a post about a post i linked to in this post

this post was really lovely -

http://fatherstephen.wordpress.com/2007/10/19/when-things-are-not-as-they-seem/

the more i learn about the Orthodox church i have joined, the more i see that it is true and that the world is NOT at ALL what most people see it as.

and also the more i am convinced that the Protestant Churches have deeply and dramatically lost a great deal - in their understanding of the world, in understanding of who God is, what worship is, what a human person is, to name a few great losses

i also really like the post i linked to above as it also talks about how our society is into speed and this speed keeps people from seeing what is real. and that repentance is a very slow process, the process of healing is slow. i need to often be reminded of this. i tend to be quite impatient...

i hope it will teach me humility though, because here i have been given this Church that has Saints, that has the means of healing, and a sense of the world like nothing else... and yet i am so broken and the process is so slow - i hope that this will show me how much i am in need of God and the Church. indeed in this case it is not that i am in a place (the Church) that cannot save me, but that i have so much that needs to be saved!

truly a case of falling down, getting up, falling down, asking my spiritual father another question, getting up, falling down, getting up, asking another question, falling down,

another example of being glad that God loves and has much patience...

i encourage you to read the post above; it is better than the one you just finished reading, if you have read this far.

today on the new calendar

is st. John of Kronstadt and St. John of Rila's days.

i have been happy all day.

happy blessed day!

see this link for a lovely icon and information about St. John of Kronstadt:


http://benedictseraphim.wordpress.com/2007/10/19/st-john-of-kronstadt/

story from my childhood

I have been thinking about this story from my childhood...

I grew up in a Protestant church; when I was a kid... under ten, but do not know what age, I heard a sermon about the last shall be first.

So that same day we had some sort of family gathering, with dessert. Well, thinking I was all smart, I told my Mom I would go last. Clearly my Mom, I reasoned, would of been listening to the same sermon. She would thus be so touched that I was listening too and was such a Good Angelic Girl that I would be able to go first. A Spiritual Goody-Goody I guess. WELL. My Mother had listened to that sermon. Her answer to my offer to go last - showing her great wisdom as a Mother and as My Mother:

"Okay, you can go last."

I was thinking, oh My Mother did not listen to that sermon. Clearly she would of let me go first, as the last go first and I offered to go last. HA. Silly Me!!!

Clearly I was just trying to go first and failed to receive the lesson or the point of this sermon. Thank God My Mother is wise.

and Thank God that He can teach me (even me) that I should go last and not because I want to go first. (Of course I am still learning this lesson).

Glory to God's long-suffering and His great mercy!