Inspired

At home in the universe.

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Yesterday I had the great opportunity to go to an observatory. I am a big fan of the universe and stars and planets. A friend of mine and I were discussing recently how awesome it would be, after we get to heaven, to just go hopping around the universe.

And it would be, because even the pictures I see of clouds of stars and galaxies are breathtaking. Imagine seeing it in person. It’s no wonder some astronomers are dying to discover the secret of space travel.

You can Google images too if you want to know what I’m talking about. Rainbow clouds, huge whorls of pink galaxies or solar systems. More stars than you can fit into your mind. And it goes on forever. Literally, it’s all still expanding.

Which is proof of a higher power if you ask me. Where did the space to expand into come from? The big bang couldn’t have created it, even if you buy that crud, which I don’t. But the Big Bang doesn’t solve the problem of where everything cam from, it just presets a very long drawn our method of it expanding.

I am getting to the point where I find the Theory of Evolution too ridiculous to take seriously. If you look at what the universe looks like, you’ll see it’s astoundingly beautiful, and it truly is other worldly.

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King David wrote about seeing all the worlds God had made  (You might be more familiar with that in the song “How Great Thou Art.”) I don’t think David meant there was literally other earths out there, like in science fiction, I think he was probably referring to the planets.

I don’t believe in aliens. But I don’t rule out the possibility of other worlds, Not ones that could support human life. I think we’re here on earth for a reason. I don’t expect we’ll ever find anything resembling a life like a life on earth in the universe.

I think that out there, the’re life of another sort. If you look at the pictures of the Galaxy, you’ll feel like it is alive. But not alive like we’re alive. It’s not a sentient breathing being, but it’s not dead. It’s vibrant, it’s magnificent, and there’s so much of it.

Why would God put beauty all over the universe when it is doubtful we’ll ever be able to find it all?

Well, because God is much greater than we can know, in this life anyway. And He does not limit Himself just because we are limited.

Which brings me to something a little less pleasant. The folly of man.

While I was at this observatory I saw a sign (one of those informative ones like you see at museums) that was talking about what we’re discovering about the universe. At the bottom it had the amusing thought to present that because we’re learning abut this “We are finding our place in the universe and feeling at home in it.” That’s almost exactly what it said, but I wish I’d had a notebook to jot it down, my phone doesn’t take accurate enough pictures for it.

Yes, ladies and gents, because we can take pictures of stuff billions of light years away and form theories about things we’ll never touch, we are finally able to feel at home in the universe.

The plaque also said that the reason for this was because we could understand it. BS I say!

We have our theories, we can’t even agree on those. But if we think we are anywhere near understanding the universe we are beyond delusional. We don’t understand DNA, something all around us, on us, in us, and something we’ve studied up close for decades. Yet we think we could understand something we’ve seen only at a great distance.

We can’t predict our own weather with great accuracy, yet we think we know weather on other planets. Do you see the humor in this? And the arrogance.

At home in the universe? Give me a break. Do you feel at home on your block?

When I consider the heavens, like David, I am in awe. And there was a quote about that too. From Griffith J. Griffith talking about the Mount Wilson Observatory.  “Man’s sense of values ought to be revised. If all mankind could look through that telescope, it would change the world.”

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I know that I don’t exactly feel at home in the universe. There is something entirely beyond my understanding even just looking at the photos. Let alone if I tried to study it. See if it doesn’t make you feel the same way. Small.

But I do feel like I differ from a lot of people in one way. The universe does not make me feel unimportant. Unimpressed with man’s attempts to snatch glory apart from God, yes.

But not unimportant. I do feel small and extremely limited when I think of all the places I can’t reach, but it only makes me realize that one day I will be free of this body “of death” as Paul called it.

I don’t hate my body, but it’s a humbling thing to have a mortal body. It does things that don’t really make you feel all that proud, and it limits you. What Outer space reminds us off is that our body is a very temporary thing.

