Breaking the Silence pt. 1

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."
- Martin Luther King Jr.

The meaning of the word silence:
1. The condition or quality of being or keeping still and silent.
2. The absence of sound; stillness.
3. A period of time without speech or noise.
4. Refusal or failure to speak out.

Martin Luther King Jr. knew what he was talking about when he said the quote above. In our lives we all need something to fight for, something to stand for, and not just carry out a daily routine every single day. What do you stand for? What is one thing you just can't be silent about? Many people stand up against abortion, a great cause to stand for. I am a pro-life person so I'm defiently against it, I'm not going to lie for the sake of holding my piece against politics. I just think if you are pregnant there must be some reason why God picked you to have this child not kill it. I guess I see things like that because my sister being pregnant. Actuallly i've always seen things like that.

“Men of authority and influence may promote good morals. Let them in their several stations encourage virtue . . . let them favor and take part in any plans which may be formed for the advancement of morality.”

-William Wilberforce

William Wilberforce, the man in the movie Amazing Grace, was a man how took a stand to end slave trade, yes you may think that was hundreds and hundreds of years ago. But there is still slaves nowadays and one young man is standing up against it, Zach Hunter is a teenager just like you. You may be shy and things like that, but we have to stand up for things we believe. have you found out what you believed in? Enough to stand for it. Another pair of teenagers who are standing strong for a cause is, Alex and Brett Harris. They are standing against low expectations. This country has lowered the standards for us so much, but for what reason? Hollywood? They think so less of us now, they expect us to be lazy, rebellious and stupid. So this is defienetly something to look into to learn more about it check out therebelution.com.

All these things are fine and dandy, but I propose another cause. Breaking the silence. A stand against silence. We as christians in this country no longer proclaim our faith, instead we sit back content with our life of silence. Why are we so silent?

Discussion Q's
- what do you stand for?

- what is one thing you can't be silent about?

- have you found what you believe in?
- why are we so silent?

Fear of ducks?

Save your fear for God, who holds your entire life -body and soul- in his hands.
-Luke 12:5 the message

Being the person I am, I have the strangest fears ever.. Well a few of them is strange, but the others are every day fears that everyone else has. So I’m afraid of ducks., the dark, bugs, letting people down, spiders, and the Lord. Your probably wondering where are all these fears going, but I promise I have a point to this.. I hope.
Ducks, who have you heard of who has a fear of ducks besides me? This started whenever I was just five years old. My family and I, were enjoying a great day in the park, taking a walk around the lake. There are ducks all around the place, but when you reach a certain part of it, it’s where the majority of them congregate. We’re just walking along all happy, and all the sudden, these cranky geese decide to chase me. Remember I’m a terrified five year old now, running from ducks. This was an event in my life that traumatized me, cause my family just stood back laughing, as my short little legs carried me fast as they could go. To this day I am still afraid of ducks, not like I was, but I’m not going to lie they freak me out still. With a somewhat traumatizing event, I know I have authority over them ducks.
As children, most of us have a fear of the dark. You remember the times where you’d run and jump on your bed, for fear of something under your bed was going to grab you. Well, if you don’t, now you know what I did. To this day I am still like, well I don’t run and jump anymore, but I do still sleep with a night light. But I must say this about that fear I should have gotten over a long time ago. How can some one who has the light inside them fear the darkness around them, when the light shines though it all? Is it because, they really don’t have the light? I don’t think so I believe that we just get to use to the comfort of that light always being there, and when the light goes out, we get scared.
Many girls are afraid of bugs. Growing up, my dad or brother would find a bug and chase my mom, sister, and I around the house, I remember running through the halls, screaming and we’d all end up in the bathroom with the door locked, and my dad banging on it. Finally the banging would cease, and a scream would come from the other side, my dad had turned on my brother. This became a time of torture, yet with a fun side to it. I often wonder why I am scared of bugs, because many of them are harmless and can’t do anything to us, maybe because they are just ugly?
One of my biggest fears is letting people down. Many times people want you to do things, but never ask you to and just tell you. Like maybe some one wants you to go to college and get a degree in this, mainly to benefit them and their company. But you know that is not what you want to do, but you don’t want to let them down. Not for the sake of what they’ll think, but just for how it will be if you don’t do it.
Arachnophobia, many have seen the movie, which triggered the fear, or many have just developed it because of what the eight legged freaks can do to you. I have a friend named Earl, and he is a big guy, but if a spider is near him, no matter how big or how small panic will set in and the big man starts to scream like a little girl. He isn’t the only one to get scared of them, cause they freak me out. When I was thirteen I had one of those mosquito nets around my bed, and sometimes when I’d wake up in the middle of the night I’d see spiders crawling on the outside of and their legs getting stuck in the holes as they crawled up, I stop breathing, and not move fearing that they would fall. You could probably guess that the net didn’t last that long. Another night, I woke up at in the middle of the night again, this time to see one crawling over my head on the ceiling, I ran up the stairs frantic, waking up my daddy, knowing he’d be there to protect me from the spider. Of course he’d wake up and come down the stairs at like two in the morning just to kill a little spider for me. To me this shows a relation to God the Father. He is always there to help you out when your scared. Like I ran to my daddy in the time of need, should be how we run to the Father not just in the time of need, but always run to him and walk with him, knowing He is going to take care of us no matter what.
My final fear is the Lord. Now your probably asking why should I fear God? You just said to cling to him, now your telling me to fear him> The answer is yes. While we all fear little things, that could never really hurt us, and we shouldn’t really fear them. Many do not fear the Lord, while he loves us, and takes care of us, he also wants that fear. I have a fatherly fear, that my dad earned. Don’t get me wrong, he doesn’t beat me, and I think the world of him, but you know if you do something wrong, your mainly like ‘oh no , what if dad finds out, he’s going to kill me’ not like my dad would, but that thought has crossed my mind a many of time. When I was a child, my brother would drag me into to trouble with him, and whenever we got in trouble , instead of my mom giving us a spanking, she would tell us to go up and wait in our room for our dad. That was the last thing we wanted to hear, so we would walk grudgingly up the stairs and sit quietly on the bed, waiting for daddy to get home. Fear in our eyes, see we weren’t afraid of him, just because he was dad, no we were afraid of what our punishment was going to be. That’s how it is with God, he loves us so much, but we must fear him above everything, with that fatherly respecting fear, of what he could do to us. Now I’m not saying to get saved, out of fear, no your salvation is a personal experience with God. No it isn’t a fear like that, it’s reverence.
So why we may fear many things, above all we should fear God. It may take a little work to get over all our fears, but with the help of God we just might overcome them. Fears might be just what’s getting in the way of what God wants to do.
Definitions:
frightening thought: an idea, thought, or other entity that causes feelings of fear
reverence: respect or awe for somebody or something


