Be Mine Love

HAPPY LOVE MONTH! I’ve got such exciting things going on over at my other site, NOTE TO SELF: Daily Reminders from God, this month. God is pouring out His love in a mighty way, and He desires for everyone to know just how much He loves them! I do hope you’ll follow along. During the month of February, the site has been temporarily renamed, Love Notes from God. Be sure to check in daily for your love note!

Anyway, the theme of God’s love this month is, “Will you be Mine?” So with that in mind, I used the Deconstructed Sketch with that theme. Here’s the sketch:

And here is my design:

Someone recently told me not to be too hard on myself because my cards were really beautiful and that they could tell I pay close attention to detail. So I’m not going to be down on myself with my card making skills. I will admit I’m getting better—much better—and I have these sketch designs to thank for that. It really guides me in my creativity.

Then the other night, skyping with a very dear friend of mine (who led me to Jesus, by the way!), suggested that I try to sell my cards as a way to earn some extra income. I poo-pooed the idea, but she insisted that the Christmas card I sent to her was gorgeous and absolutely sellable. Well, I really do need to start making some extra money since my husband’s wages are now being deducted for health insurance, and that has KILLED us financially.

So it’s here!!!!!!!!! My Etsy shop: I Can Create Creations

Very soon I will be making some stationary cards and box card sets. So be on the lookout for those.

It’s time we started sending personal touches to those we love, isn’t it? My grandmother would always write me letters, at least once a week, when she was in Florida during the winter. And I used to love writing her back and telling her all about my life and things going on. I anticipated getting her letters eveyr week.

We are so lost in technology, that we have forgotten how to be “personal” anymore. And I’m praying that my Etsy shop will inspire people to start getting personal again.

Tormented

Our two year old son Tavin has been tormented for weeks with a serious stomach issue. We’ve taken him to ER twice, and both times no one could give us real answers. His pediatrician has been incredibly ineffective in helping him, and instead of finding out what was causing the problem, she diagnosed it with medicine she thought would cure a problem she wasn’t even sure of.

The pain my son has been experiencing has been beyond anything any parent should ever have to watch their children experience. For nearly four weeks, our son has been writhing in pain, screaming in agony, and searching our eyes for some kind of help. This hasn’t been a moment here or there; it’s been four full weeks of torment! Screaming, moaning, groaning, crying, hysterical fits. And when he hasn’t been doing any of that, he’s been lying flat on his back lifeless.

I’m going to backtrack for a minute and tell you that we have always prayed with him, and would scream out the name, JESUS, in authority every night before bed. He got a such a kick out that and would always laugh.

But then we started struggling. Our world began to quickly crumble around us. All of our like-new computers and big screen TV just crashed and burned. At first we took it in stride, but when we saw that we couldn’t get these items fixed or replaced, it was difficult for us. My husband’s iMac was an important part of his need to get his music out there professionally. And my computer was my only source of income as a freelance writer. Without those tools, our connections were lost.

Soon our finances were beating us down. Our cell phones were shut off, our utility bills sky rocketed, and we couldn’t even afford gas to get to church. Our faith was shaky at best. We walked a very fine line. And our prayers stopped. Our hope diminished. But somehow we clawed our way out of the despair and soldiered on. Unfortunately, we forgot to include our son. We stopped praying with him. Stopped calling out on the name of Jesus. Stopped taking him to church.

During that time, too, Tavin started talking about a “ghost.” We believed him because we had “felt” something in the house for quite some time. There was a particular spot in our stairwell where it always lurked. You could feel it latch onto you. There were many times that my husband would need to walk down with me so I could go to the bathroom at night. But I got tired of that thing getting the best of me, so I demanded it to leave by the authority of Jesus Christ. I never felt it again. However, Tavin began to see it everywhere. He would point to a dark, empty room and say, “Look daddy! Ghost!”