If you don’t feel at home on earth, I don’t think space frightens you so much as it makes you want to expand. If people are too busy int heir lives to ever look up even at the heavens we can see from here, I wonder if they are just a little too comfortable on this fallen planet.

Nathaniel Bowditch looked up at the stars, his mother said they made your problems shrink if you looked at them long enough.

I think the scariest thing for some of us, and also the most alluring, is that the galaxies are not full of man made objects. They are wild, in a way. Divine in their design.

I hear a man quoting one of those ole shows “Space, the last frontier.”

The frontier we can’t reach yet.

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Non-stop.

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I can’t believe that 250 years after American was founded, saying it is great is actually controversial even among its own people.

This isn’t about Yankee pride or anything like that. actually my ancestors were confederates. (That’s a joke.)

Anyway, I digress. I doubt my lineage has anything to do with how I feel about America. But as I’ve said before I used to not really like my country. Not because of slavery, or racism, which has been everywhere and only has changed drastically in a few select nations; but because people didn’t seem to care about our ideals anymore. If anything the Liberal Left seems to hate everything we were built on.

Slavery was wrong, yes. Though I might point out, that’s still not universally accepted around the world. It’s only a given here because it became the popular opinion.

The world at large never changes, it just morphs into different shades of the same thing.

But once I began reading up on America’s history I found that America has always been a place that cannot be judged by its government but by its people. It was founded fort hat reason.

If you look through what the founding fathers wrote after the county was started, you’ll find an underlying theme of respect for people. For farmers, for blacksmiths, for the common person.

And believe it or not, many of them were quite progressive for their time. Jefferson argued that Native Americans had rights. He still regarded them as not quite bright, but he thought they could be taught, though how to do that without ruining their culture remained a puzzle to him.

Sure, it’s easy to say now that he was still racist, but in a time when a lot of people regared the natives as trash and savages, he would have been quite controversial.

I also find the attitude of tearing down our founders because they did wrong things to be incredibly hypocritical.

We act surprised and shocked that they were still human beings who made mistakes. And we blame them for their wrong ideas about race and social Justice. Even though we have paved our way to social justice because of what they wrote and what they did.

Do we really think our beliefs now are so inscrutable as to be more correct in every way then theirs were.

In my opinion for every problem of theirs we’ve corrected, we have added one or two more of our own, because we have forgotten what enabled them to succeed at making a better country even with their flaws.

I just finished rereading “Carry on, Mr. Bowditch.” The story of America’s first great navigator who revolutionized navigation in a time when America really need to get its feet wet in the world of sea trade. (Pardon my pun.)

Perhaps some of you have seen or listened to Hamilton. The rap/light opera based on Alexander Hamilton’s life.

If you have heard it, you know his childhood was tough. But as the songs expressed, he was determined to “not throw away his shot.”

Back then, (and in Carry On, Mr. Bowditch I found the same theme) these exceptional founders and the geniuses who came after them, felt it was not unusual to want to make something of their lives. To live well, and add something to the world.

It was the American dream. Not that everything would be easy, but that success and meaning is possible.

If you listen to the last song in Hamilton, you’ll know his wife lived 50 more years after he was killed, and accomplished what women were not supposed to be able to accomplish in her time. Yet I had never heard of her before I listen to that. Afterward I looked it up, apparently it was all true. She started an orphanage, she recorded Hamilton’s life, which is why we know so much. She wanted his story to be told, and int he rap opera, they have fulfilled her wish, hundreds and thousands of people who would never read a book about it are still learning about him.

Both Hamilton and Bowditch had rough lives. And all the founders I read about had the same. People died, they got sick, they were poor. yet all of them save for a sad few, they bounced back.

American ideals were made possible by American grit. The attitude that if life knocks you down, you don’t just lie there, you get back up.

Now, if we lose our wife and almost die of a terrible disease and live through a war, we go to therapy. If our life sucks, so many of use choose to end it. We see no reason to keep living, we throw it away.

