined several interesting catchphrases which he's trying to get trademarked so that he can use them to make more money, now that he's no longer the highest paid actor on television after getting fired from <i>Two and a Half Men</i>. One of Sheen's favorite new catchphrases is "WINNING!" This has caught on and now lots of people are saying it—some in jest and some in support of Sheen.<br />
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From where Charlie Sheen sits, he may actually think that he is a winner. After all, he's been earning piles of cash for years, he has access to all the drugs he wants and the delusion that he can "handle" their effects, and he's got two live-in "goddesses" who don't seem to mind that he's still married to Brooke Mueller. Big house, lots of money, lots of attention. Plenty to sate his various appetites. What more could a man want, right?<br />
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The sad thing is that there are actually people <i>besides</i> the drugged and delusional Sheen who think that he's "winning". Even those who don't think drug use is a good idea often agree that being famous and having piles of cash, a big house, and a hot girlfriend are goals to aspire to. Our society encourages to look up to the haves and to look down on the have-nots. People who can sell themselves effectively get admiration and people who cling exclusively to their integrity are labeled fools. American culture tells us that rich is better than poor (or even middle class), leading is better than following, praise is better than silence, beauty is better than kindness, having stuff will make us happy, and everyone prefers "winners".<br />
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But let us consider for a moment how these ideas compare to the goals of a Christian life: <br />
<blockquote>As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”<span class="woj"> </span> </blockquote><blockquote><span class="woj">“Why do you call me good?”</span> Jesus answered. <span class="woj">“No one is good—except God alone.</span> <span class="woj"><sup class="versenum" id="en-NIV-24608">19</sup> You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, you shall not defraud, honor your father and mother.’<sup> </sup>”</span> </blockquote><blockquote>“Teacher,” he declared, “all these I have kept since I was a boy.” </blockquote><blockquote>Jesus looked at him and loved him. <span class="woj">“One thing you lack,”</span> he said. <span class="woj">“Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”</span> </blockquote><blockquote>At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth. </blockquote><blockquote>Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, <span class="woj">“How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!”</span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="woj">—Mark 10:17–23</span></blockquote><br />
<span class="woj">This young man would have been considered a winner both in his society and ours. He was rich <i>and</i> he was morally upstanding. He was young and presumably healthy, and he addresses Jesus with respect, not arrogance or sarcasm. He seems like a pretty good guy, doesn't he? Jesus even loved him—and that's why he tried to tell this young man about true victory and how to obtain it. The things that we think of as victories here on Earth—amassing wealth, fame, security, or public approval—can actually hinder us from reaching the true victory of eternal life with God. It's like winning a battle only to lose the war. What good is that? Where was this young man's wealth going to get him in the long run? Where is Charlie Sheen's "winning" going to get him? </span><br />
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<span class="woj">From a Christian perspective, the truth is that we have to be willing to be losers to find true victory. We have to be able to risk being poor or unpopular. We have to be at peace with losing our lives in order to save them. True victory comes from God and may not always be apparent here on Earth. John the Baptist, who prepared the world to receive Jesus, lived out in the wilderness and ate locusts and wild honey and dressed in camel's hair. A lot of people thought he was crazy. And yet Jesus said that "</span><span class="woj">among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist." (Matthew 11:11) </span><br />
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<span class="woj">Would we be willing to leave everything we own behind and follow Jesus? Would we leave our families and our lives as the disciples did when they were called? Would we live out in the wilderness and preach a message that the respected leaders decry as insanity if God asked it of us? Can we give up everything we've gained in this life in order to inherit a better, truer kind of life, even if that life is invisible to most of the people around us? God is going to ask all of us hard questions, and every one of us is given tasks that challenge us. We will face hardships and temptations. But through all that we will gain a stronger relationship with God, and that will bring us true life. We will be REAL winners then.</span>Kayla Bergerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08304496681532073138noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5815047333491179519.post-11693656372664544572011-03-30T00:00:00.000-05:002011-03-30T00:00:04.371-05:00You Are QualifiedYesterday at Bible study, our small group was joined by a visitor I hadn't met before. At the end of our hour-long conversation, he asked me if I worked at the church. I told him no, and he said, "Wow! You can really testify!" He asked me if I was a minister or if I had ever thought about becoming one. I told him that perhaps I would be a sort of non-traditional minister. In a way, I already am.<br />
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Some of the people who have visited our Bible study have been a little intimidated by all the retired pastors in the group talking about old seminary classes or quoting Martin Luther. "I'm not a theologian," some of them have said. "I don't know if I can really add anything to the discussion." We would assure all of them that anyone can contribute something to a Bible study discussion, no matter how much (or how little) education or theological training they've had.<br />