During these last few weeks of Tavin’s sickness, we prayed hard over him. We were diligent. At first our prayers were, “Why God!? Why are you doing this to him?” That quickly changed to, “Please God, heal him.” During those prayers, when we would try to get Tavin to pray with us, it nearly drove him to the brink of insanity. He would scream louder and his face would contort and his eyes would turn blood red. We would try to get him to say, “Jesus,” and he would yell, “NO!!'”

Tavin refused to pray, wouldn’t even mention the name of Jesus, wouldn’t say his nighttime prayers, and began throwing horrific temper tantrums. Although that’s natural for his age, these were beyond the normal terrible two tantrums. These were outright hysterical fits. There were times the look in his eyes scared the daylights out of me. And this was all coming from a boy who is outlandishly generous with affection, love and tenderness. Sure he had temper tantrums before, but these were blood curdling fits of rage. Whenever we began to pray for him, his pain seemed to intensify and his screams got louder.

Then the night terrors began. The screeching, startling screams in the middle of the night…night after night after night.

The last two days have been my breaking point. I was beyond the begging prayers of healing and began declaring authority over Tavin’s body and life. When I did that, it calmed him down and it seemed as if his pain was relieved for a time. Again, I tried to get Tavin to come into agreement and pray, but he still refused.

Today was a different story. I proclaimed outright that the devil was not going to control this situation anymore, that I was standing on God’s Word as the Truth and declaring the devil a bold faced liar. Well, that’s when all hell, quite literally, broke loose.

Tavin got worse very quickly. We brought him to the doctor for another emergency appointment, hoping to get some help or be led in some sort of direction on what to do for him. Waiting in the doctor’s office, Tavin’s pain was excruciating. He was literally lying on his back on the floor of the lobby, writhing, screaming and crying. We waited thirty-five minutes and the doctor never called us. We were outraged and frustrated and decided to just leave and take him to ER again, knowing full well we’d get nowhere there, too.

In the car, Tavin was so exhausted by it all that he sat listless and miserable, but suddenly quiet which was unusual. So I suggested we take him home and let him get some rest and take him to ER later if things got out of hand again. Fortunately we went home, because right after we walked in the door, my mother called (we don’t have cells anymore) to inform me that her doctor was admitting her into the hospital. The chemo was taking a major toll on her body. So we put Tavin down for a nap, called my brother-in-law to watch him and off we went to be with my mom.

We came home to find Tavin lying on his back on the sofa. Within minutes the pain started and he was uncomfortable again. Then the screaming started up again, but this time I heard something else. Jared was praying over him, and a language I’d never heard screeched out in anger from his tiny mouth. To the normal ear it would have been frightening, but to me it just set me off in righteous anger.

I yelled for my brother-in-law to come into the bathroom where Tavin was on his potty chair, and said, “This is over! We are praying for him. We are casting this demon out of him.” We all laid hands on him and I began to demand the demon(s) to leave by the authority of Jesus Christ. “You have no stronghold over Tavin. No authority. No right! He is a child of the Living God and covered by the blood of Jesus! You have to leave his body, because you don’t belong here. No weapon formed against him will prosper. He is dedicated and committed to God, so you have to go now!”

As I prayed this, my son’s body began to convulse, and the rage was beyond anything I’d ever seen before. He was beet red and jumping up and down in hysterical fits, and the screams that came from him were unnatural. All of a sudden he began having a bowel movement that was probably the equivalent to ten pounds of waste. He couldn’t stop! At this point he was trembling and his teeth were chattering, so I pulled him close and held him while he sat on his potty and pooped that demon out, and it came out of him without him even having to try. He was terrified as to what was happening to his body. His arms were wrapped tightly around my neck and his body was weak. So I lifted him up, cleaned him off and brought him to the sofa to rest. He laid there quietly for about fifteen minutes and then got up and began to laugh and play just like he used to do nearly a month ago. Oh, how we missed that boy!

