In regards to Lent

1 Timothy 4:1 to 1 Timothy 4:3 KJV
Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils;Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron;Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.

I read this today and it is perfect timing with the kick-off of lent happening this week. 

Fasting is a very Biblical notion however here is the way that Jesus Himself taught us to fast: 

Matthew 6:16-18King James Version (KJV)16 Moreover when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.17 But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face;18 That thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret: and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly.

If everyone is fasting at the same time, isn't that a public rather than a secret act? 

Fasting is something that we should be led individually to do and it should be between us and the Father. Fasting is a way of training ourselves to feed the Spiritual man with the Body of Christ. His body is the Word of God, our daily bread. By taking the distraction of physical food out of the picture, it allows us to solely feed and nourish our spiritual bodies. It should never be forced on someone.

I received a card in the mail when my son was in Catholic school that gave us a chart on what degree of sin that it was to eat meat on certain days during lent. They have names for these various levels of sins, Venial and Mortal to name a couple. Thank God the Lord Himself had opened up scripture to me before I received this. Knowing what I knew of the Bible at that time,  I was very upset with the Catholic Church for not only demanding that the church fast on their command but also for making up different levels of sin to seal the deal.

There is only one sin that is unpardonable and that is Blasphemy of the Spirit. I won't dare say I know exactly what that means to God because that is between Him and the person that is doing it. If I had to guess, I would say that it is someone such as the Anti-Christ who pretends that he is God knowing without a doubt that he is not. 

If you are presently held in bondage to this belief of Lent and worse torturing yourself because you had forgotten and ate meat on Friday during lent or ash Wed or any of these made up days, please rest assured you have not sinned. Lent is not a Biblical practice and was made up by the Catholic church to exert their power over their people. I do believe that the Priests of today have been so far removed from the Truth they may not realize it themselves and truly believe in their hearts that what they are doing is for God. The roots of it however were more than likely another way to set the people up to sin by their definition of sin and eventually have a reason to pay an indulgence fee. This is where the Catholic church, (for a fee), is able to abolish whatever sin  you supposedly committed and pretend as if it never happened. Jesus is the only one that can do that for us and it is free of charge to them that believe in Him, rather than fallible man. 

To address the second thing that was stated in the first 1 Tim verse on this page, they forbid men to marry.. Again the Catholic church who claims Peter was the first pope of their establishment. I am not sure how to tell them this but Peter would not have been allowed in their church because he was married: 

Matthew 8:14-17King James Version (KJV)

14 And when Jesus was come into Peter's house, he saw his wife's mother laid, and sick of a fever.

15 And he touched her hand, and the fever left her: and she arose, and ministered unto them.

 When I was younger and had not read all of my Bible, besides the bits and pieces that were in our religion book, I remember all to well the feeling of guilt if I had forgotten and ate meat. This is why I want to set other's free as I was set free from this religious bondage. I am no longer a slave to Catholicism but a servant to Father. Who the Son sets free, is free indeed! 

Lord please help us all to allow the Bible to be our guide with your Holy Spirit that dwells inside of us, pointing us towards Your Truth.. In the name of Jesus Christ we ask this of you believing..  AMEN! 

The Imitation Game - Haven't We All Played?

-Thank you to all of the people who are not afraid to step up and be different from the crowd. There is a greatness inside of you that will not be denied- 

Alan Turing is a man that I will not forget. 

What really drew me into His story was his relentless pursuit of his truth, in the midst of many naysayers. He was different and people a lot of times view differences as a threat rather than something to be embraced and learned from. Thank God He truly believed in himself and his dreams.

His story while lighting the flame of passion inside of me for fulfilling my dreams, is also one that greatly saddens me. Even though he proved his skeptics wrong and gave so many of his gifts to us to share, it wasn't enough to keep our society from demanding to change a man that was amazing just the way that he was. I realize that God has made it clear that homosexuality is not what is best for us but I also know the commands that Jesus left for us. Love the Lord your God with all your soul, mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. Mercy over sacrifice. 

It is hard to deny in a culture of followers, who stands out as," different" and will be tormented for these differences in most cases, at various stages in their life. I believe it to be true however that the fuel behind this torment, is in a lot of ways related to the jealousy that another may feel, as they see another person stepping out into the freedoms, that they themselves wish they could enjoy. If not jealousy, then the result of a mind that is enslaved to conformity in regards to who we may feel we need to be in order to fit in. I realize that conformity is needed in many cases to make our environment safe and orderly but if one's actions fall  under moral and written code of conduct, ( most importantly God's Word), who are we to judge the Lord's son or daughter? 

I am thankful for the many ways that God kept me from conforming to society as a child when I desperately wanted to fit in. Isn't this what we all want? To fit in. To be a part of something bigger than ourselves?  A society that screams what you have in material wealth, intelligence or physical attributes will deem your worth, is a breeding ground for abuse of a poor child. While I dreaded the horrible things that were said and done to me because I was different, I know now that God created that space for me, to come to the place of celebrating my differences rather than hiding from them. It has allowed me to see beauty in another that is willing to step out and to be themselves, rather than fit in with a dull and boring mentality, that we are all created and designed to be the same person. It has allowed me to see the Truth, rather than a lie. Most of this for me was based on outward appearance when i was younger. I had the saving grace of my humble sense of humor to cling to for dear life to gain a few friends. It was my only ace in the hole. 