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The truth is, anyone who approaches Scripture with respect and humility is qualified to interpret and discuss it with the help of the Holy Spirit. None of us, no matter how educated we are, are smart enough to uncover all of the wisdom God has hidden in His Word on our own, anyway. It's the Spirit who guides us to make sense of it all. Sure, any academic can tell you that secondary texts can be very helpful, but the most important thing is the primary text—in this case the Bible—and we all have access to that. Theological theories and writings can add depth to the discussion, or they can distract from key areas. The only absolutely necessary components to a fruitful Christian understanding of Scripture are the Word itself and the Holy Spirit. Lucky for us, the Holy Spirit isn't just reserved for the leaders and learned.<br />
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Just because you aren't a professional priest, pastor, or preacher does not mean you aren't a minister. Through the power of the Spirit, any one of us can minister to anyone else. When I inspired that man in Bible study with my insights and testimony, I was ministering to him, just the same as if I really had been an employee of the church as he initially assumed. When you take the words of Scripture to heart and live them out in service to others, you are ministering to them. When you share God's love or encourage someone's faith, you are a minister.<br />
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You are qualified to make a difference in the lives of others—not only that, but you're expected to. We can't just designate ministering to the paid pastoral professionals. We all have a role to play in the body of Christ—otherwise we'd just be dead weight. Each one of us has special God-given talents, and each one of us has access to the Spirit who will show us how to use them if we pay attention.Kayla Bergerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08304496681532073138noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5815047333491179519.post-47948425128418707302011-03-23T00:00:00.000-05:002011-03-23T00:00:00.582-05:00Don't Give UpAs humans, we have limitations. Our bodies and our minds can only take so much stress before we become sick or injured. We generally don't like to get anywhere close to our breaking points because it's excruciating. We are more inclined to stop when we get tired, to quit if our task becomes to punishing. In many cases, this is a very reasonable thing to do. If we commit to something that we cannot do, it could destroy us. In general, we only push ourselves to go past where it hurts, to work through the exhaustion, when it's something that we feel is genuinely important, something that matters more than any price we could pay to achieve it.<br />
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Following God is one of those things. Sometimes being a Christian is downright exhausting. Sometimes it hurts. Sometimes we American Christians mistakenly believe that it should be easy for us since we don't face much in the way of direct persecution, but being a Christian will always be hard, even if we live in a community full of other Christians. When we invest in God's work, our hearts will hurt when we see people suffering. We will cry when we want to do more than our resources will allow. We will be frustrated when there aren't enough hours in the day or enough volunteers to help with important work or enough ideas to solve every problem. It might feel tempting sometimes to give up, to say we don't care, to argue that the things that are going wrong aren't our problem. <br />
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It is true that all of God's workers need a little rest sometimes. Jesus went off by himself to pray on occasion, and the apostles must have put their feet up from time to time after a long day's work. But they didn't exit God's kingdom or leave their paths when they took a rest. They didn't throw up their hands and say, "I quit!" or decide that it just wasn't worth it anymore. If they had, their stories might have gone differently.<br />
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God charges each on of us with two things: love him and love our neighbors. God leads each of us on a personalized mission to fulfill those two commandments in a way that utilizes the gifts and spirit He gave each of us. But Satan doesn't want us to follow God's plan, so the number one thing he can do to stop us is convince us to give up. Here are a few of the lies he uses to try to do that:<br />
<ul><li><b>Something else is more important.</b> So God wants me to give to those in need—what about my retirement savings? So God wants me to spend time supporting other people in my community—what about how I want to spend my time? So God wants me to stand up for marginalized people—what if that destroys my precious popularity? So God wants me to leave everything behind and follow Him—what if I don't want to? We may find ourselves tempted to give up on God's plan so that we can pursue our own plans instead, but nothing we can devise will be of any lasting help to us if we shut out God. </li>
</ul><ul><li><b>I can't make a difference anyway.</b> The problems of the world seem so big and we seem so small. We may not feel smart, talented, our powerful enough to make a real difference, but that's exactly why our participation is so essential. None of us can change the world alone, so it only works if we all work together. The more of us there are, the better work we can do. Every act of love counts. Every time any one of us helps someone else, we empower that person to make a difference too. We feed off each others' faith, and we all grow in God's spirit together. Every person makes a difference. </li>
</ul><ul><li><b>The world is nothing but pain, and I just want out.</b> Sometimes we may feel like nobody loves us, that the world is a dark place, that there is no hope that things could get better. We stop working for the future because we don't believe that it holds any promise. We become depressed or bitter. Some of us may even attempt suicide. We don't just want to give up on God, we want to give up on life. We don't want to hurt anymore. But God is good, God is love, and He is moving through the world and in our lives even when we cannot feel Him. God loves us. Our brothers and sisters in Christ love us. There is a lot of violence and pain in the world, but there is also love and kindness and hope. There is the promise of a future in heaven if we can only persevere to the end, and there is also the promise that the Spirit will sustain us along the way and will heal our pain and sorrow little by little. </li>
</ul><ul><li><b>I'm a screw-up, so I'd just mess it up.</b> Well, yes, you will—but then God will fix it. Nobody but Jesus was perfect. All of us move both forward and backward on our faith journeys. We will do some really helpful things and we will also make mistakes. God will use all of our earnest efforts to create something good. Nobody is a total screw-up. God made all of us with special qualities and talents, and He imbued us all with the potential to do good in this world. So what if you've done a lot of bad in the past? That doesn't inhibit your ability to work for good in the future. God will stick with you, so stick with God.</li>