I brought Tavin to the hospital to see my mom later, and on the way there we saw the most gorgeous sunset and I blurted out, “Thank You, Jesus!” A tiny voice echoed from behind me, “Thank you, Jeesis.” So I said it again, and he repeated me again. And then we prayed together in the car. Before bed he prayed again and started yelling out, “Jesus!” giggling like he used to do.

Although everything is back to normal and wonderful, Tavin has started to talk about the ghost again. In fact, on the way to the hospital he said he saw it. I suddenly remembered how he used to talk about it before, but these last few weeks he never mentioned it. He didn’t need to. It was tormenting him from the inside out.

Jesus told us we have the authority to cast out demons. I take Jesus at His Word. As believers, we have the very same “plug-in” that Christ had to God; the very same power and authority. Many of us don’t believe that, so we never plug into God the way we could and should. Thank God I did!

The God Hater Within

This is the crisis we’re in: God-light streamed into the world, but men and women everywhere ran for the darkness. They went for the darkness because they were not really interested in pleasing God. Everyone who makes a practice of doing evil, addicted to denial and illusions, hates God-light and won’t come near it, fearing a painful exposure.

I’d love to claim those words, but they are not my own. These were the words of Jesus in John 3:19-20 (The Message). The reason I wrote this scripture is because at one point in my life, I was that person…a hater of God-light. Basically, though, I was just a God hater, period!

What makes a person hate God the way so many do today? For one thing, it is an absolute lack of knowledge combined with the denial of a loving God filled with illusions of the worldly ways. I’m telling you straight-up, this scripture, translated in The Message bible, speaks reality like nobody’s business!

I feared for quite some time to tell my story publically. I don’t exactly know why, because years ago I spoke about in public schools. It was a part of who I had become because of the amazing things God did to change my mind about who He is.

Let me start at the beginning. I’ll take you back to an innocent little girl thrown into a world of religion but with a piercing desire to know Jesus. Being raised Catholic can nearly drown any hope of that ever happening. With nuns busting my butt constantly telling me how “evil” I was, I can’t tell you the number of times I was pushed aside in an empty hallway and told I was going to hell. As a seemingly ageless child, how could I know what I’d done so terribly wrong that I would already go to hell!?

You begin to ask yourself, “What’s the point then if I’m just going to hell anyway?” And so the destruction begins. The classic phrase fits like a glove: sex, drugs and rock n roll. Sure, on the outside it looks like so much fun, and no one can deny I had good times, but quite honestly, I knew for so long that something was missing and the emptiness always punched me in the face. But you want to believe another classic phrase, “I’m a good person, surely God will take that into account.” I mean, really, I wasn’t hurting anyone…until I was.

My past defines me. That doesn’t mean it’s who I am today, it just means it has molded my beliefs into a nicely wrapped package with meaning and motivation. What does that mean? Follow along…it’s going to get bad.

In 1987, when my first son, Josh, was only three years old I tried to commit suicide. The guy I was madly in love with dumped me for another woman. He was my first love, or so I thought. I was devastated and ached for him. My life seemed useless without him—or any other man for that matter. So I was tired of chasing a dream that seemed so surreal to me. I believed that love would never find me, because I wasn’t worthy of love. Oh, did I mention I was sexually molested when I was eleven? Yeah, that explains a lot.

So I downed a bottle of pills and as the world began to faze in and out, I called my ex-boyfriend and told him what I’d done hoping he’d care. He cared enough to come get me and take me to the ER. It was there that I discovered I was pregnant again. I felt my heart sink as I knew full well that the man standing next to me not only didn’t want me, but he surely didn’t want a baby with me. But he put on a brave face and said we’d “discuss” it.

After three days in a psych ward, my ex-boyfriend picked me up and we began a new life together. Only our new life wouldn’t include a baby, he made that perfectly clear. If I wanted him, I had to terminate the pregnancy.

We drove up to the abortion clinic early one rainy morning and he reluctantly walked me in. He dumped me off and told me he’d come back to get me when the procedure was over. We asked the nurse how long it would take, and he determined he’d be back by 11 AM.