And reading their stories, I wonder what made them decide not to commit suicide, this kind pf pain seems unbearable. One terrible thing happened after another. Life was so fragile. Nothing was certain.

but as Hamilton has simply put it “I’m not throwing away my shot” and as the musical said “That man was nonstop.” And that’s the answer.

They were non-stop. If they lost a wife, eventually they remarried. If they lost a child, they still dared to have more. If they lost heir land, ended up flat broke, they got a job and climbed back up the ladder. They dared to go to sea even when every man in their family has died at sea. And their women either helped them int heir work, or let them do it without whining about it.

Non-stop. You never stop to let hardship turn into despair. That was their secret. You keep at it.

It’s like they say about riding a horse, surfing, or any sports you can get hurt in. Once you go down, you get back in the minute you can, or you never will.

Life is like that.

That spirit is the American spirit at its best. And while we aren’t perfect, that has always been the key to our changing and improving ourselves. If we lose that now, we lose our identity.

I don’t think, mind you, that you have to be American to have that kind of grit, my point it simply that our country was built by it and because of it.

Because we had the guts to say we can be responsible for own success and we don’t need a dictator to control our lives.

It seems like now that’s what we want. And make no mistake, we’ll get it if we continue to want it.

But I’m not going down yet. I have a legacy to live up to.

Until next time–Natasha.

Being Possessive.

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I know I don’t post on Sundays, but my day of rest has really been Saturday, so I thought I’d make an exception.

Something has caught my attention about when I’ve gotten crushes. I’ve had a handful, some girls seem to stop having them after high-school, others have them in their thirties. I  am not here to speculate as to why. Girls like boys. End of story.

But what having a crush can do to you is another matter. It feels great. But I would not be the first by a long shot to say it can also be frustrating. I am sure boys must feel the same way. I just don’t here them talk about it. Because of course, why would they tell me?

I’ve gathered from other girls and from my own experience that a crush can be the sweetest torture there is. It drives you crazy but you don’t want it to stop.

There’s something about being infatuated with someone else that somehow enables you to be focused on someone other than you and forget your own problems, while still being selfish.

A crush is rarely anything like real love. It tends to come with a blindness to the other person’s faults and a belief that they would be just as blind to yours if they ever noticed you. You want them to, but the idea scares you to death also.

Sometimes with more thoughtful people, a crush is like love. They may truly respect the object of their affections and wish them well, and even feel that the person has a right to make up their own mind.

But that’s rare. Most of my crushes were because I was lonely and didn’t have a lot of friends. I tended to get them when I was going through difficult emotional transitions. In a way, I think crushes are a coping mechanism. Perhaps a God-given one. It is preferable to other mechanisms. But crushes are more addictive than heroine. You may try not to think of them, but it’s really hard.

Some people advise you not to nurse it. That can work. Sometimes I think just letting it run its course will get you over it faster. But if you know you get obsessed, that’s not the best idea.

Girls handle it differently. Some have no shame in admitting their feelings, even to the boy. Others deny it consistently.

I find crushes inconvenient. They distract me from the things I need to get done, and the ministries I serve in. I have a penchant for crushing on guys who work with kids (some of you ladies know what I’m talking about.) You can imagine that gets distracting.

I think crushes help keep us from feeling bored and like our lives are empty. But that’s a false kind of feeling.

Or is it? Perhaps even puppy love is a kind of love that makes life worth living. It’s normal to get a crush, it shows we are capable of caring about someone else. If nothing else, crushes are rarely just physical for girls. Even if they are often inexplicable. We don’t know why we like a particular fellow.

But what this brings out in me that I don’t like is a kind of possessive behavior. I’m bringing this up because from what I’ve heard this goes into dating and even marriage relationships. (Especially marriage.)

