Soap for Jesus

Sparkie and I had a conversation this morning. It went something like this. Sparkie: *rolls over* Woof? Me: *starts to tickle his tummy* I'm. SO. MAD. Sparkie: *big brown eyes* Me: I don't NEED this on top of everything else! Sparkie: Woof. Me: I don't like loving people. It hurts. Sparkie: *puts paw on my cheek and closes eyes* A quiet voice in my heart: But love is forgiving. Seventy times seven. Me: I don't care! I care about someone and THIS is what happens! Voice: They forgave you. Me: But it was easier for them to forgive me! I have a RIGHT to be mad! Voice: Since when did you have rights? Love has no right. Love lays itself down daily and sacrifices all. It loves where there is no love. It forgives to the death. It has NO RIGHTS. When you learn to follow Jesus, you surrender all to Him. Your life. Your ways. Your thoughts. Your choices. Your actions. Your will. And your rights. Rights has to be one of the hardest things to go. The human will is forever standing u...

Today has been a marked change for me. I'm unable to share the details with you as it is rather personal, but one day, one day I will be able to share the way God's worked in my life. It's...awe-some. The way He has lead me, in spite of the pain and the tears, will be so clear, that His love and mercy will blaze out. I pray that when I am free to do so, that you will be able to see it as clearly as I can, right now, feel it. I have just come down from upstairs, where I went to pray for a friend. It ended up in a complete, soul searching, heart tearing experience, a prayer time of which I wish I could revel in the presence of God every day. The outline of it is that after almost two years of fighting, I've given in to God. I'm not ready to take the step I've taken mentally and have yet to live out, but there's no way I can go back. I'll take it, God helping me. Because I know if I don't step out, then there is no way God can use me further. It involve...

This link on keeping our hearts soft was really encouraging. Please click and read! Keep Your Heart Soft

One of the worst things for cutters, in my experience/dealings, is when withdrawing...even the mildest cutter has an almost overpowering urge to cut for little to no reason. It is an addiction, it is a dreadful one, and I beg anyone out there considering trying it - don't. Even worse than the self harm which leaves permanent damage, if not physically, then emotionally, is the powerful urge after leaving it to continue punishing oneself for an angry mood, a sour temper, a bad day - in short, anything you feel is your fault and you want to punish yourself for. The effort to fight off that urge is very difficult, and can lead to devising other ways of self harm. The problem is, when you're doing it, you feel like you're punishing the person who deserves it. You can even get into a self-satisfied victim mode; I've punished me, I'm content. Starting it is dangerous. You think you're a coward if you don't, and that you're a coward if you do. As with drugs, you...

Written by Luke, inspired by God, sent by a friend. Luke 7:36-50: When one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. A woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, so she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume. As she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them. When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.” Jesus answered him, “Simon, I have something to tell you.” “Tell me, teacher,” he said. “Two people owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love hi...

The love story of the year so far is this one: Here comes the pride! Words by: JENNA SLOAN, Pictures: ARTHUR EDWARDS Published: 04 Apr 2011 Add a comment (12) STANDING proudly at the front of the chapel, Rifleman Paul Jacobs turns to greet his beautiful bride in front of 130 family and friends. It is a significant moment for any groom, but Paul's wedding on Saturday was even more emotionally charged than most. The 22-year-old, who was awarded a George Medal for bravery, will never see his new wife Louise. For Paul was blinded by a Taliban bomb blast while trying to recover a colleague's body in Afghanistan - and Louise was the healthcare assistant who tenderly helped him at Birmingham's Selly Oak Hospital. Louise, 25, fought back tears as she said: "I'm so proud of Paul and everything he's achieved. I know he'll never be able to see me but that's not something I think about. I look past the disability and see Paul as my husband, just like anyone else. ...

A Excerpt: He looked, searching, into her deep blue eyes and watched his own reflection change, distort, twist itself into a memory whirling in the inky depths. She was tiny, small, alone...yet apparently no younger than as he knew she was now. Her figure was small and slight, her hair flipped over her shoulder in the untidy perfect flow he loved so well. She stood, leaning her weight on her elbow, her nose pressing against the glass, forming a round vapour of condensation on the clear glass, her lips leaving a small imprint against it. No one else was in the room, but he could hear murmurs from the next. A quiet, choked noise caught his attention, and he looked to see tears running in shiny floods down her cheeks. One word only escaped her lips, and that word she repeated over and over. Somehow, as he looked down into her eyes, he could see the reflection of the little girl who still stood at the window, hurting inside. Their expression, through the pretense of valiant bravery and the...

Humans are amphibians—half spirit and half animal. ... As spirits they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time. This means that while their spirit can be directed to an eternal object, their bodies, passions, and imaginations are in continual change, for to be in time means to change. Their nearest approach to constancy, therefore, is undulation—the repeated return to a level from which they repeatedly fall back, a series of troughs and peaks. Now it may surprise you to learn that in His efforts to get permanent possession of a soul, He relies on the troughs even more than on the peaks; some of His special favourites have gone through longer and deeper troughs than anyone else. The reason is this. To us a human is primarily good; our aim is the absorption of its will into ours, the increase of our own area of selfhood at its expense. But the obedience which the Enemy demands of men is quite a different thing. One must face the fact that all the talk about His love...