</ul>What I write here I write for myself as much as I write it for anyone else. We mustn't give up. I have fallen prey to every lie I've listed above from time to time, but God always pulls me back to a more peaceful and productive place. I trust God. I know that somehow He's going to take all of the mess I see around me and make it right. I know He's going to give me the strength and the will to persevere, even when part of me wants desperately to give up. I believe even when I don't want to, and that's why I never give up entirely. We must all cling to God's love and use it to banish the lies of the devil. <br />
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I want to end with a link that a friend shared with me this week when I was hurting and I felt like giving up. I hope it touches you like it did me: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-G8IfjPAII">"You Are Loved (Don't Give Up)" by Josh Groban</a>Kayla Bergerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08304496681532073138noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5815047333491179519.post-32592060161135328762011-03-09T00:00:00.002-06:002011-03-15T15:21:12.234-05:00The Dangers of ProoftextingLast Sunday, my pastor was preaching on the gospel account of Jesus's temptation in the wilderness and how the devil tried to use passages of scripture to lead Jesus astray. "The devil was slinging scripture like a preacher," he said, "and that is an important lesson to all of us. Just because someone knows the Bible chapter and verse doesn't necessarily mean that person is up to any good." There were a lot of chuckles from the congregation at that, but the pastor had no hint of a smile on his face. "No, it's not a joke," I whispered to my husband. "He's serious." And, frankly, he should be.<br />
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The best lies have a little truth mixed in with them, and the devil provides an excellent example of the dangers of prooftexting. The devil does not arrive in the desert with a flaming pitchfork in an attempt to openly beat Jesus into submission. He comes with arguments that he hopes will sound well-reasoned and convincing. Jesus is not fooled because he knows the mind of God so well that he can see how the devil is misusing scripture. But the devil is not content to lose to Jesus—he comes after us instead, trying to lead us astray by twisting God's truth.<br />
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Knowing the Bible chapter and verse, as my pastor put it, is not enough to help us identify and rebuff Satan's lies. Memorization won't cut it. We have to understand the underlying meaning of Scripture and have a feel for the unified message of God in order to spot a faulty interpretation. That means that if we don't want to be led astray by lies, we are going to have to invest some serious effort and prayer into grappling with Scripture and working through ideas together to reach a fuller understanding of God's will for us. It's hard work. It's much easier to be ignorant or content to follow any strong leader who takes us by the hand without thinking things through for ourselves. But we must take the hard path of discipline and discernment, because the stakes are very high.<br />
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Right now, a Christian somewhere is telling a young girl that she's a whore who will certainly go to Hell because she had sex outside of marriage. (Never mind the story of Jesus and the woman caught in adultery.) Right now, a Christian somewhere is claiming that the earthquake and tsunami in Japan must be the direct result of some evil on the part of the Japanese people. (Never mind the entire book of Job.) Right now, a Christian somewhere is turning away another Christian from fellowship or worship because he isn't the "right kind" of Christian. (Never mind Paul's assertion that we are all one body in Christ.) The list could go on and on.<br />
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And perhaps most dangerous of all, right now there are an alarming number of Christians who are smug in the belief that they don't need God's forgiveness or despairing in the conviction that they are too terrible to receive it. In the wilderness the devil was trying to convince Jesus to break away from the Father's plan and take action on His own. Today Satan is playing the same game with us, trying to tell us that we are or should be separated from God, trying to get us to leave the sheltering arms of the Father who loves and protects us.<br />
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We must not be taken in by this lie, even—and most especially—if it's couched in Biblical language. We are not beyond redemption. We are not doomed (or privileged, as the arrogant would assume) to get what we deserve. We should not be scattered to the winds and left to face our enemy alone. We must hold fast to the truth, the <i>real</i> truth, that is embodied in the entirety of Scripture. We must not take the bait of trying to proclaim right and wrong for ourselves but must remain obedient and diligent servants committed to earnestly seeking the will of God. And when we are taken in by the lies—as we most certainly will be from time to time—we must humbly ask God to set our feet on right paths once more.Kayla Bergerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08304496681532073138noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5815047333491179519.post-56297624534336365152011-03-09T00:00:00.001-06:002011-03-09T00:00:11.397-06:00ChoiceA few hours ago, I was at a weekly Bible study I attend at my church, and we were looking at the readings for this Sunday, the first Sunday in Lent. We covered the temptation of Adam and Eve in Eden, the temptation of Jesus in the desert just after his baptism, and Paul's explanation about how Adam's sin brought death to all people but Jesus's sacrifice brought the free gift of redemption to all people. In the course of the discussion, a very interesting question came up.<br />
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"Why was the tree of good and evil even in the garden?" Why did God put something there and then ask Adam and Eve not to touch it? Why was the temptation to fall there in the first place? Later we remarked upon the fact that it was the Holy Spirit that led Jesus out into the desert where he was tempted by the devil. There was the question again: why? Why does God let us be tempted?<br />