This feeling that you deserve more of the other person’s time and energy than anyone else does. In marriage, to a degree, that can be true. Some things should be special between you. But in dating and especially in crushes, it’s just not right. Jealousy over someone who might not even like you is foolish. Not that that ever helps. Jealousy is not often connected with reason.

God did tell Eve “you will have desire for your husband and he will rule over you.” I don’t think he meant sexual desire.

It would be easy enough not to be ruled by men if we didn’t want them around so much, wouldn’t it ladies. But don’t get a big head guys, you need us desperately.

Frankly maybe God was being merciful when he cursed us with that. We do need each other, but humans are so selfish by nature that if it wasn’t for that desire, maybe we wouldn’t stick together.

Still, ideally as a Christian, we learn to love people the way God does, not for our selfish desires. And where does that put a Christian girl with a crush, or any other girl who wants more than the norm?

The hard answer is that it’snot right to indulge selfish thoughts on purpose. We daydream, sometimes without intending to, and I get that. But we all know when we’re going too far. Imagining that person devoted exclusively to us.

Maybe I have issues, because I cant really imagine that anymore. I don’t think I want it. At 19, I think I realize that if someone is obsessed with you alone, he or she has no higher purpose or calling in their lives. And why would  I want someone like that? I don’t intend to be that person.

It’s important for the Christian to ask themselves how much of what they want satisfied in their crush is something God is meant to satisfy. Unconditional love? One man in a hundred might have it. But he’ll never have as much as God. He can’t. Any more than you can.

Ladies, we need to remember that men are no better than we are. How many selfish things do we do each day, each week, each year? Some men are better than their women. God bless them. But they are still selfish. All people are selfish. Some of us just have learned to not give into it often. I hope to be that person someday.

When you daydream about your man, ask yourself, would you like this guy, knowing if you were together he would do selfish and inconsiderate things? He might do them all  the time, at worst every day, or if you’ve got an exceptional one, he might do them once in a while. But he’ll do them. And it’ll make you cry.

And not to leave men out, your girl, she’ll be blind to your feelings and do things without considering if it bothers you. Maybe she’s too distracted by her problems to realize it. Likely it’s an accident. (If it’s not, dump her.)

My mom is one of the most unselfish people I know, she does things that irritate me still.

This is no reason to give up on men or women. We would be hypocritical to do so. But we would be delusional to thinking it won’t happen.

And even though you might think “it’s just a crush.” You want to watch how you think when you crush, because that’s the base of how you view romance. And romance is not always fine words and thought out presents.

Hallmark gets that wrong.

Romance is when your girlfriend doesn’t complain about your bad habits to her friends even when it drives her nuts. It’s when your boyfriend changes his plans because you’re having a bad day. It’s when your wife makes you dinner after working all day herself, when your husband does the dishes after a hard day.

At least I think so. Candy and hearts is fine and can be very thoughtful at the right moment. But it’s not real. Not without foundation. That’s what I’m trying to say.

–Natasha.

I Voted.

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Hello everyone, hey it’s the last week of the term before finals.

I am not slowing down though, I have VBS in two weeks and I jump back into the Summer Term, got to get those credits under my belt.

I also voted for the first time this month. I was registered and even got the little card telling me where to go, but me and my family all were somehow left off the list. It happened to a lot of people in the state. My dad sad he’s suspect an conspiracy if it hadn’t been in the more liberal areas.

Not that that guarantees anything. We’re very conservative as you can guess.

About that, I’ve got nothing against liberals as people, but their policy are so whacked out. I’ve known plenty of them, and though some of them are nice, caring, and sweet, there’s always a certain glitch int heir thinking on certain subjects. I suppose they feel the same about me.

Basically they react to me like “That Natasha, she’s just so stubborn and determined to speak her mind. We don’t agree but hey, why argue?..It’s not like it’s important.”

Except often it is important, and tat’s why it bugs me. Back off from an argument over sushi vs tacos, sure, (they don’t usually back out from those kinds of arguments actually) but from Abortion? Politics? Respect? Marriage? This stuff shapes our lives.

