People surprise me some times

I thought I’d share this on both my blogs because it is exciting for me.

 

I mentioned earlier on LJ that I was found by a friend who I am in contact with periodically.  I wanted to share how significant this is for me.  I have had many friends, but only a hand full of just extraordinary friends who were as concerned for me as I am for them and on whom I have been able to lean during crisis.

 

She is one of those…the only one I did not try dating before I realized I was gay.  She was the first person from my years as a Southern Baptist I came out to and she was not surprised.  I actually was not certain I had told her until she reminded me.  I have not really made it a point to go out searching for people to tell.  She seemed supportive, but what I found out today was simply amazing to me.  She and her husband are members of a More Light Presbyterian church.  For those of you who do not know this is the Baptist equivalent of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists.

 

She said they wanted their kids (who are adorable by the way) to grow up in an environment where being who you are was considered normal, regardless of who you are.

 

For those of you who are not on LJ, she and I went to the Philippines at the same time to serve with the International Mission Board before Seminary.

 

I am more often surprised by people than I expected.

 

What a character!

As I mentioned a while back I am reading the little character studies in the Life Application Bible.  Today was Laban.  He is not one of those people we think about a lot in terms of Biblical figures, but we can learn something from him.

 

Like most of these studies I have read, I can see a little of myself in him.  I guess it is the human nature that comes through in these Biblical characters that makes them so similar to us despite all our advances in many arenas since that time.

 

I am reminded from Laban’s story of how often I have been most concerned for what I get out of something or from someone.  This is less and less true, but it is still something that I have to watch, just as each of us has to watch out for our own selfish desires.

 

More on Reconciling Journey

Today, once again, I was reminded by this lovely little book of a pasage that reflects who we are in Chirst. It is not bout who others say we are, but who we are because of our relationship witht he Cretive power of the universe.

Romans 8:31-39

God’s Love in Christ Jesus
31 What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? 32He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? 33Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us.* 35Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36As it is written,‘For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.’ 37No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.