A Struggle With My Old Life

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, and today I woke up feeling burdened to get this off my chest.

I am a Christian. But, this is a fairly recent development. I mean, I was baptized when I was little, but after that I went my own way. In high school, I proudly declared that I didn't believe in God. I even admit to taking it a step further and making fun of many Christians and their crazy belief in this... deity. I couldn't understand how anyone could have faith in something when there was no proof. It really made absolutely no sense to me. And if I'm being really truthful, sometimes it still doesn't completely make sense. After meeting J & his family and beginning to go to church & read the Bible, and reflecting, and going through my own set of trials, and being rescued by something unearthly, and just... feeling, I realized that Christians weren't wrong. I was. But, I still struggle almost daily with this past life of unbelief. I find myself questioning myself in the same ridiculing manner of high school. How could someone really be resurrected? How could someone willingly sacrifice themselves? How can I be sure of all these things I (am supposed to) believe? What kind of fool just believes one book to be proof? Honestly, it just doesn't make any sense to me.

But, about a month ago I was reading and this passage just stood out to me and my desire to know everything:

1 Corinthians 2:6-16

⁶ We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. ⁷ No, we declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. ⁸ None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. ⁹ However, as it is written:

“What no eye has seen,
what no ear has heard,
and what no human mind has conceived”—
the things God has prepared for those who love him—

¹⁰ these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit.

The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. ¹¹ For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. ¹² What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. ¹³ This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words. ¹⁴ The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. ¹⁵ The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, ¹⁶ for,

“Who has known the mind of the Lord
so as to instruct him?”

But we have the mind of Christ.

This was exactly what I needed to read. Funny how God knows what you need even if you don't. It's nice to read that I was not the only one struggling with "wisdom" and the desire to understand God.

In our small group one day a woman said something to the effect of: "We are only humans with human intellect and only have the capacity to understand humans and our nature. That's one way to know that this story isn't made up by humans, because this story defies human understanding." And that struck me as pretty profound.

It's also comforting to know that I am not the only one who will never fulfill that desire on my own. There is no way for a human alone to understand God. We only have the capacity for human understanding. But the Spirit teaches us.

And mostly, it's encouraging to have this passage to keep my old demons at bay.

Welcome Home

We recently moved to our new home. It was J's grandmother's house, and J's dad grew up here. This house was built in 1953, and underwent some changes before we moved in. It's a cute 2 bedroom starter house that's perfect for us right now. We are so lucky to be able to live here (and have some pretty awesome in-laws/landlords)

J took these pictures, they are mostly details and one day I hope to convince him to take pictures of the full rooms.

But... before those pictures, allow me to show you what it looked like before:

This is just a snap shot of the before. The whole house looked like this. It had great bones, but needed some cosmetic assistance.

And now:

There are plenty more pictures. These are two of my faves and I'm having some technical difficulties right now. So... more later.