My state had a voter turnout that was less than a fifth of the population. And I think hardly a fourth of the registered voters. I didn’t hear anyone at my college talking about it, I don’t think the other collegiates voted, not many anyway. And I was the youngest person at the place I voted at by at least ten years, likely more.

Young folks don’t care, or don’t know how to decide who to vote for. Both alternatives are frightening.

I felt the responsibility of the country for the first time. I don’t know how effective our votes are now, but they do something, as the 2016 election showed. So I could end up changing someone’s future. Do I want to live with that?

I’d better, because otherwise I put that ability into the hands of people I don’t even know who probably don’t share my values and who’ve been destroying my state for years. I have a very blue state, just so you know.

Think about it, suppose I vote for tax cuts, and in a year or so when they go into effect (if we’re lucky) someone can afford to send their kids to a better school, or buy a car, or even more food. OR at least they can but more of what they already use. In the snowball effect that could mean less health problems, a better education, a better job, and even better relationships.

Suppose, in the dream of a dream, the money for our roads was actually used for our roads, and people have less accidents or bad dents or jolts on their car, and better tires.

Makes you wish you were in America huh?

Just kidding, though for all I know it could. Everyone seems to want to come here.

I ask you Americans, do you think about this anymore? Or do you vote just to keep the person you hate out of office? To make your life better personally. Do you think about the greater good?

Do you consider the hundreds or thousands of people affected materially by these elections.

Did the people who voted Marijuana in ever stop to think about the hundreds of deaths resulting form driving high? and the people who are going to get addicted to it? and maybe to heroin since that often comes after pot. Did those people ever ask themselves if it was right to hand the right to get high over to a bunch of 18 years olds fresh out of high school, ready to do stupid things just because it’s legal now? Pot alters your brain, it’s true. And we made it legal to do that.

We made it legal to smoke pot around kids who will grow up thinking that’s okay. We are allowing people to raise their risk of getting into accidents with equipment because their perception is affected.

That’s just three examples. My question to you is do you care? And hey, I hear Canadians vote too, so if your from Canada I ask the same thing.

If you’re not in a country with that kind of power in the people’s hands, I would just ask if you wish the government would take the needs of everyone into consideration.

Our Republic over hear in the USA is far from flawless nowadays, or even the  force for good it once was, but it remains able to effect some things for the better still thanks to the people. And call me and old fashioned Yankee, but I still believe it’s the best system, next to the Biblical one.

And I believe in independence and responsibility for my own life partly because of my American heritage, though also because of my christian one. I love our history over here and I don’t apologize for it, so take that!

I mean, sure we’ve done some bad things. So has every country, I don’t catch them apologizing for it. You think Iran is ever going to make amends to us for terrorism? No. They want us to help them.

Not to throw Iran under the bus, my point is, we don’t need to feel ashamed to be Americans just because we’ve had slaves and bigotry here, and invented the atom bomb.

As countries go that still only makes us average, and as for how we’ve used our system to end those things as much as we can, we’re a cut above almost everyone else.

But a country isn’t something you love because it’s perfect, you love it because it’s your home and you want to take care of it. It’s just that America’s whole foundation was built on understanding that the people  are the country, kind of like Asgard in Thor: Ragnarok was described.

So, voting,  as small as it seems, is our duty. Our job. Our chance to help each other.

Until next time–Natasha.I_Voted_Sticker_5

Well behaved women Seldom make history.

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Laura Ulrich used the above sentence in her history of unknown puritan women. You may have seen the slightly altered “Well behaved women rarely make history” on anything from a car to a mug to a t-shirt to a book. I read it in a book by a Christian Female Preacher. The Sweet Potato Queens put it into their theme song.

I admit it’s a brilliant quote.

But I  wasn’t surprised to read in Ulrich’s account of the slogan’s impact that it had caused a lot of women to justify the most wild and uncouth behavior.