While my baby was being sucked out of me and chopped to pieces—sorry, but that’s reality, like it or not!—my boyfriend was out partying and having a good time. While I laid all alone in a huge hall-like room filled with empty cots, crying and aching, and more than ever, feeling entirely empty, he was laughing and hooting and hollering.

When the time came for my release, I was brought out into the empty waiting room. No one was there waiting for me. So I sat in one of the sterile chairs, wishing I could be anywhere else, and waited. And waited. I watched the clock go from 11:00 to 12:00 to 1:00 to 2:00, until 2:15 he finally pounced in the door like Tigger from Winnie the Pooh, so happy and bouncy, bouncy, bouncy. The embarrassment and shame I felt was overwhelming, and when I asked where he was, I was yelled and screamed at and told not to badger him because he was going through a rough time with this. I could tell…

If ever I believed I was going to hell, I have to tell you, those hallway incidents with the nuns never convinced me; but this…well, this was different. I knew how God felt about abortion. That was not a secret; my fate was sealed. And my life spiraled out of control.

Within weeks from that experience, I was snorting as much cocaine as feasibly possible. I even had a moment when I felt I was overdosing. I didn’t care. I took the line in stride and tempted the devil to just take me and get it over with. But something supernatural took place that night. As I sat utterly paralyzed and stoned, unable to move but hating the place I was in—a drug house, mind you, I mean a real, nutty, drug dealer’s house—I felt lifeless and hopeless, when suddenly something pulled me up off that dingy brown sofa and took me home. I didn’t say goodbye, I didn’t even move my feet. I was just home.

You would think that experience would have had me on my knees, but it didn’t. It was, though, the beginning of God’s nudging, trying to tell me I was alright with Him. But I didn’t listen. I feared a “painful exposure.” The God I knew was angry and vengeful, and I knew if I went to Him I’d be doomed, so my best bet was to keep practicing evil.

The second abortion was the worse.

This was a man I believed I’d spend the rest of my life with. He was a good, decent guy who adored me and never mistreated me. I, on the other hand, treated him like dirt because I didn’t feel I deserved that kind of love.

It was a snowy morning, a blizzard to be exact. But we weren’t going to miss that appointment. The memories of the first abortion just numbed me, and after they called me back and had me wait in this beautiful old renovated warehouse loft, I found myself gazing out the window overlooking the Milwaukee River. Again, I was alone. This big room swallowed me whole, and I liked it.

I wish I hadn’t heard the suction sound of the machine ripping my baby out of me, but I did. And that’s a sound I’ll never forget, and the blankness in the eyes of the doctor and nurses. This time, I was welcomed out of my haze with a room full of crying women. Seven of them to be exact. The crying, moaning and groaning—the sounds of broken hearts!—sent me into a deep hole I knew I’d never be able to climb out of. But something happened in that moment of time. Every single one of us—all those sorry, remorseful women—grabbed our neighbor’s hand and cried together. Never in my life will I forget that moment. Never… I couldn’t tell you what was said, because the weeping and aching groans were too loud. We just…mourned the murder of our children together.

The world thinks a pregnancy is a choice—one that can be chose to keep or not. Yes, pregnancy is a choice. You choose to have sex or you choose not to. If you choose to have sex, you choose to get pregnant whether you like it or not. That’s the reality of sex, and that’s your only reality of it being a “choice.”

You can take all the precautions you want, but nothing—NOTHING—is 100% guaranteed. So by choosing sex, you choose to get pregnant. By choosing to get pregnant I believe you NO LONGER have a choice after that. You. Are. Pregnant. You are carrying a child. From the second of conception, that baby, that life, begins to form inside of you. It is a life, not a tissue—stop being addicted to denial and illusions—but a life.

