Pilgrim’s Progress

From www.xanga.com/comequickly: 2 entries that I was touched by:

Spiritual Warfare… with who?

Prayers like these tend to be common in the church today:  ”Lord please save my father.”  “God, please deliver me from lust.”  “Jesus, please take away my fear.”

I’ve prayed many prayers like those, just substituting names or sins/struggles.  But its only been recently that God has been speaking to me that my battle isn’t with God but with the enemy.  So often in spiritual warfare, rather than engaging the enemy I’ll find myself looking up behind me at God and pleading with Him for help or deliverance.  And my prayers turn into warfare with God… pleading with Him for help or deliverance or salvation for a loved one.  What I don’t realize is that God is already with me!  He wants my loved ones saved!  He wants me to walk in freedom!  He wants me to be strong in Him and to overcome the enemy!  To plead with Him over such things is basically to say that God is apathetic to such matters and that we must shake Him up with a ton of pleading to get His attention.  The truth is He has already given us authority.  He has already given us His promises.  He has already given us His Holy Spirit.  Rather than pleading with Him, we need to engage the enemy… praying prayers like these, “I command the enemy to get his hands off my father and I speak the light of God piercing through to my dad’s soul.”  “I reject every lustful thought and declare I have the mind of Christ.  I set my mind on things above and not on earthly things.”  “I reject all fear and declare that God has not given me a spirit of fear, but a spirit of power, of love, and of a sound mind!”

2Corinthians 4:4 – The god of this age (Satan) has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God

2Corinthians 10:4-5 – The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world.  On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.  We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

Relationships and Freedom…

I’ve had the privilege to facilitate a Bible study on Song of Songs. During a recent discussion time it was brought up how a lot of people experience their first relationships when they are young, such as in junior high or high school. For many people, their past experiences continue to affect the way they approach relationships as they grow older. Fear of rejection, insecurity, awkwardness, regret and sin can continue to haunt them. So for the past week I had us memorize the following verse…

Psalm 119:32 – I run in the path of your commands, for you have set my heart free.

Its as we grow with God and know more of who we are in Him and what His commands are for us that we are able to walk in the way of love and security and be set free from the scars, burdens, and fears the world gives us. We become secure in our identity in Christ. We become secure in His love. No longer are we easily devastated by the things that happen to us in this world. No longer does the past continue to affect us. No longer are we so easily tempted to sin, because we have found something so much better. There is a peace in knowing that as we obey God’s commands, He will protect us and His perfect will for us will unfold. No longer will we have to fear regret. He has the best plans for us, so we run in the path of His commands.

I respect this guy. Keep bloggin brother!

I had a really really good talk with an old college friend I hadn’t been able to chat with for awhile. I miss old friendships. I hope my old friends still remember the memories as fondly as I do. I treasure all those good times, even the small ones that don’t seem to make much of difference.
I’m praying for you, old friend. -_- b
FIGHTING!!!

GAh! The song is so intense.

All of the odds, they’re in my favor! Maybe this time, I’ll win!

Blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me. (Luke 7:23)

It is sometimes very difficult not to be offended in Jesus Christ, for the offense may be the result of my circumstances. I may find myself confined to narrow areas of service, or isolated from others through sickness or by taking an unpopular stance, when I had hoped for much wider opportunities. Yet the Lord knows what is best for me, and my surroundings are determined by Him. Wherever He places me, He does so to strengthen my faith and power and to draw me into closer communion with Himself. And even if confined to a dungeon, my soul will prosper.

The offense that causes me to turn from Christ may be emotional. I may be continually confused and troubled over questions I cannot solve. When I gave myself to Him, I had hoped that my skies would always be fair, but often they are overcast with clouds and rain. But I must believe that when difficulties remain, it is that I may learn to trust Him completely– to trust and not be afraid. And it is through my mental and emotional struggles that I am being trained to tutor others who are being tossed by the storm.

The offense causing me to turn away my be spiritual. I had imagined that once within His fold, I would never again suffer from the stinging winds of temptation. Yet it is best for me the way it is, for when I endure temptation His grace is magnified, my own character matures, and heaven seems sweeter at the end of the day.

Once I arrive at my heavenly home, I will look back across the turns and trials along my path and will sing the praises of my Guide. So whatever comes my way, I will welcome His will and refuse to be offended in my loving Lord.

