ONE YEAR CLEAR BUDDY!! ONE YEAR FREE OF UPMC & THE E.D. except for June but honestly it's been THE FIRST YEAR LEGITIMATELY FREE OF BOTH ABUSE AND ADDICTION SINCE WE WERE THIRTEEN. THAT IS ASTRONOMICAL.
Adoration Mass & Holy Hour!
Stayed overtime
UP CLOSE & PERSONAL. CHANGED MY ENTIRE LIFE
Decided that we ARE going to Adult Religious Education tonight because it's about BAPTISM and we are VERY UNEDUCATED concerning that essential Sacrament. Plus we want to be reliable and trustworthy, darn it, we don't want to be the "maybe" attendee we want to be someone who can be counted on to SHOW UP and KEEP THEIR WORD. And that requires sacrifices.
HENCE AN 1130 BK TODAY FOR ONCE
Evening =
ARE MEETING
PETRO TALK
Between Mallett & the Catechism= Chaos 0 weeping "I don't want this to be my name anymore"
TO MIMIC "YOU'RE COMING WITH ME" essentially
And to ME, "THAT'S YOUR JOB"
Night car switch
Just barely got to bed at 10pm haha
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VOTD= 1 John 4:7.
Originally I wasn't going to comment on it as it felt so "obvious," but actually, that's a RED FLAG for NOT ACTUALLY LISTENING-- because it means I'm taking Truth for granted, assuming I already "get it," when I DON'T and CAN'T-- not only because I'm being ignorantly proud, but also because Scripture is FATHOMLESS and there will ALWAYS be INFINITELY MORE TO LEARN.
So let's take it bit by bit.
1) "John is already practicing what he's preaching" by immediately calling the readers "BELOVED"-- "modeling the love God desires us to have toward each other", which is the very heart of the Gospel, AND the very HEART OF CHRIST. The love God desires us to have for each other is the ONLY Love there IS-- it's His OWN LOVE for us!!! And that HITS. By prefacing everything with that term, John is telling us HOW GOD LOVES US. We are beloved to Him. That's ASTOUNDING. And It is only by knowing that truth that we CAN love each other, AS individual beloveds of God, and that awareness makes it second nature to consider each person OUR beloved as well.
THEN the guy in the video basically asks, "When was the last time YOU called your friends 'beloved'?" And Laurie just LOOKS at me: "well, you SHOULD."
2) The LINK BETWEEN being "born of God" and "knowing God," and the fact that they BOTH ARE ONLY POSSIBLE AND PROVEN BY OUR ABILITY TO LOVE!!! "Whoever loves, IS."
3) "If we truly are children of God, then we cannot hide the characteristics of our Father; it's in our very DNA. Showing love to one another [therefore] reveals both who we are and WHOSE we are." Simply yet amazingly = God is Love, and God is our Father, therefore the PROOF of our status AS His Children IS OUR LOVE.
...
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Guided prayer=
"Jesus, thank You for loving Your people— for teaching us how to live a God-honoring life, and sacrificing Yourself so we could live eternally with You."
Jesus's Love is expressed IN and BY His teaching us-- specifically, in "how to live in a way that honors God." The ONLY way TO do so IS TO LOVE. And the only way TO teach Love is to BE LOVE. Even IN His words, Jesus spoke of Love in PRACTICAL WAYS, not as flowery ideals or comforting theories. No, Jesus told us HOW to Love, in both parables and exhortations... but honestly, the way He taught us how to Love most clearly and powerfully was THE CROSS. That was and IS STILL His ultimate teaching, the sum of the Gospel message, the very crystallization of the Love He both revealed and required.
...
"Even though it can be challenging, I want to love those around me because You love me. Each day, remind me of Your love for me and encourage me to love those who may be hard to love."
The only thing that makes ANYONE "hard to love" is our pride.
When we look at anyone through the Wounds of Christ, we cannot help but love them.
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You know what, let me list some VOTD translations.
1) The opening words are either "dear friends" or "beloved." Both communicate the essential dual truth: these Christians are BOTH "John's dear friends" and "dear friends of God"; and they ARE such because they are "beloved OF God," making them "beloved to John" in consequent familial affection.
2) The second bit is in direct response to this intro. "Let us love one another." "We should love; we must love"... "let's go on loving one another," by "unselfishly seeking the best for one another." It is both an entreaty and an encouragement. "SINCE we are beloved to God, SINCE we are dear friends IN God, we MUST continue to love one another." He does not speak into a vacuum, or from a dearth. He greets them AS ALREADY LOVED before appealing for love-- which actually implies the subtle truth that to BE loved IS the very foundation FOR loving in return--
3) "...BECAUSE love comes FROM God." This is the REASON WHY we "must love each other"; because "it is God Who makes us able TO love other people." So when we love, we "let HIS Love continually pour from [our hearts] to one another." We become channels and conduits of Love; we are never the Cause. But notice, the undercurrent is that we are to Love FOR GOD'S OWN SAKE. We are to love because God IS Love, and He alone must be our truest and deepest purpose, goal, and motive.
4) "Everyone who loves has been BORN OF GOD."
5)
...
"God, the world needs to know how great You are! You created us, You love us, and You make us whole. Please guide my words and actions so every choice I make points others to Your perfect love."
The very idea of that is so amazing, so hopeful and beautiful-- that EVERY choice I make, every day, no matter how seemingly inconsequential, CAN point towards God's Perfect Love.
...
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Reading the Catechism on Baptism for A.R.E. tonight.
"Baptism, the original and full sign of which is immersion, efficaciously signifies the descent into the tomb by the Christian who dies to sin with Christ in order to live a new life."
I immediately looked up the etymology of "immersion", and this is the core of it=
"A noun of action from... immergere "to plunge in, dip into, sink, submerge," from... in- "into, in, on, upon" + Latin mergere "plunge, dip" (see merge)."
YOU ALL KNOW HOW SIGNIFICANT THAT WORD IS TO US.
And ITS etymology is THIS=
""to plunge or sink in" (to something)... from Latin mergere "to dip, dip in, immerse, plunge," probably... from PIE *mezgo- "to dip, to sink, to wash, to plunge"... "to sink, dive under.""
And that recurring word "plunge" actually ties it all together =
"to put, throw, or thrust violently into; immerse, submerge... dive in... from Vulgar Latin *plumbicare "to heave the lead," from Latin plumbum "lead". Original notion perhaps is of a sounding lead or a fishing net weighted with lead."
I love the etymology additions of "plumb" too=
"a mass of lead hung on a string to show the vertical line"... "perpendicular, vertical, true according to a plumb-line"...
And "sound" has this =
"fathom, probe, measure the depth of water" with or as if with a sounding line and lead, mid-14c. (implied in sounding), from Old French sonder, from sonde "sounding line," perhaps from the same Germanic source that yielded Old English sund "water, sea".
ALL OF THIS ACTUALLY HARMONIZES.
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