The Story of A Girl

That’s a big interactive Bible, huh?!

My faith and My God are more than just the Bible, (that’s a big part though) it’s through a personal relationship with my Heavenly Father that I find my strength, morals, ….well it’s where I find myself; the essence of who I am, because God knows me better that I myself do.

The Bible is pretty important though, it is the way to Him and the way to continually grow in Him. You can read the bible a hundred times, and still never learn all there is to learn from God.

The earthly people that have influenced the faith I have come to understand today are (in no particular order either):

1) Jonathan Edwards (not the psychic, the one born in 1703) “The first and greatest homegrown American philosopher” hist site below is good.

Here is actor pretending to be John Edwards in Pollyanna

2) My daughter (the most amazing, beautiful, light-hearted, miracle from God! She’s darn near as close to perfect as I think we can get!) She taught me what it’s like to truly love and gave me a tiny tiny glimpse of what God’s sacrifice of his Son may have felt like. She also taught me and gives me a mental picture of what it means to praise God in everything we do. The happiness in her heart and joyful laughter she always had, was different than any laughter I’d heard before….it was directly meant for praising God and Him alone! I could tell she was so close to him (or Him to her) every time I was in her presence.

3 )Mark Chancey (my professor of Religious Studies at SMU that never would tell us his religion until the day we graduated and in the four years I never could decide what he believed, because he knew so much about ever religion of the world. Then his faith in Christianity that he revealed in the end, propelled me to keep searching for understanding)

4) John Piper (who challenged my ways of thinking and helped me understand God’s Sovereignty and ultimate power of everything, both good and evil,which led to me seeing he loves even more than I can fathom

5) Brittanie Bailey ( a woman that lets God work freely in her life and allows others to see the strength God provides those who seek him. She also is someone who by the end of her lifetime, I believe will of saved more lives than anyone can imagine. I see her as God’s great “social worker”)

6) Laura Strickland ( if you met her you would understand why in a second. She takes God at his word and is the one who knew about me my trials and pregnancy before I even did, and was praying for me and my daughter from the beginning. She is who you go to when you are faced with doubts and she knows her scripture!

7) My family ( in their own unique way they have helped me, not sure quite yet how, maybe it wasn’t at on specific time, they just always were open and encouraged us to know God. My sister has shown me just by watching her life change when she came to know God better in college. She never has explained or given me much insight into the God she knows, but she has always been the type to lead by example more. She’s more about “doing” not about “talking about it,” which is kinda how Jesus was while he was here on earth..

8.) Gideon Tsang ( a preacher and theologian fron a church in Austin -I had a post about- He stressed the importance of community and loving your neighbor as God’s most important message to us. He manages to preach this in a way, using the Bible directly as his resource, so that it doest;t come across as a “Hippie Liberal Opinion” to a Conservative Republican based Church. The poor, the defenseless, the unborn, and who we should all be fighting for.

9) Mother Teresa (I always loved her service oriented mindset and how she didn’t seem to fear anyone or anything. I honestly thought she was maybe a little but too Catholic though in some ways for me. But I had never really read much about her until I my experiences with adoption and becoming a birth mother. As I would google and search for information and statistics on abortion and adoption, looking to show how they directly correlate to one another. That’s when I came across her quotes on abortion and adoption. It reaffirmed my belief that God was leading me to help in this area. People said to me that it was silly to think adoption awareness and helping birth mother’s could help reduce abortion, and I was starting to think they were right. But Mother Teresa is not wrong about much! My favorite quote from Mother Teresa, the first line is my favorite too:
“I will tell you something beautiful. We are fighting abortion by adoption - by care of the mother and adoption for her baby. We have saved thousands of lives. We have sent word to the clinics, to the hospitals and police stations: “Please don’t destroy the child; we will take the child.” So we always have someone tell the mothers in trouble: “Come, we will take care of you, we will get a home for your child.” And we have a tremendous demand from couples who cannot have a child - but I never give a child to a couple who have done something not to have a child. Jesus said, “Anyone who receives a child in my name, receives me.” By adopting a child, these couples receive Jesus but, by aborting a child, a couple refuses to receive Jesus.