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I think the answer is that God wants us to choose Him, and without temptation there is no choice to be made. God made us all in His image and endowed us with free will. Then He set us free to choose good or evil, and He's been working hard ever since to convince us to choose good, to choose Him. God could have made Eden without the tree of good and evil. He could have made a robotic Adam and Eve who only smiled and did exactly as He asked. But how can one truly love a machine with no independent thought? How could a person with no freedom to choose otherwise truly love God?<br />
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So choices are introduced. We have the chance to fail—to disobey, to eat the apple, to believe the devil's crafty lies. But then, through the free gift of Jesus Christ, we also have the choice to accept forgiveness and be reconciled to God. I find it heartening that when God threw Adam and Eve out of Eden, he did not destroy it—to me that symbolizes the hope that one day, thanks to Jesus, we can return.<br />
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Not one character in the Bible except Jesus chose God and righteousness every single time. Many of them made mistakes. But how glorious it was when they chose to follow God! Miraculous things happened. Difficult and tragic situations were turned around. Hope was restored. That is the power we have in our choices.<br />
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Temptation is real, and God is not the only being who wants us to choose Him. Satan is also trying to win us over to his side, and we have to be aware of the reality and impact of our choices. Both God and Satan are trying to convince us that theirs is the best way, and God is not going to make us deaf to the devil's cajoling. There aren't "good" people who always do good or "bad" people who always choose sin.<br />
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Every one of us has the chance—and the God-given right—to choose. We make thousands of these little choices every day, some for righteousness and some for sin. But there is a larger choice that transcends all of that, that defines who we are and where we are going. Do we choose to follow Jesus and to belong to God, or do we choose to follow Satan in an attempt to belong only to ourselves? That's a big choice, and it will guide everything we do in this life and beyond. We need to make sure that we are informed and that we are making the right choice. It's a big responsibility.Kayla Bergerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08304496681532073138noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5815047333491179519.post-54980325596491935852011-03-02T00:00:00.000-06:002011-03-02T00:00:08.503-06:00Be Kinder than NecessaryI had a friend in college who used quotes as a footer in her e-mail signature. One of them was, "Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle." By the time I met this friend, I already knew only too well what that quotation means, but I still have to remind myself every day of why it's important, why I must never forget, why I cannot stop striving to be kinder than necessary to every person.<br />
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I don't remember much about middle school. But even today, I still remember James. James was in my Spanish class when I was in ninth grade. That class was the center of my life at the time. I sat in a corner of the classroom with three other people: my friend Melissa; my first real crush, Matt; and James. Since the class consisted of a lot of little group exercises and study activities, the four of us spent a lot of time talking about things that were not always class-related. <br />
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At that point in time, James was a source of major irritation for me. He was frequently interrupting when I was trying to work my pathetic middle-schooler "magic" on Matt (who was reasonably friendly but never ended up "noticing" me). James was constantly asking really awkward and personal questions. He was like a class clown with feelings, someone who could laugh along with the people who were laughing at him but who also clearly wanted a personal connection. We weren't mean to him, but we still rebuffed him somewhat. He used to say hi to me in the halls, and I would feel so self-conscious and embarrassed. There weren't very many people lower on the social scale than me, and I was desperate for friends and acceptance. I didn't want to be stuck with unpopular James who made me squirmy with his direct commentary and his desire to be in my personal emotional space. I was a fourteen-year-old, and frankly, I was a bit of a self-centered idiot.<br />
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The next semester when we had new classes, I didn't see James around very much. I didn't notice when he was gone. Not until the day that I found out that he was really and truly gone—James had killed himself playing Russian roulette. It turns out that there was a lot I didn't know about the battle James was fighting until after he was dead. James had come from an abusive family, and I had no idea about the scars on his body because I had never seen him shirtless. He had been living with some kinder relatives while he was in Spanish class with me, but something in James' emotionally scarred mind made him run away from the people who loved him and go back to visit the crazy people who had abused him. That's where he was when he died.<br />
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I felt like a monster, a hypocrite, a terrible Christian. I went home and cried and cried. I still cry sometimes when I think about James. It was only after he died that I learned how to love him. Beyond his awkwardness, James was a nice boy. He was kind to me, going out of his way to recognize me and to give me his attention, and I did not give him much kindness in return. I'm not going to tell you that it was my fault that James died, that if I had been his one true friend he might have been OK. I don't know what would have happened. But I do know that kindness <i>might</i> have helped him, and that my kindness can still help others today.<br />
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I don't know who has been abused. I have no idea who has just lost a loved one or whose dear friend is sick or who is secretly dealing with depression. I don't know who is questioning faith or losing hope or desperate for a lifeline. I can't tell who is having a bad day or who feels invisible or under-appreciated. I do know, however, that it's likely that every person I meet will struggle with something like this, and every single person, no matter who they are, carries some care or pain on their hearts. Kindness is a salve that costs me very little to give but can make a world of difference to the recipient. <br />
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Since I have grown up, I have realized that I shouldn't need suicides to get my attention. People shouldn't have to be destitute for us to put forth extra effort and goodwill on their behalf. We should think not only of how to avoid wounding the vulnerable but also of how to build up all people in the service of a healthier and happier population. If there is one thing I can do to honor James's memory, it is to try to be kinder to all people, no matter how much or little I know about them—to be friendlier and more patient, understanding, and compassionate. Every single person is worth my time and effort, and they all deserve to be treated with love and respect. I want to be an ally to more of my neighbors in their daily battles both great and small.Kayla Bergerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08304496681532073138noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5815047333491179519.post-61376252030230261202011-02-23T00:00:00.000-06:002011-02-23T00:00:11.049-06:00In Sickness and In HealthI'm sick right now, and it's kind of a drag. I'm not a fan of body aches, insomnia, or that annoying pressure that I get between my eyes sometimes that makes it hard for me to think. We all devote a reasonable amount of energy to not getting sick—we take vitamins and wash our hands and avoid sick people. We don't like to be slowed down, and we don't like the unpleasant (and sometimes painful) symptoms.<br />
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Still, a few of my happiest moments in life have arrived during an illness.<br />
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When I was in 8th grade, my showchoir was invited to perform at the White House employees' Christmas party. Nearly our whole choir got sick. I think one kid even threw up in a bathroom at the White House. I felt like crap, but I could still sing, and I remember how beautiful the surroundings were and how intoxicating the smell of all that pine was (the place was filled with live Christmas trees, and there were live greenery garlands around all the doors). I have a marvelous photograph of myself looking up in awe at the iconic portrait of George Washington as I was walking into the East Room to sing. Sickness and all, I wouldn't trade that day for anything.<br />
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Later, when I was a sophomore in college, I spent a trimester in Ireland. It was an incredible and challenging time of self-discovery for me. I caught a cold during my last week there. I remember feeling all fuzzy in the head, and I went into my bedroom in the cottage where I was staying, opened the windows, and crawled under the covers to take a nap. I remember how blissful I felt as the smell of all that wonderful green grass wafted over me and I snuggled deeper into the soft sheets. I was actually grateful that I had a cold that day because it gave me the excuse to stop working and experience this wonderful moment of absolute tranquility. I might have missed it if I had been well.<br />
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Just last night as I was bumbling my way to bed with my stuffy head, I stopped for a moment to look at an embroidery sampler that a friend made for me as a wedding gift. It has my husband's name and mine and our wedding date, and it bears the following verse from Ezekiel: "I will give them one heart and put a new spirit within them. Then they will be My people and I shall be their God." I stopped for a minute to stare at it as I internalized the words. There I stood, sick and moderately miserable, but God was there with me, promising to put a new spirit within me. All the aches and the pains of my body faded away as I remembered with joy the incredible promise God has made to me, the promise that transcends all sickness and hardship.<br />
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I have another wall hanging in my home that reads, "Anyone who says sunshine brings happiness has never danced in the rain." I truly believe that God gives good gifts in all circumstances, and that we can find joy even in sickness. When I married my husband, I promised to love and be faithful to him for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health. What are our marriage vows but a reflection of God's promises to us? He will be with me in sickness and in health, every single day of my life. No hardship can separate me from him, and no sickness and take away my joy. I am blessed to be a beloved daughter of God, even now while I have a headache and an overabundance of snot. I am so happy. I am so loved.Kayla Bergerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08304496681532073138noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5815047333491179519.post-44419649980425425912011-02-16T00:00:00.000-06:002011-02-16T00:00:01.446-06:00A Picture of Law and Gospel<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pKdnR3tqj7A/TVmmcpYaxwI/AAAAAAAAABE/L0Gw5ci_C_c/s1600/life.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div>It seems like Christians love to argue about law and gospel. Does the law mean that we are still at risk of damnation when we sin, even if we believe in Jesus? Does the gospel mean that the law is obsolete? Do we need the law anymore? Should we still be concerned about sin, or should we just focus on loving each other? Are people confusing grace with a blank check to do whatever we want?<br />
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It all seems very complicated. We are, after all, both sinners and beloved children of God at the same time, and that's a hard thing to wrap one's head around. So I've decided to try to explain it (to the best of my understanding) with a diagram:<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-GAqdFLkh9hA/TVmlFNQsdzI/AAAAAAAAABA/y44GrzZVs_M/s1600/spectrum.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="121" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-GAqdFLkh9hA/TVmlFNQsdzI/AAAAAAAAABA/y44GrzZVs_M/s320/spectrum.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Imagine that the spiritual world—our true existence, so to speak—has two dimensions. Spiritual life is one and death is the other. Life is tied to righteousness and death is tied to sin. When God is telling his people to choose whether or not they will serve Him in the promised land, He declares, "See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction." (Deuteronomy 30:15) He tells the people that following Him leads to life, and rejecting Him (sin) leads to destruction. These two dimensions are separated by the law, which tells us how to choose righteousness and warns us to avoid sin. