it's scribbled

A bit about Sherann.... part 2.

I carry two journals.  Yes, two!  I am infatuated with 3 things.  1. Bibles 2. Cups 3. Journals.  I love the way each journal has it's own character and texture.  There have been so many moments where God impressed so many things on my heart that I figured I would remember it later.  Unfortunately, I never got around to remembering it... For those of you who may be wondering why I have two... well, the first one is a medium moleskine journal for all my thoughts, convictions, praises, experiences on the road, etc.  I capture all my "God moments" in this one.  The picture on the left are two of my journal entries.  The second journal (ecosystem- it even has a tracking number so you can find out what materials were used in making your journal.  Go GREEN!) is a bit bigger in size, but it's filled with notes and scribbles for speaking engagements.  It's messy but I love it.  I don't know about you, but i love to scribble.  There's such a freedom in being creative.  Do you have a journal?  What kind and what do you scribble??

soli deo gloria

Hope

Can we talk about VeggieTales for a moment?  Broccoli.  Celery.  Gotta be: VeggieTales! 

I (Aimee) love VeggieTales (www.veggietales.com).  They’ve been around for over 20 years now, but I only heard about them for the first time while I was in college.  Since then I’ve collected older episodes and I’ve been sure to pre-order new episodes from my local Christian bookstore as they’ve become available and now I own all of them. 

I love watching VeggieTales, but what I love the most is sharing them.  It’s great watching the reactions of someone whose never seen VeggieTales before, or as they watch an episode that they’ve never seen.  So, I want to share with all of you one of my absolute favorite episodes: ‘An Easter Carol.’

Brilliantly, the folks at Big Ideas took Dicken’s A Christmas Carol and changed it up for Easter.  Ebenezer Nezzer doesn’t understand the true meaning of Easter.  So the ghost of his grandmother informs him that he will be receiving a visitor who is going to help him to understand.  That visitor, Hope, is a small angel who takes Ebenezer on a journey through Easter past, present, and future.  Hope shows him that Easter is all about … well … hope!  I think that there are lots of things that we can learn from the story of Easter, but hope is definitely a huge one.  What hope would we have if not for the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord, Jesus Christ?!

I know that I talked about hope at Christmas time, and I’m not taking that back.  The birth of Jesus, His physical entry on the worldly scene, should most definitely be a source of our hope.  But the story only began at Christmas (and the great thing about this story is that it has no end).  Christmas was the beginning of what had been hopped for for generations: the birth of the Messiah.  But, none of that would matter if there had been no Easter.  Have you ever thought about that fact?  If Jesus had come, lived an amazing life, and then died, and that was the end of the story, then that would have been the end of the story.  He would have been just another prophet at best, or an outright liar at worst. 

As Hope told Ebenezer, if the death of Jesus had been the end of the story then there would be no hope.  Only the hope that God’s redeemer was still to come ‘someday’ … whenever that day would be.  Praise God that there was more to the story than that!  Instead of death being the end, He came back to show us that there is still hope for a future where there will be no more pain and no more suffering and no more tears.  He gave us hope that we can break away from our slavery to sin.  He gave us hope that there is more to this life than what the world has to offer.

Christmas was a fulfillment of God’s promise that a redeemer would come.  But the actually redemption came with His death and resurrection.  It came with Easter morning.

Passover

It was sometime in high school that I (Aimee) started questioning what the differences were between Judaism and Christianity.  I mean, I knew that Jews are still waiting for the Messiah and we know that He already came (hallelujah!), but I didn’t know anything besides that.  And it was a question that really intrigued me because I also knew that Jesus was a Jew.  So, I found myself asking: if Jesus was Jewish, why aren’t we? 

The answer?  Because He changed everything!  His life, death and resurrection changed everything!  Can I get a “hallelujah”?!

We can’t go on living as people did before Jesus was born, and we especially can’t continue on the way people did before He died and rose again on the third day.  We’ve been freed from our bondage to sin.  We’ve been redeemed and reconnected with God through the blood of the Lamb.

I bring this up because Passover—the celebration remembering and celebrating the Jews exodus from slavery in Egypt—was on Monday night and right now is the time for the Feast of Unleavened Bread (first mentioned in Ex 23:15, which connects it with Passover).  At my church, tomorrow night (Maundy Thursday), we will be having a Passover Seder concluded by a Tenebrae service. 

Ok.  I know that those were a lot of big words and you may not have heard all of them before.  A seder is the word used to describe the celebration of Passover.  A Tenebrae service is when you read the passages of Scripture dealing with Jesus’ last night with His disciples and His betrayal into the hands of His enemies.  As the passages are read, the room is gradually darkened, until all lights are out at the very end.

Now that you know, you might be thinking that you’ve attended Tenebrae services before.  Maybe your church even does that type of service annually.  But have you ever attended a Passover Seder.  Most Christians would answer, ‘no.’  Passover is considered a Jewish holiday.  If Jesus made everything different, then we shouldn’t be doing that.  Right?  Wrong.

