To live the messages--- with pics!

NOTE: I dont have time right now to edit the pic sizes and make them fit. If you want to see the blog WITH pics, please go to my myspace blogsite and read it here:

www.myspace.com/shekinnah and search for March 25, 2008's blog by the same title.




Blessed Resurrection Season to everyone!!! With lent behind us, I feel more free to disclose all of the changes that have been going on in our lives and I am confident through "2 or 3 witnesses" that the direction we see God moving in is truly HIM!

I spent most of the lenten season fasting from books other than the Bible so that I could hear from God with regards to my frustration with the church. It wasn't so much that I DISLIKE our church-- I love it. I loved our church in California. I still do! It's that I disagreed with the way some things were done, I disagreed with a few major biblical precepts, and most of all, I felt like I couldn't fit in. Same goes for Wayne times two million.

We don't "fake it" well and we dont adapt to emotional butt patting well. We dont like catering to people's sinful emotions and we don't want ours pandered to either. We dont need all the mushy stuff that comes with church,(worship songs centered on what God does for us instead of who He is, emotional hand holding during sermons, self help sermons, etc) and we dont think its good for others to experience it either.
Yes, God connects with us relationally, but we believe it is to bring us to a place of repentance, not a place of self righteousness or self gratification.
We think God is INFINITELY greater than the box most people put Him in. We dont think He will smite those who seek Him with a genuine heart in a way He may not be into.

I have rarely felt that I "fit in," in church since getting saved. First, my life experience has been so.. different... that most Christians look at me like I'm a hopeless case. I am ALWAYS learning things that to them are obvious. Secondly, because often the fellowship seems contrived. I once prayed for God to send me some REAL Christian friends, with whom I could be open and honest, and He obliged by sending me two of my dearest girlfriends. But those girls are far now and in the last four years or so, I have made other friends. And in those friendships, I have often felt like I have to try "too hard"--- make excuses for my husband, myself etc. People , lets face it, are judgemental and have a tendency to put a stick in your wheel spokes if they see you aspire to something you maybe aren't ready for. I'm not in any way saying I don't have meaningful Christian relationships-- we have many! But I know that in those relationships there is much to be desired, and that usually that comes because of a frustration on my end and Wayne's end that we can't be OURSELVES---- struggling sinners and all.
I've blogged about it often-- we get a houseguest we can't wait to see, and then they get really wierded out because of a movie we own or a book we like to read or an activity we do regularly. They are always different because no two Christians can agree on what's "OK" and what isn't, right? And we're just as guilty-- although we stopped that a long time ago. We get so easily frustrated with the disunity within the Body of Believers, but we are at a loss as far as what to do-- exept to show them that God is real, that we love Him, and that He wont smite us if we playfully tell each other we'll kill each other or that our daughter is "chunky," or if we watch a movie which may cause another to stumble, etc.

It all goes back to that blessed freedom from the law which we encounter time and again: we go to nondenominational churches because we tire easily of baptists telling us we can't have a glass of wine or pentacostals telling us we can't dance. But then we encounter people who tells us we can't be in ministry if we don't get a degree, or people who tell us if we say "I am scared to death of cockroaches," that God will send us a certain death by a cockroach. I mean, come on. All good principles, but we can take them to creepy-creepy land rather quickly. I am all for fundamentally believing the Bible, but I am so very tired of people forgetting how to LIVE and love each other because they are so inwardly focused on their own relationship with God that they can't imagine that God might do something DIFFERENT with someone else.

Anyways, that rant being over (sorry) we had some serious soul searching to do. Wayne has all but exhausted his pastoral options because we cannot afford seminary and God has not made a way. the prophetic word about Wayne being a pastor, we have concluded, was either not from God or not about a church. Perhaps it was meant that he would pastor our family. We don't feel comfortable with some of the happenings at our church and we are finding more and more that we theologically disagree with a TON of precepts wich people consider "Bible truth," left and right.

One example for me is about the Real Presence of Christ in communion. As the year has gone on I have been made aware that I REALLY believe that Jesus is IN the eucharist. This has made me going to any church but a Catholic one absolutely meaningless for me--- I literally ache to take communion and I long for it so much that I don't see how I'm going to get through the week if I don't get it. And so far, since discovering this, I have only been able to receive the Eucharist twice! I don't drive, so I can't just "go" to mass. If Wayne doesn't feel like taking me, watching the kids, etc, I am just stuck there. And all week long I am preparing my heart to receive Jesus, so it's a huge let down when I dont get to!! I can't describe the longing I experience. I truly am beginning to understand what my CCD teachers taught me when I was a kid-- that the Sacrament of the Eucharist is spiritual sustenance. For me, that reason alone is enough to leave it all behind. I feel like Joan of Arc in the messenger sometimes.... being told she can't take communion yet and shouting: "I want to be at one with Him NOW!"