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pKdnR3tqj7A/TVmmcpYaxwI/AAAAAAAAABE/L0Gw5ci_C_c/s1600/life.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="121" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pKdnR3tqj7A/TVmmcpYaxwI/AAAAAAAAABE/L0Gw5ci_C_c/s320/life.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>God gives us life, and the law instructs us on how to keep it. However, none of us can keep the law perfectly. None of us can always please God and avoid sin. As much as we want life, sometimes we court death instead. We all have a reckless and rebellious streak in us. So when that happens, we end up "on the wrong side of the law", so to speak:<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LdweKNF4L_U/TVmmza2hZ_I/AAAAAAAAABI/l3e5gowCvi4/s1600/death.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="121" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LdweKNF4L_U/TVmmza2hZ_I/AAAAAAAAABI/l3e5gowCvi4/s320/death.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
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Uh-oh. This is not where we want to be. It doesn't feel at all good to be covered in sin, and what's worse sin is contagious—by hanging out on this dimension, we inevitably bring spiritual, emotional, and/or physical harm to ourselves and those around us. When our sin drags us over to the wrong dimension, we usually have one of three reactions:<br />
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<ul><li>Denial. We're not sinners. We haven't done anything wrong. That big wall labeled 'law' is all in our imagination, so how could we possibly be on the wrong side of it? Everything is fine, and this side of the spectrum is no different from the other side. This approach is bound to get us into trouble. Just because we say nothing is wrong doesn't mean nothing is wrong. Our sin will continue to pollute our lives and those around us until we face up to it.</li>
<li>Atonement. We try to climb back over the wall to the righteousness side by atoning for what we've done. Unfortunately, this doesn't really work. We aren't really capable of rescuing ourselves from our own sin, and our righteous deeds simply aren't going to erase the failures that dumped us over here in the first place. The sad fact is that law is a bit like a one-way door—it convicts us of our sins but has no power to pronounce parole for good behavior.</li>
<li>Repentance. This is the only real way to get back to the side of life. When we ask God to forgive us, the sin that sent us over here in the first place is erased, and voila:</li>
</ul><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ly7gM8hC6p8/TVmosYDf-8I/AAAAAAAAABM/wiwBogdDQAY/s1600/life.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="121" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ly7gM8hC6p8/TVmosYDf-8I/AAAAAAAAABM/wiwBogdDQAY/s320/life.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> We're back on the side of life again! Of course, that forgiveness erases the act, but not all of the damage that act caused. We may still be hurt, and some other people may be too. But we are back on the side of life and on our way to recovery. We cannot get back across that wall on our own—we need God to carry us.<br />
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I hope that this diagram points out a few important truths:<br />
<ul><li>This is not some tiresome exercise in legalism. This picture does not tell the story of an angry God who wants to punish us for breaking the law and crossing into the realm of sin. The truth is that God wants us to be on the side of life, and he teaches us righteousness because righteousness leads to life. It is the sin itself that harms us, and that is why God warns us so strenuously not to sin. If He wanted to, God could just leave us there to suffer, but He doesn't. The second we humbly ask Him to make things right, He accepts our apology and carries us back over to life.</li>
<li>The law serves a useful function, even for those who believe in grace. It's kind of a guidepost that helps us figure out where we are on the spectrum. Without the law, we may not realize it when we cross over into the bad land of sin and death. By pointing out what we've done wrong, the law reminds us that we need to get help to go back to where we want to be. </li>
<li>We don't want to be righteous just so we can be God's little 'A' students. We want to be righteous because we want to live. We want our souls to flourish and be healthy. We want to have joy. This spectrum should not be an exercise in pride. The fact is that we only ever made it to the side of righteousness in the first place because God put us there Himself, and on our own we'd be mired in the land of sin and death before the day is out. Every one of us. Even Mother Theresa would have been lost without God's mercy and forgiveness. None of us can stand in the land of the living by our own power. </li>
</ul>So, really, I think law and gospel are partners. Neither one makes complete sense without the gospel. Law shows us where we are on the spectrum, and gospel helps us get to where we want to be. Without the law, how would we know that we need to move? We would never take advantage of the gospel if we didn't know we needed it. Without the gospel, the law is very depressing. We find ourselves in a dark land with no way to get out. But together, law and gospel provide us with the clarity and help we need to successfully navigate our faith. <br />
<ul></ul>Kayla Bergerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08304496681532073138noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5815047333491179519.post-12122446622489637112011-02-09T00:00:00.000-06:002011-02-09T00:00:04.879-06:00Investing in CommunitySometimes I worry about our insular, independent culture. We have a huge focus on self-sufficiency, privacy, and personal space. Each of us is a bit of an island, and that can make us feel isolated and unsupported. We keep both our joys and our sorrows to ourselves so as not to impose our feelings or our business on other people. We think of interaction as a bother or an invasion—either to ourselves or to the other person. We create a small list of loved ones whom we allow ourselves to "trouble" with our personal business and our private feelings, and we carefully hide our personal thoughts and feelings from everyone else. I don't like this, and I don't think it's what Jesus wanted for us.<br />
