Hello, world!
I am doing fairly well today. I woke up to one of the best Colorado climates I love:
Fogginess!
Days (especially Fridays) like this only mean certain things: hours on Wii U, hours in front of the sewing machine, LOTR and Hobbit and Star Wars marathons, popcorn, plus playing Arwen’s Vigil and other pensive songs on the piano to set the mood. The occasional cup of hot cocoa is part of that, too. The benefits of 4-day curriculum…
I love defining things and letting other people define things for me. Except when it comes to the concept of me. How do I define me, how does God define me?
Whenever I see my friends, I always leave and wonder,”When they think the name Emily, what is the first thing that comes to their mind?” Is it a sew-a-holic, horse freak, piano nerd, science geek (if that’s the case I find it a complement :P)? Perhaps a Jesus-freak (the ultimate compliment!)? Those are all what I know I am, but there are gajillions of voices that tell me otherwise.
I’m currently reading 2 Chronicles and I read today about Sennachrib the King of Assyria. He boldly came to the city of Jerusalem to King Hezekiah and all the people and basically told them that they were nothing, God was going to let them be defeated, and nothing could stop him from making fools of them. These were his exact words:
‘In what do you trust, that you remain under siege in Jerusalem? 11 Does not Hezekiah persuade you to give yourselves over to die by famine and by thirst, saying, “The Lord our God will deliver us from the hand of the king of Assyria”? 12 Has not the same Hezekiah taken away His high places and His altars, and commanded Judah and Jerusalem, saying, “You shall worship before one altar and burn incense on it”? 13 Do you not know what I and my fathers have done to all the peoples of other lands? Were the gods of the nations of those lands in any way able to deliver their lands out of my hand? 14 Who was there among all the gods of those nations that my fathers utterly destroyed that could deliver his people from my hand, that your God should be able to deliver you from my hand? 15 Now therefore, do not let Hezekiah deceive you or persuade you like this, and do not believe him; for no god of any nation or kingdom was able to deliver his people from my hand or the hand of my fathers. How much less will your God deliver you from my hand?’”
16 Furthermore, his servants spoke against the Lord God and against His servant Hezekiah.
-2 Chronicles 32:10b-16
By the way, Sennachrib wasn’t the one who said all these things to the people; his Rabshakeh proclaimed the message. I look at that as Sennachrib was too much of a coward to deliver the lies himself. Just like Satan; the ultimate coward. Sometimes he doesn’t give us the message himself; he sends other people to do it – or in really dark cases, demon possession. Satan is, as I heard a pastor once say, “A bumble bee with no stinger that flies around just to scare us.”
I was a bit unsure of how to start my post this morning, but my mother read me a scripture that inspired me to keep on going:
“But if, while seeking to be justified in Christ, we ourselves have also been found sinners, is Christ then a minister of sin? May it never be! “For if I rebuild what I have once destroyed, I prove myself to be a transgressor. “For through the Law I died to the Law, so that I might live to God. “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me. “I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly.”
-Galatians 2:17-21
My mom put it this way: faith+joy+peace= freedom in Christ. When we have freedom in Christ, we can just know that we are daughters/sons of the King of kings! That’s who we are. You’re not Emily because you like cosplay, ride horses, The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, being a pianist, the Piano Guys (even though those shape my personality); you are you because you are a daughter of the King.
I have heard people say the familiar phrase,”I need to take some time (days, weeks, and years are sometimes replaced instead of “some time”) to find myself.” There really is no such thing if you know you’re a daughter/son of the King. So, I will end with this: our mission is to glorify the Lord, and as soon as we know that we’re a prized child of the King, we can move and change the world.
All for now,
Emily 🙂
P.S. We have two doves in our backyard and doves symbolize peace in the Bible…here’s an epic dove picture:
