Teenage epiphany

To clarify at the beginning, this is an epiphany that my teenage daughter had. NOT an epiphany that I had about teenagers. I'm still waiting on that to happen.



As you saw in my last post, J. was baptized earlier this month. Before that, she obviously had been doing a lot of thinking. One night, she came to me and said this:



'You know that phrase that you hear people say - "God is Love?' (I John 4:8) Well, you hear it a lot but don't ever think about it. If you do, it is kind of hard to make that phrase make sense. So I started thinking about it. Then I thought of that passage in the bible that says "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails." (I Corinthians 13) If God is love, then you could say that God equals love. So, you could go through this passage and replace the word "love" with "God." That would make the "God is love" phrase make a lot more sense. '



I was blown away! I had never thought of this in this fashion before. It got me to thinking more about it.



Here is how that passage would read with the replacements made:

GOD is patient

GOD is kind

[GOD] does not envy

[GOD] does not boast

[GOD] is not proud

[GOD] is not rude

[GOD] is not self-seeking

[GOD] is not easily angered

[GOD] keeps no record of wrongs

GOD does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth

[GOD] always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
GOD never fails



That is powerful stuff in my opinion.



If you look at this passage in The Message translation, the sentence that precedes the passages states, "So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love." Again, if you replace love with "God," it is right on target again.



This has been floating around in my head for the last couple of weeks since she said it. It has really got me thinking. I wonder if this thought went through the authors head when he wrote these words?



Irregardless, it got my teenagers thought processes going in an awesome direction - there are a LOT worse things that she could be thinking about!



Thank you for stopping by and reading.



I do want to ask 2 favors from you:



1) Please visit my friends on the right sidebar over there. Many of them are going through a lot right now and some kind words would go a long way. Just don't leave me for them. They are much more talented writers than I am and lead much more exciting lives than I do. You will enjoy their sites more than mine, I promise. But remember how insecure I am and still come back and visit me, please??????



2) Leave me a comment and let me know you were here. You don't have to say anything other than "I was here." I just like to know I am not alone. Plus, it helps my insecurity issues when I look at my blog and see that I have comments posted. :-)

Marching forth on March Fourth!

What a happy, happy time! My oldest daughter, J., got baptized Wednesday night!

(As stated when M. got baptized in July, I am not wanting to start a theological debate or anything. I just want you readers to understand what baptism means to us:

The word baptize comes from the Greek word "baptizo" and literally means, "to dip, to immerse, to plunge." In addition to the literal meaning of the word, immersion is practiced because it was the practice of the church in apostolic times. Still further, only immersion conforms to the description of baptisms as given by the apostle Paul in Romans 6:3-5 where he speaks of it as a burial and resurrection.

We believe that baptism by immersion is a necessary response of faith to God’s free grace. It is not a work we do to earn God’s favor, but rather, a work God does for us."We see this as one of the steps necessary to becoming a Christian - giving your life to God.)

Okay, now back to the pictures. For those of you that are not from the same religion as us, I will have a running commentary on what is going on with each of the pictures. For those of you that were there, or know what is going on, feel free to just look at the pictures if you want.

Here is the excited Dad, waiting on J. to get ready:

Here is our good friend V.T. getting the baptistry ready. By getting it ready, I mean removing the foam rocket that had mistakenly and mysteriously landed in the baptistry earlier.




My sweet M. and our "adopted" sister B.B. She bridges J. and M. together nicely, don't you think? With her blue eyes like M. and dark hair like J., she blends right in.


Friends waiting on J. (There was a lot of waiting on J.)







Behind the scenes: J., MM., KJ., and CT:

I absolutely LOVE this picture. The kids are being led in prayer by one of our youth ministers.

Here we go!

J. realizing that the water is really cold:

Before I go any farther, I have a couple of disclaimers to throw in. When I was young, it seemed to always be the minister who did the baptizing. I have observed that more and more people are choosing to be baptized by someone who has been a big influence on them spiritually. J. and CT, the young man in the picture, have been talking a lot lately about Christianity, life as a teenager, being spiritual leaders, etc. They are not "dating" or "going out" or whatever the term is these days. J. calls him her big brother and he calls her his little sister. I didn't want any inaccurate beliefs about them to be floating around making either of them uncomfortable.



Okay, back to our regularly scheduled program. Again.



Here, CT is asking J if she believes that Jesus Christ is the son of God and that he died for her sins.






Based on her agreement and confession of her belief, she is baptized:
































Lest you think I wasn't there, here is proof. My left hand is holding on to J.'s hand.




Notice KJ's expression? J had just slipped coming up the steps. She is a true gymnast.


I LOVE this picture. I love these girls. I love this picture of these girls.




The "hugging" aftermath:









We are all so very thankful to you that were there in person, those that have prayed for any of us in the past, and those of you that will pray for us in the future.



Please continue to pray that we will be able to be good parents to our daughters and that we will raise them to be strong Christian women.



As always, leave us a note in the guestbook to let us know you were here!



(Instructions for newbies: click on "comments" below. Type your comment in the space provided, then provide your identity by clicking on "Anonymous" unless you you are a fellow blogger/have a google account, or fit one of the other ID types listed. If you click as anonymous, be sure to sign your name to your post.)