God Bless,
Jen

Discussion Q's:
-What do you fear?
-How can you overcome your fear?
-Do you think fear gets in the way of what God wants you to do?

LEAVE COMMENTS

My life thus far..

Hello there!! I'm Jennifer Carol Armstrong. I am a sixteen year old, liscenced driver of an '03 convertible mustang. I do not attend a regular school.. I am homeschooled. I'm am the daughter of an ex acholic and ex drug addict, they are now saved by the grace of God and my father is a pastor of a small church in Arkansas called Harvester's Fellowship. I have an older sister named Jessica who is married and expecting a baby boy, her husband Ross is also known as Tarzan, because he makes a funny monkey face, they are planning on naming their soon to be baby Joseph Blake. Jess is twenty-one. Have have an older brother, Gary, but we call him Bub. He is eighteen and a crazy country listening, guitar playing country bumpkin , who likes to hunt. Then as the children come to an end I am born on February 24, 1992 the day before my mothers, and one day after my fathers. My mother told me I was ready to see the world, cause her labor wasn't even an hour. Just think how awesome it would have been to tell everyone you were born in a car, but sadly that is not case I was born in St. Edwards, and my doctor was still in a t-shirt and jeans. They discovered I had asthma and an anbotitic resistent pnuemonia, but God must have a big plan for me, because when I had I huge attack to the point my lips were turning blue we were in church and the pastor prayed for me, I recieved healing, and now I hardly ever get sick. Through the years my life has been great, as a child I played basketball and loved it, I also discovered my love for singing at one of my old churches, I was about five, and I had a solo in one of the plays we did, we did two perfomances, and in the second performance I got the hiccups as I sang, everyone laughed, but thank God I was little, I continued to sing. At the age of seven I played bugs bunny in an easter play and Kara in a christmas play. Then we left E.T. I left behind a bunch of memories and great friends and a childhood crush named Josh. A few years later my father fell off a normal one level house, and crushed his heels. The doctors offered no hope of him walking. I remember that day when my brother and I got checked out of school, I was in the third grade and my brother was in the fourth, and from the fear stricken look on her face we knew something was wrong, "What happened to dad?" we asked, and thats the end of that memory. The doctors were wrong within one year, my father began to walk, and about three until he walked without pain. The three years between that and my fiftenth year were very uneventful. In the summer of '07 my big sister got married and in the wedding I was the maid of honor.. I had to wear a dress. Now my sixtenth year is half way through,
God Bless,
Jen