First, in Exodus 12 we can read about the first Passover while the Jews were still in Egypt; the final plague that took the lives of all the firstborn of Egypt.  Beginning in verse 24, after describing what they were to do, it says:

“Obey these instructions as a lasting ordinance for you and your descendants.  When you enter the land that the Lord will give you as he promised, observe this ceremony.”

Jesus changed the meanings of many things that we read in the Old Testament, but He said :

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them”

That’s why I learn more about Jesus every time I read through the Old Testament.

Second, Jesus’ last supper with His disciples—the one that we base communion off of, the one that we remember most especially on Maundy Thursday—was a Passover meal.  (So, we kind of remember it already in a way.)  Jesus celebrated Passover.  He believed it was important, meaningful.  He still saw its value and He gave it new value.  Jesus changed Passover.  There’s no question about that.  Jesus is our Passover lamb who redeemed us from slavery to sin.

I’m convinced of the need for Christians to celebrate Passover.  But I’m not going to take time to try and fully convince you.  I just want to convince you to give it some thought.  Read your Bible (the beginning of Exodus and the end of the Gospels in particular).  Ask some questions and seek out the answers whole-heartedly.  Pray about it.  Then come back and tell us what you think.

Blessed Passover.

signs

A couple weeks ago, I (Sherann) saw a public transit bus driving by and noticed something.  There was a huge sign on the side of the bus that had "Find Islam" written in bold letters.  It was noticeable, it was clear, and it was loud!  Please don't misunderstand me, they have a right/freedom to have something like that on the side of a bus, but I started to wonder what "we" as believers do to tell other's about Jesus.  To be honest... I was sad and discouraged... then a few day later I bought a duffle bag and as I was reading the tag, I noticed something at the bottom right corner... it had this.. Acts 2:21 which states:

"And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved"

As I was driving to Orange this past weekend, I noticed a huge sign on the side of the road which said, "Jesus is Lord."

And on my way home, I noticed a huge truck with Philippians 4:4-8 written on the back.  This is what the scripture says, "Rejoice in the Lord always.  I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all.  The Lord is near.  Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.  And the peace of God, which transcend all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

I know that God is in control regardless of the amount of signs plastered on walls, cars, homes, etc... But you know what?  His signs are everywhere! Look at the sun, moon, stars, trees, etc... But more importantly, we are His "sign".   A sign of His grace, redeemed because of Jesus! You know, if we could use signs to declare the glory of Christ, why can't we use our lives to proclaim His Word?   We may not be a billboard, but we represent Christ no matter where we go.  Do people see you or do they see Jesus in you?
As you go... go in the name of Jesus because the world needs to hear!

soli deo gloria

What Are You Worth?

I (Aimee) watched 'The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader' for the first time last night.  I had wanted to see it really badly when it was in theatres, but with ticket prices going up all the time, I just couldn’t work it out.  So, I just finally got to watch it.  And, I enjoyed it very much (I think the first 2 are better, but it was good none the less).  In particular, I really enjoyed some of the conversations.  Aslan always says things that are so wonderful.  But He wasn't the only one.

It’s been several years since I read the books—almost a decade, actually—so I can’t speak for the book in this case, but a theme that really stood out to me in the movie was the question of self-worth.

As happens with younger siblings all the time, we (I’m a youngest) look at our older siblings and wish that we could do everything that they do and we wait longingly for the day when we are older, too.  I don’t know if there is some sort of boy-parallel, but girls go through stages of wanting to be as pretty as the older girls.  And Lucy is dealing with that in this movie.  Edmund is wanting to be older so that he can fight in the war (WWII, in case you didn’t know, it’s a period movie at the same time that it’s a fantasy movie).  He doesn’t think that anyone at home appreciates him and what he can do and that they won’t unless he’s allowed to fight.  Their cousin, Eustice, has many issues, but self-worth is definitely one of them—beginning by thinking a little too highly of himself, then feeling pitifully sorry for himself.  All three, of course, come to realize that they have value just as they are and in the end they are better people and better friends for it.

Did I just give something important away?!  Oops.  Not the first time.  Let’s move forward.

Being a girl, I related to Lucy the most (duh, right?).  I understand how she felt cause I’ve been there.  If I were just a little older (I don’t wish that one anymore, but I used to), and a little taller, and if my proportions were a little different, and … and … and … then maybe boys would like me more.  Or maybe I’d have more friends.  Or maybe I’d just be happier.  Thankfully, praise God, this was not something that plagued me often because my parents raised me to know a very important truth, one that Lucy learns in this movie: we are precious to the Lord, just the way that we are, and He created us to be us, not to be anyone else.

Easter is less than two weeks away now.  If we don’t remember it any other time of year—although I really hope that we remember it more often than that—we should remember at this time of year that God loves us so much that He sent His Son, whom He loved very much, to die on a cross to cleanse us of our sins so that we can join Him in paradise someday!

God doesn’t make mistakes.  He’s perfect.  We may not be perfect, but we are created perfectly for what we are supposed to be.  The problem, our unhappiness, comes from not understanding what it is that God created us to be.  When we figure that out, then we find joy.  When we truly remember day by day how much God loves us, and how much He loves all people, then it shapes how we live our lives.  We recognize our value and the value of others, which is definitely good news that should be shared!