Oriana Pyavka
Why I’m here: Testimony Coming into bible school I was in a very confused and vulnerable place in my life. I felt no love towards nor from the people that surrounded and deep down I knew that loved me. But most of all I felt no love from nor towards the one whom I should have been loving the most. My heart did not fully belong towards the one who created it. I thought that reading the bible, attending church, and avoiding big sins was good enough. The reason I wasn 't satisfied by Christianity is because it wasn 't Christianity. I had religion, but I didn 't have Jesus. I knew what love was, but not the God who is love. Growing up I was told and taught to fear God but not in the way I should have. I was so
…show more content…
I think that many of us have fallen and sinned so much and so often that the whole system of salvation and grace doesn 't really make sense. I mean how is it possible to recover from all the years of disobedience and thousands of sins made? The problem with me was that I couldn 't fully comprehend that the term salvation and forgiveness was actually created and meant for sinners like myself. I couldn 't understand the fact that I qualify for mercy. I couldn 't understand that what I need, I couldn 't possibly do anything to deserve it. I didn 't believe that someone as great as God would ever look down on me and love me. I didn 't think I was or could ever be worthy of such a love. One of my favorite quotes was once said by Thomas Watson “Jesus Christ went more willingly to the cross than we do to the throne of grace.” Every time I denied Gods love and forgiveness I was basically telling Jesus that what He did for me wasn 't enough. The pain He went through and the blood that He shed for me on the cross wasn 't enough. I was so stubborn and arrogant thinking that if only I do this and this right, if only I say this and this right, then maybe I could earn God 's love. I couldn 't comprehend that the type of love I
“I have learned that something happens when one makes herself available to God: He starts moving in ways no one could imagine” (Davis 43). Such was the case for Katie Davis in her heart-warming novel, Kisses From Katie: A Story of Relentless Love and Redemption, co-written by Beth Clark. Katie’s nonfiction memoir speaks passionately about her move to Uganda: here she strengthened her relationship with Jesus, adopted thirteen little Ugandan girls, started a nonprofit ministry, and so much more. Katie’s unique journey teaches about sacrifice for the Lord our God and about following Him wholeheartedly with reckless abandonment. Consequently, Kisses From Katie by Katie Davis is a hopeful story that teaches readers about God’s love for us, and
“Forgiveness is not always as easy. At times, it feels more painful than the wound we suffered, to forgive the one that inflicted it. And yet, there is no peace without forgiveness.” This heart wrenching quote by Marianne Williamson gives substantial insight on the true agony that comes along with forgiveness. As we all travel through the journey of life, we face many obstacles which we must overcome.
Being called to love can be summed up by Jesus’s words in Matthew 22:37-40, when he says, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” My understanding of how to love God and love my neighbor has certainly been shaped by the material in this course thus far, especially by the consistent prayerful attitude discussed in Liturgy of the Ordinary. By implementing spiritual disciplines such as lectio divina and close reading, I have been able to center myself on this prayerful attitude and more effectively live out my call to love God and others.
Another way to think about this is how Wesley wrote in his sermon The Scripture Way of Salvation. On our journey to sanctification, he states, what keeps us going on the journey are the means of grace, whether they be for ourselves or done for others. His basic point was that once we are brought into awareness of the grace and our need to repent and turn from our sin, the means provide the nourishment our souls need to grow in grace. How else could one grow in grace than by means of grace?