Bad girls have more fun they say. Kind of like nice guys finish last.

Well I submit to you that nice guys only finish last with women who don’t like nice.

I wouldn’t be one of those. Though I admit I can’t stand tame.

And that’s the thing, I don’t think the term wild is a bad word. I hear it used as if it were bad. Wild is used as synonymous with out of control, crazy, rebellious, and bad behaved.

But in my book, wild just means something is in its natural state. Untamed by man. But it does not mean something is at odds with man.

Wild things can be a gift. The only way to survive in the wilderness is knowing how to live off wild stuff. A wild animal tends to have instincts that a domestic one doesn’t. There is something raw and yet vulnerable about wildness that touches us.

But what about being well behaved? I don’t think being ill behaved is the way to make history, not the kind of history I want to be remembered for. The attitude about this seems to be that as a long as a woman is making history, she is doing something noble and brave, no matter what kind of history she is making. In that way a sex icon is as important as Marie Curie.

I don’t think so. Every one has heard of Helen of Troy, everyone has heard of Joan of Arc. Which do we know more about? Which do we want to be like?

I love famous women, if they are good, and I love empowered women. I just never understood empowered to mean “Do whatever darn thing you want to get attention; talk trash about men; and abandon motherhood.” Come on ladies, is that really what it means? I bet you don’t agree with that idea either.

I think few women really think that’s how to be a real woman. Just as I hope few men think that shooting each other and getting girls knocked up is how to be a real man.

Now just for context, you guys should know I am not the kind of woman who sits back and shuts up by nature. I have been strongly hinted at that I should do this. And I can’t say, after what I’ve been reading about it, that I don’t wonder if I might have been treated differently had I been a man.

It’s hard to picture the same people telling a guy who was as enthusiastic as me to tone it down a notch. When does that ever happen?

I mean, it does happen to my dad, who’s like me in that way. So I guess it does happen to men.

I will say this, I think part of the problem is women who make themselves heard can have a very snooty attitude about it. Like we should listen to them just because they are a woman and outspoken. Funnily enough, don’t you immediately feel more interested in a woman if you hear that she’s outspoken and opinionated.

And also oddly enough, I rarely hear a man described that way. Men stating their opinions forcefully seems to be a given.

A woman who really is outspoken will be whether it’s considered normal or not. Take Katherine from “The Taming of the Shrew” as a fictional example. Women like that won’t shut up no matter how much men shake their heads. And that’s not always a positive.

I know women who will give their opinions when applied to, but they prefer to talk about more personal stuff. A woman has political opinions, sure, she probably has strong ones. She doesn’t let her husband speak for her because she’s afraid, she lets him because it’s not what she likes to talk about.

Women don’t like arguing with their friends. (Though they may like arguing with their husband or their mother.) So they don’t talk about hot topics amongst themselves. It gets too heated. It’s that simple.

I know I don’t bring up hot topics when I want to have fun with people because it’s too explosive. And I know men who don’t care if it is, but I don’t know any women like that.

This isn’t a lack of confidence, it’s just women preferring to bond without conflict. Men bond through conflict.

Not that a woman never can enjoy conflict. I enjoy it. Typically more with men then with women. I consider that to be a thing men bring out in women, for a good reason, strength calls out to strength.

In fact, women want to be part of a man’s world because the man is in it. I don’t care if I just ticked someone off. It’s still true.

How many women say they are independent of men even while saying they’ll beat them at their own game.

If you’re trying to beat the men, you’re not exactly independent of them. You have to have someone to beat.

It also backhandedly admits that men have done a lot of amazing things. And I think men have every right to keep dong amazing things. I get a real kick of beating men at stuff. But I don’t grudge them their right to win also.

I think the wild side of men is what stirs up the wild side of women. I see it all the time, women sneak into men’s conferences, women read books about what men should be like just to know what to look for, women like movies that are geared for men. (I liked Braveheart. Most women who saw it did.)