I made an interesting discovery that someone found my blog by typing in “jennifer sohn uva” in the search box. Btw, the “don’t mind this” thing is pointing to a youtube clip on weezer snuggies.

Who are you mystery person?

For those of you that don’t know, Snuggies is the new huge phenomenon, which features a body-length fleece blanket with sleeves. They’ve even been selling this in Kroger.

snuggie

The odd thing about this snuggie is that there is no posterior side to this blanket, it’s completely open, and therefore it derives its most practical use when you’re lounging on a sofa or bed.

Our med school class was forwarded an e-mail about an idea for a class fundraising project and this is what our officer came up with:

My Friends,

I have been doing a lot of research on Snuggies today because I’m fairly certain that there aren’t any exams I should be studying for. For those of you who don’t know, Snuggie™ is the blanket sensation that is sweeping the country. Never before has keeping warm been so cool. As a result of my hard work, I have deduced that we can custom order custom Snuggies that have some Virginia Medicine related theme, but the minimum order is at least 48. President Carroll has designated me point man on this project, so I just wanted to test the waters and see how many of you might be interested. I have only sent this email to our class because we are the only ones that matter, but I assume if we can get enough people interested the fund raising can be expanded to the entire school.

If you are at all interested, have any questions, suggestions, or general concerns please direct all email activity to Alex Michaels (adm2at). He will respond to you promptly with an appropriate amount of empathy.

The price could range anywhere from $25 to hundreds of dollars for this limited time offer. I’m not really sure. The research hasn’t gotten that far.

Cheers,

Kunal

P.S. this was actually a serious email.

https://www.getsnuggie.com/flare/next

Also try Snuggie for Dogs:
https://www.snuggiefordogs.com/flare/next

I forwarded the e-mail to some of my friends who I thought would appreciate the humor and one of responses was absolutely hilarious: Name is taken out for confidentiality. Although, given the context of the e-mail, it might be pretty obvious who this is.

Jennifer, you tell him that Snuggies are stupid and that onesies are clearly the better choice. Anyone can make their own Snuggie by taking a blanket, cutting holes into it, and slapping a UVA sticker onto it (or stitch) if they so desire.

Yeah being around suicidal people/ trying to comfort them is really depressing me.

I woke up Halloween afternoon, not thinking it was going to be any different than any other day. Minus the wild parties on the corner, children dressed up as cute characters, college students dressed up as not-as-cute characters, and maybe worst case scenario, a drunk driver on the road I would hopefully be able to avoid. Turned out to be a night of craziness.

Only for me though. Let me explain:

1) Came back from a fun evening with Bess and Nina to find out Mary was engaged!

Mary: “JEN! Guess what?”

Me: “What?” She’s very smiley today. Guess what? There’s only one “guess what” that I can think of, and it could be none other than…. [Look at Jeff's face, who also looks equally as smiley. Immediately looks at hand.]

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

So the cycle repeated itself for each successive girl that has found out about this absolutely fantastic event. Best news I’ve heard all year!

I spent the rest of the night cheezing and in fascination that I get to have a real inside look at what a real God-fearing, engaged woman’s life is like leading up to marriage, while she’s in medical school! Very very exciting indeed!

2) Few hours later that night, I decided to go on a repentance e-mail rampage, and e-mailed a couple of people who I thought of on top of my head that I should apologize to, either from the way I had treated them, or being a bad friend. Turns out, I got an e-mail a few minutes later from a dear friend of mine that her father had passed away.

If you knew this friend like I knew her, and if you knew the relationship she had with her father, your heart would have broken. A few years earlier, when her uncle had died, she had been deeply DEEPLY saddened. And this was her uncle. Her father was one of the most dear people in her life, and she had a sensitive heart. Supposedly, he had died 3 weeks ago, and I had had no idea. I was a real CRAPPY friend. I’m sure she knew that her father would be happy of course in heaven, but you know the sadness is dealing with the loss of a loved one.

So thus, I’ve had an interesting view of life. One extremely happy event, and then finding out about a truly heartbreaking event. And it just completely confuses me sometimes, just the range of emotions I can feel in one day. How in the world does God handle it? I do have to wonder… I’m still processing all this, but once I’ve had some time to think it all through, I think I’ll write another entry on thoughts.

Maybe I if I got what I wanted I wouldn’t really be happy.Maybe it’s not what’s best for me. But I just wish I didn’t want it.