There were others that had it worse than I. These were the ones that did not communicate in a way that was deemed normal. You knew them, they had a stutter problem, they didn't understand the subtle communications that most understand which left them with an inability to connect, they were angry and acted out and scared the people around them. All of these things whether material or physical were things that left them feeling isolated and unacceptable. I say they had it worse because communication is the very core of our being. It is felt on an energetic level that like a magnet, when holding another magnet that is not the same is repelled by the other, we seem as a society to be even more afraid of someone that communicates differently for this reason. Alan fell into this category. My heart went out to him in a scene where he was asking his only friend Christopher questions about communicating. You could see that he so desperately wanted to understand socially acceptable brainwaves and behaviors but it was not meant for him to. 

Alan was forced into his differences that made him stand out in greatness later in his life. It is the same for me. I have a heart for the underdog because I was an underdog. I was quite unattractive when I was younger but I have grown into a beautiful woman on the outside, with my own unique style and fashion, that I am able to use with the love that I have for God and others, to be accepted by all all groups and to bring other's into these groups that they no longer feel alone and isolated. I have the ability when someone is making fun of someone for being different,  to sway them to the Truth of knowing that there is something to be appreciated in their differences. A different way of seeing them, that turns their scorn for them into admiration. To allow them to see the light that sparkles inside of them, as a gem that when it catches SONlight, it's brilliance cannot be denied! It is there if we will only take the time to look through His eyes of love. To allow His Truth to stand in that gap , creating a bridge of acceptance for all. 

To all of you who are considered to be freaks, different, awkward, and eccentric, BRAVO! I assure you that it will be those very things inside of you,  that when you step into them proudly nothing will stop you from reaching the stars and pulling them to Earth for the rest of us to enjoy. Never be anything other than yourself and always laugh at your quirks, they make you who you are and without them you would cease to be the beautiful YOU that you were designed by our Father to be. 

To you Alan, I am so sorry for the horrible things that you endured at the hands of our government and the people that were threatened by your greatness. I am sorry that you lost your friend Christopher at a time in your life when he was the only friend that you had. I am sorry that you chose to believe the devil,  that your gift was your identity, rather than you seeing the Truth that you didn't need that gift to be loved. It was just an added benefit of who you were for us to share and the answer to them changing who you were should have been a resounding NO!  I know the pain of these many things helped you to turn your heart away from God, but my hope will remain that before you took the bite of the apple, you made peace with our maker and our prince Jesus Christ was there to wake you up into the Light that had given you your light that you shared with all of us. 

To the people that I have misjudged in moments of weakness, I am heart-fully sorry. 

May we all enjoy the peace and love that we were meant to have in Him. May we all recognize and encourage the bright light that shines in all of us. May we all shine together differently creating the most beautiful picture of love there is.

Alan's gift kept on giving.....

Turing worked from 1952 until his death in 1954 on mathematical biology, specifically morphogenesis. He published one paper on the subject called The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis in 1952, putting forth the Turing hypothesis of pattern formation^[99][100] (the theory was experimentally confirmed 60 years after his death^[101])

Would you accept them if you didn't know the rest of their stories?

Einstein
Einstein didn't have the best childhood. In fact, many people thought he was just a dud. He never spoke for the first three years of his life, and throughout elementary school, many of his teachers thought he was lazy and wouldn't make anything of himself. He always received good marks, but his head was in the clouds, conjuring up abstract questions people couldn't understand. But he kept thinking and, well, he eventually developed the theory of relativity, which many of us still can't wrap our heads around.experienced a speech difficulty, a slow cadence in his speaking where he’d pause to consider what to say next.

Abraham
Abraham spent his formative years, from the age of seven to twenty-one, on the family farm in southern Indiana. As was common on the frontier, Lincoln received a meager formal education, the aggregate of which may have been less than twelve months. However, Lincoln continued to learn on his own from life experiences and through reading and reciting what he had read or heard from others

Benjamin Franklin
Franklin's parents could only afford to keep him in school until his tenth birthday. That didn't stop the great man from pursuing his education. He taught himself through voracious reading, and eventually went on to invent the lightning rod and bifocals. Oh, and he became one of America's Founding Fathers.

Vincent Van Gogh
Van Gogh is considered one of the greatest artists of all time, yet the poor guy only sold one painting the entire time he was alive: "The Red Vineyard at Arles (The Vigne Rouge)," which is now in the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow. Even though he made no money, he still painted over 900 works of art. Though his persistence went unnoticed when he was alive, Van Gogh proves you don't need external validation to be proud of the work you create.

Noah of the Bible
Was a drunk 

David of the Bible ( the man after God's heart)
Committed adultery and murder

There are more..... 
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/25/successful-people-obstacles_n_3964459.html