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Lots of people talk about their personal relationship with Jesus Christ, but have we forgotten the second great commandment: love your neighbor as yourself? If we thought that "love God" means to simply avoid making Him angry, then it would make sense to interpret "love your neighbor" as simply endeavoring to do no harm to anyone. But if we truly believe that the commandment to love God means that we should have a personal relationship with Him in which we share our joy and our pain, our hopes and our fears, then why would we think we should keep our neighbors at a distance? Should we not also love our neighbors through personal relationships? Should we not volunteer to help them when we see them in need or ask for their support when we are struggling ourselves? Should we not band together in the knowledge that two are more powerful than one?<br />
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It seems to me that Paul had a very good reason for writing so eloquently about how we Christians are all members of one body. We are meant to work together and to be responsible and responsive to one another. We think too much in terms of "me and mine" when we could be stronger and healthier if we more often thought in terms of "us" and "ours". Why do we not not more often pool our resources with others—our money, our possessions, our space, our time, our thoughts and feelings? I'm not necessarily advocating radical socialism here. But I see it as a strength—not a weakness—that I am planning for my mother to move in with me and that I am increasingly more willing to confide my personal thoughts and feelings to more and more people. I want my children to be welcome in other people's homes. I want to give to those who find themselves without something they need without them feeling like they owe me. I want my home to be filled with people and joy. I want a large circle of friends that I can share my dreams and my struggles with. I want to be myself openly as much as possible, and I want to see the true essence of the people around me.<br />
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Why should we hide what God has given us? Why should we see each other as anything less but brothers and sisters? Are we not all creations of the same God? Are we not all offered redemption through the same Christ? Are we not all imperfect beings who need all the help we can get, including from each other? Do we not all have something good to offer to those around us? It's time for us to become more proactive about using our gifts and less standoffish about sharing our pain or our "private" business. After all, God said that it was not good for Adam to be alone. He designed us to function with others, to help each other through community. When we work together for the good of all, we are inevitably at our best.<br />
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Being a good Christian is not about being locked away like a hermit studying holy things. After all, Christianity is not an intellectual exercise or a collection of beliefs—it is a way of life, and our life is given meaning through our interactions with God and each other. We need our neighbors so that we have someone to serve and someone to share the good news with as much as we need them to help us when we are not strong enough to bear our burdens alone. All of this interaction is right and good. Christians are supposed to invest in their communities. It's a challenging thing to do, because getting involved and opening up takes energy and it makes us vulnerable to others. But it is an investment worth making, for I believe that countless blessings will come upon those who accept the challenge.Kayla Bergerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08304496681532073138noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5815047333491179519.post-78085436646612385772011-02-02T00:00:00.000-06:002011-02-02T00:00:08.390-06:00Be PreparedWhen it comes to socializing or leisure time, I don't mind flying by the seat of my pants. When it comes to important and serious parts of my life, however, I like to have a plan. It doesn't have to be an exhaustive plan or a far-reaching plan or a rigid plan. I'm OK with flexibility, and I'm willing to change my plan when circumstances change. But I like to feel like I have at least some handle on what's going on, that I have a strategy that will help me succeed. I like to feel prepared.<br />
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Some people might say that I'm fooling myself with all this planning. I don't have any control over most of what happens in this world or even in my life. I don't know whether my house will be burglarized, whether someone will steal my identity, whether someone I love will die in an accident, even whether I myself will wake up tomorrow. I don't know how to put enough money away to provide for my family's future. I'm not even quite sure how this year's finances are going to turn out—there are so many variables. To a planner, all of this may seem a bit depressing. Am I really just throwing myself into the arms of fate and hoping against hope that everything will turn out OK?<br />
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Yes and no.<br />
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While it is true that I can try to take certain precautions, I can never be completely prepared for any eventuality. I could spend hours worrying myself sick about the weaknesses in my financial portfolio or the gaps in my education. Or I could call to mind some soothing words of Jesus: "<span class="woj">I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?</span> <span class="woj">Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?</span> <span class="woj">Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? . . . </span><span class="woj">Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." (Matthew 6:25–27, 34) </span><br />
<span class="woj"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="woj">After all, didn't Jesus send his disciples out with no provisions at all? "</span><span class="woj">Take nothing for the journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in your belts.</span> <span class="woj">Wear sandals but not an extra shirt." (Mark 6:8–9) Yet, is it fair to say that Jesus sent out his disciples unprepared? Were the ready for this incredible journey? Yes and no. They certainly didn't have a detailed plan for any eventuality, but they had an overarching faith that guided them. They were prepared in a more general sort of way, and all of us can emulate their example.</span><br />
<span class="woj"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="woj">So all plans, logistics, finances, and random chance aside, I can feel confident knowing that there are certain things I can do to be prepared for anything:</span><br />