That’s not because women are weak. It’s because women are smart. We know there’s something for us in both worlds. And if men are smart, they’ll pay attention to what women like too. I don’t begrudge a man the enjoyment of a few chick flicks , some of them are meaningful stories.

Some men enjoy more feminine dominated stuff. That’s okay. In the end, it’s not what you do but the way that you do it that shows the differences between people and between genders.

I win like a girl, because I am one.

Until next time–Natasha.

Believer and Pain.

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You may have heard that song by Imagine Dragons, “Believer.”

I am not a huge fan of Imagine Dragons, but I still want to give them a shout out for having the band name I would want to have if I was in it. I freaking love the name Imagine Dragons.

But their music is a little to heavy metal/pop for me.

However, I’ve heard this song, who hasn’t of a certain age? And since I actually watch lyric videos to find out what a song is about, I watched one for it and found out the song is about something a bit unusual.

It’s become typical to have, pardon the word, bad-ass songs. (I really want a clean equivalent of that word to use.) The “in your face” song.

I like some of them. And this song is technically in that category, but it has a profound twist. The song is about pain. The pain, as the words say, making you a believer.

People love this song. In the past the idea of pain being what made you a believer would have seemed problematic to me. I’m a huge believer in beauty being an inspiration, love being motivation, and peace being what gets you through.

Yet, in the past few months, my most constant companion has been PAIN.

What does a dreamer like me do when pain seems to be taking over their life. For weeks I didn’t want to write or even read, or think about all the stuff I wanted to do with my life, because how could I do it? I felt crippled by something that was mostly in my head.

Now this song didn’t bring me any great revelation. But it has made some people decide to keep going, and I read one person decided not to kill themselves after hearing it.

And I can say it’s because the song is true.

The words “My life, my love, my God, they came from pain.” I don’ think it means pain makes any of those things, but it’s a honest realization that without pain we’ll never know if those things are real.

To be honest with you guys, I haven’t seen a flat out miracle in a long time. I haven’t seen the things that make people think Christians are doing LSD. ( we aren’t.) I haven’t seen a miraculous healing in a long time. And I’ve never seen happen to me.

Like I said, I’m a dreamer. I believe in all those things. Call me crazy. There are things in this world that cannot be explained away.

yet I still have no personal evidence.

And what do you do with that when you’re suffering for months for seemingly no reason.

I admit freely I got pretty mad at God over it. I gave him a piece of my mind. But in the end I always come back to Him. I guess you could say I’m addicted.

It’s rough too when people get tired of hearing you complain about what you’re going through. And the only response I got from God was “trust Me.”

You Christians who read this, you ever wonder why you trust God? What He’s done to make you so confident?

I have.

Yet, I began to notice there was a miracle taking place in my life. I was being plagued by fears about how I was feeling, and anxiety. Then gradually that changed. I started to be less afraid. I have a low pain tolerance, and do not handle it well, but now I was pushing on through it. Moving on with my life. Drawing closer to God.

And oddly enough, I came to see that pain can be a gift. It’s not one anyone wants to keep. (I would hope.) I wouldn’t take it. But if it comes, and you accept that, then it is a gift.

Pain jolts you out of your stupor that the distractions of this world can put you into.

I know Christians who ware waiting for the next revival, the next breakthrough, the next movement of God. I think they don’t realize that they are waiting for pain.

Because pain is a part of creating life in this world. from childbirth to starting a business or becoming a professional athlete, it’s going to hurt.

Pain sucks, and no mistake. I don’t enjoy it. But I know it’s necessary. I still wish it wasn’t when I’m feeling it, but looking back I don’t want to change it.

Pain can indeed make you a believer, because you don’t know where you believe till you’ve been through the fire, the rain, and all that.

Sometimes the miracle is not being saved from suffering, but in seeing yourself changed by it.

So, good for Imagine Dragons. They hit something profound.

Until next time–Natasha.