But nevertheless, I had to explore the other tenets of the Catholic faith that a protestant person is just completely freaked out about--- Saints. Mary. Confession to a Priest. Purgatory. Infant baptism. If any of these were not OK, then I shouldn't be receiving communion, you know?

Mary spoke to me through Medjugorje and I cannot but be a "friend of Medjugorje" myself now. Through her intercession and her apparitions, she has not only drawn me closer to her Son than I can remember being, but she has also shown me that God is infinitely greater than I had imagined, infinitely more loving and personal with us. Along with an understanding of Mary and a reconciliation with her came an understanding of the Saints, which developped an understanding about Purgatory, which led me to infant baptism. ... which led me to Resurrection Sunday--- an amazing Easter in which my heart was made whole!

Wayne and I baptized my children on Easter. We have been debating about it for several months now. The children's godparents felt that though it wasn't "wrong," it wouldn't spiritually "do anything" for them. Me? I'd been going to Catholic church as often as possible for a while whenever Wayne didn't feel like going to our usual church, often alone, and I was sure that I wanted to raise them up in this type of environment. I also wanted to do it as an act of reconciliation towards the Catholic Christians in my family I had wronged. On the other hand, I wanted to be in complete submission to God and my husband-- so if infant baptism turned out to be unbiblical in any way, I wasn't going to do it. We explored it and decided we would do it IF God made the way, which was going to be VERY hard. We had one week before my parents came out to visit and weren't members of a Parish for six months previous. The children's godparents were not Catholic and thus didn't have any paperwork. Then, at the last minute, everything came together... we found out they had an opening on the one Sunday my parents would be here, that we could have two sets of Godparents if one was Catholic, that the Catholic godparent's paperwork trail had come through (we almost called the Pope at one point we were so frustrated with it! :P) and that both the kids could be dunked on the same day. The same day they told us, Friday, we read over the ceremony to make sure that we agreed with everything. Wayne didn't at first-- he felt there was a difference between a Christening and a Baptism. He almost said no, but then changed his mind as we did more research.
Long story short--- initally, infant baptisms WERE practiced. These babies were baptised as a sacrament which represents an act of GOD-- not the baby--- which initiates them into the faith. It is then the baby's job, as s/he gets older, to respond to their baptism through the reception of the other sacraments. Baptism, also, removes the stain of ORIGINAL sin.. after which our sin is our own responsiblity. All of this, we agreed with. Later on in the history of the church, baptists decided that baptism was about a personal decision for Christ-- although that isn't necessarily biblical. So instead of being something GOD does, baptism became something WE do. Pentacostals, nondenoms, etc, followed suite.
It was a stretch for Wayne but he prayerfully wrapped his head around it and in the end, thought it was a good idea. After all, God came to save ALL men, right? So if we baptise all men, we are acting in accordance with God's word. People who respond to that baptism by obedience to God's word are sealed in the book of life.
Ultimately, even if you disagree, you cannot believe that it would HARM these kids spiritually. For us, it ended up not only being only "ok," but "wonderful!" We rejoiced over them as they were initiated into the body of believers and named for Christ.... receiving a new nature. We are looking forward to helping them respond to their call to God. And Wayne was a really good sport about all the beautiful traditions he didn't know a thing about! What a first mass---- having such an active role! :)

And me? I was able to receive the Eucharist-- what a blessing! I wish so much that I could go every day.

Anyways, here are the pictures of our amazing, miraculous day. We don't have many because we had a camera glitch, but I was able to salvage a few-- although they aren't great.

Here's my brother and his wife, holding Ishod, preparing to help us raise up our children as disciples of Christ. The kids' other set of Godparents and my dearest friends, Liza and Chad, were not present in body but we lifted them up in prayer during the ceremony and are excited about their own roles in our children's upbringing.



Here is Wayne and Annika. Wayne has the "what are these wierd Catholics going to do to my poor kids?" Look on his face :P



This is the Altar at the Church. In Catholic churches the lectionary is off to the side and the central focus is the altar, on which the Lord's Supper is prepared.



Here is the baptismal font, watched over by Mary and Joseph. The illuminated oil under them is the oil with which the children were annointed as they were welcomed into the faith. the priest (and we) traced a sign of the cross on their foreheads with it. He also annointed their eyes (to see the word) ears (to hear the word) mouths (to speak the word) and hearts (to live the word and accept it into their hearts!)



Here we all are getting ready to dunk them :)







Opening presents:











and having some awesome family time:









What a glorious day! We ended on a feast of lamb and eggplant and I felt right back at home in my own house :P

Please pray with us for our children as they learn, day by day, to walk with Christ.
To live the messages at medjugorje is to love the Lord and to love others with all our hearts-- to pray, to fast, to live for God. Pray that we would live the messagesin our family for the world to see!