<ul><li><span class="woj">Read the Bible. Any time I find myself in a huge dilemma or embroiled in a big problem, chances are that I can find something in Scripture that can help me figure out what to do. In fact, I should read the Bible over and over, even when I'm not in trouble. The more I read it and think about it, the easier it will be for me to use it when I really need it. </span></li>
<li><span class="woj">Pray. I find that it's a good idea to ask God's opinion when there are difficult decisions to be made. I may not always get a straight answer, but listening for God helps me to feel calmer, reminds me that He's in charge instead of me. And sometimes inspiration does come.</span></li>
<li><span class="woj">Build a living support system. No matter what happens to me—good or bad—I'm going to need family and friends. Their advice will help me make both big and small decisions, and their support will help me through everyday and crazy experiences. I should dedicate a significant portion of my energy to nurturing a wide variety of relationships. As we help each other, the road will become easier for all of us.</span></li>
<li><span class="woj">Embrace love. No matter what happens, love is real and it is a fuel unlike any other. Knowing that I am loved convinces me to trust when I would rather panic, pushes me to keep trying when I would rather give up. God loves me, and so do my family and friends. Even when my loved ones can't offer the tangible support I may want, their love means that I am never alone. There is no problem too big for God, and there is nothing that can stop me from being with Him in the end.</span></li>
</ul><span class="woj"> I don't have to make the decisions all by myself. I don't have to create a plan for every contingency. God is my navigator and my family and friends are my co-pilots and my supporters. It may get sloppy sometimes, but I know that in the end I'm going to get where I wanted to go. Sometimes I may have to wing it, but my life is in the hands of a higher power who is much kinder than random chance. </span><br />
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<span class="woj">The truth is that as long as I have God, the love and teachings of Jesus Christ, and my loved ones, I will always be prepared.</span>Kayla Bergerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08304496681532073138noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5815047333491179519.post-56890097360341956472011-01-26T11:25:00.000-06:002011-01-26T11:25:36.274-06:00Blessed Are YouYesterday was kind of a rough day for me. Things were really stressful at work, and I felt overwhelmed. I thought to myself, where is the light at the end of the tunnel? When will things get easier? I was feeling frustrated and sad and helpless. It didn't seem fair that all my hard work wasn't enough.<br />
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I forced myself to take a break and go to the noon Bible study at my church, where we gather once a week to look at the readings for the coming Sunday's service. When I saw that the gospel text was the Beatitudes, I thought to myself, "That's nice—it's a lovely reading." But then as a woman sitting nearby began to read the passage, my eyes teared up. It felt as if God had sent those words especially to me, knowing I would need them on this trying day.<br />
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<i><span class="woj">Blessed are the poor in spirit,</span> <span class="woj">for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.</span> <span class="woj"> </span></i><br />
<i><span class="woj">Blessed are those who mourn,</span> <span class="woj">for they will be comforted.</span> <span class="woj"> </span></i> <br />
<i><span class="woj">Blessed are the meek,</span> <span class="woj">for they will inherit the earth.</span> <span class="woj"> </span></i><br />
<i><span class="woj">Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,</span> <span class="woj">for they will be filled.</span> <span class="woj"> </span></i><br />
<i><span class="woj">Blessed are the merciful,</span> <span class="woj">for they will be shown mercy.</span> <span class="woj"> </span></i><br />
<i><span class="woj">Blessed are the pure in heart,</span> <span class="woj">for they will see God.</span> <span class="woj"> </span></i><br />
<i><span class="woj">Blessed are the peacemakers,</span> <span class="woj">for they will be called children of God.</span> <span class="woj"> </span></i><br />
<i><span class="woj">Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,</span> <span class="woj">for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.</span></i><br />
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<i><span class="woj">Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.</span><span class="woj"> Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. (Matthew 5:3–12)</span></i><br />
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<span class="woj">How many times have I felt weak, sad, timid, sorrowful? How many times have I tried to find peace or yearned for goodness to return to the Earth? A time or two I have even felt persecuted for my faith. But at all of those times, I was blessed. Yesterday, when I felt like everything was coming apart and there was nothing I could do about it, I was blessed. I am blessed even today, as I write this late post that should have been ready yesterday. The fact is that I am blessed every day, and when the going gets tough, that's really important.</span><br />
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<span class="woj">Being blessed makes a difference. When things are bad, the fact that I am blessed gives me hope that someday they will get better, that today while I suffer I will not suffer alone. Being blessed means I am receiving grace and strength that help me to better weather the storms of life and to work to make things better for everyone else who is stuck in the storm with me. Being blessed means tempering sorrow with love, weakening oppression with hope, defining suffering as temporary. </span><br />
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There may be times when by worldly standards I'm pretty much screwed. I may find myself in any number of hopeless situations, trapped with no escape. But if those moments come, I will also be blessed, and that means I will have hope when things look hopeless and joy when I'm in pain. Things won't be quite so bad, and I will know that someday they be even better. Look at the promises in the Beatitudes. Those are big. They're beautiful. They're real.<br />
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I am blessed, and so are you.Kayla Bergerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08304496681532073138noreply@blogger.com2