While numerous teachings Jesus conveyed were challenging, many people believe his call for forgiveness to be extremely difficult to practice. It is not easy to pardon, or even love someone who has betrayed us. These sins people commit against can leave behind scars, and it can take a long time in order for our pain to be healed (Saint Mary’s Bible,1456). Moreover, when we have been wronged, it might be tempting to seek revenge against on the person who has done us wrong, to make him or her hurt as we have been. Additionally, if we do not seek vengeance, we might hold onto feelings directed against that person and well into the future. After we have been wounded in a specific way it is difficult to let our guard down and be vulnerable again
“One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.” French existentialist writer, Simone de Beauvoir, states in The Second Sex (1949), powerful analysis of what a woman should be in the West. She goes into detail on how femininity is a social construct and was constructed for the male gaze, the patriarchy (Nigel Warburton, 2014). This is an argument in both Sandra Lee Bartky’s Foucault, Femininity, and the Modernization of Patriarchal Power, according to her, you are born into your gender, not the characteristics of it (2010, 27). And in Rosalind Gill’s Supersexualize Me!: Advertising and the ‘Midriffs’, she discusses how advertisements are a major factor in shaping our views on what is masculine and feminine (2007, 95). In this essay, I will compare each chapters’ arguments, this includes power and femininity and who is to blame for disciplining women’s bodies to fit a narrow spectrum of femininity; and the similarities of the arguments when discussing how femininity is being shown in the size, movement and appearance of a women’s body and how they both reject societal meanings of femininity.
This is probably one of the most moving books I have ever read in my life. It is basically a narrative story of the life of an El Salvadorian women named: Maria Teresa Tula. Maria is a wonderful storyteller and the fact the she is describing her own real life experiences greatly add to the impact of the book.
my passion for living for Christ was stronger. I was lead to start a Christian book club. I started it on
I had lost a group of friends who I grew very close to seeing as they looked at me in a different aspect. "She's going to judge us" , "She's too good for us now", "I don't want to sit with someone who's going to preach to me" , these were all phrases that got passed around the tiny halls of my middle school after I had committed my life to Christ. My "social life" had digressed and people didn't want to be around me, but that's the moment I came to a realization. I was looking for love somewhere there wasn't any, I had put my foot in a path that was dry on appreciation where I had thought there was plenty, and the heartbreak I had taken from the loss of three great friends had got healed by one awesome Father. There are some worldy heartbreaks when accepting Christ, but they become heavenly appreciations after you realize why the Lord has detached you from
I always knew about the bible, it would be very hard not to when you live in a Christian household and not to mention my dad being the Senior Pastor at my church. These going through the motions continued into my teen years and being a typical teenager, I start to question why I was doing the things I would do. During all the questions I asked I started to drift away
Walking into class for the first time, I did not know what to expect. I grew up going to church every Sunday and going to Sunday School after the church service, it was a Christian household. I know the stories, the important Bible versus and the songs. I would say that I know my faith, my faith was something that I knew and I wouldn 't question it. It was something I was confident with since its something I have known since birth. In this class we question faith, we question everything, even Jesus. I am learning that questions are the best way someone can learn. While reading Night, The Plague and The Gospel of Mark, I got to explore the meaning of the word God.
I did not come to know Christ until December of 2003 at the age of 25 at First Baptist Church of Gordonsville Tennessee. As a young boy, I had a desire to know GOD, and had even made a profession of faith, but never had anyone
A testimony is a personal story of what God has done in one’s life, the story of one’s conversion. Many people have dramatic testimonies of God rescuing them from death and destruction. Others have stories a little less dramatic; nevertheless they are life-changing. We truly leave the kingdom of darkness for the kingdom of light. C. S. Lewis puts it this way: “It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.”1
My journey with God started in February of 1993, when I went to a ladies’ conference in Columbus, Texas. It was while the speaker was explaining that she knew there were some of us out in the audience, who felt guilty about something they had done in their past, and they did not feel that God could forgive them for it. But then she quoted from God’s word; “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, not principalities, no things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 8:38-39 NASB) The speaker continued on to say that all we need to do is
The definition of Christianity is a religion that teaches about who Jesus is and why he was sent to save us. I believe being a Christian consists of loving inward, outward and upward. I as that I never knew who God was growing up, but I always knew he existed. I am a courageous Christian woman that has been a Christian for almost three years now. I know now what it is like to live for God’s glory. Before I became a Christian I was a very lost soul. What I mean by this is, I lived a very hateful life. I hated me. I hated you. Most of all I hated God. How could God create someone like me?