When did murdering an innocent child ever become normal and considered a choice? I’d like to know how this epidemic of lies has been able to manipulate so many women to kill innocent children, like I had. Abortion is a lie. And if you believe it’s just a choice and just a tissue to get rid of like the flu, you are so incredibly delusional and insanely brainwashed. I bet if you have gone through it, the truth has smacked you around day and night and never lets you go. Some choice, right?

I began to hate God. I mean, full out HATE God. I considered myself an atheist—which is why I can relate to most atheists today. I’ve said it a million times: they believe in God, they just hate Him. Most atheists have a story to tell you. If you listen closely they will tell you about a hateful, vengeful, terrifying God. Well, that was the God I knew and hated, too.

Want to know something funny? While I was hating God with every fiber in my being…He was working in my life and loving me. He was carrying me through one destructive relationship after another. Sexual abuse. Mental abuse. Physical abuse. Promiscuity. Drugs. Alcohol. Self-inflicting hate! When you hate God, you almost always hate you, because YOU have a story to tell, don’t you?

My story is the story of two innocent lives I took as part of my womanly “right” to choice. They would haunt me forever and a day. I saw their face. I even had a dream once where the first one was a little girl in a pink dress with black curls, asking me quite matter of factly, “Why didn’t you want me, mommy?”

I slept with so many men it made my head spin. I was searching and aching. The other funny part of this story: I HATED SEX! I hated every single part of it. Why wouldn’t I? My first step-dad molested me, I had countless men use me for it, and three times I got pregnant, two of which I had to abort!

I hated intimacy. I hated being touched. I hated being treated kindly. I hated…God. I hated everything and everyone. My love for others was fake and superficial. I had no love in me to give! All I had was a body full of regrets, a memory full of murder, an earful of women crying, a nightmare of children badgering me, and a handful of nothingness.

An abortion is like ripping your mind out. You might as well while you’re at it, because you’ll never in your life get over it. Never. Unless, of course, you’re heartless. Because even the most hateful of us still had a heart. Barely beating, mind you, but nonetheless, it was there, and I hated that too!

I hated God because I felt He was to blame for everything. The choices my mother made, the choices I made, the abortions, the revolving door of sex mates, and the lack of love in my life. Through it all, every night when I closed my eyes I heard a still small voice say, “I love you, Tristine.” I would always say, “I love you, too,” never knowing who I was telling it to. I just assumed it was my hopeful desires of the man of my dreams rescuing me. Little did I know…it was.

It was the abortions that kept me from wanting anything to do with God. I was ashamed. I was terrified of hell, but knew I would end up there. According to the Catholic religion, my fate was sealed by the first one, the second one merely provided me a special place in hell.

Let me tell you something: God is good. So good. So incredibly…good.

When I had people witness to me, I never confessed my sins of the abortions. I just resisted believing there was a place in heaven for a murderer like me. I was doomed for eternity, so the God-talk was useless on me.

And then one day, this amazing young woman came into work and told me about her mother who was a $100 day junky and cohort with Jimi Hendrix. She then proceeded to tell me what Jesus did to save her from that life. Well, I’m not going to lie…it was the Jimi Hendrix story that lured me in.

I didn’t tell her about my abortions. I was too ashamed. One night she invited me to her house to meet her family and I was overwhelmed with a sense of love—something I had never felt in my entire life. After dinner we went for a drive and when we pulled back into the driveway she asked me what was holding me back from asking Jesus into my life.

The night was so beautiful, with a clear dark sky, full of countless stars twinkling over us. I remember thinking it was a gorgeous night and I was going to ruin it with my guilt and shame. I just stared out the passenger window and let out a small moan. “God will never forgive me because I did the unthinkable. Something that can’t be forgiven.” She was intrigued, and rightfully so, considering there’s NOTHING too big for Jesus, but I didn’t know that then. I had no clue!

I felt my heart racing as the words fell out of my mouth as if someone had bust my lip. It was oozing with pain and blood. And the reaction I got was surprising. She laughed at me. Not in a mocking way, but in a pure, innocence, acknowledging way. “Is that it?” she asked. “What do you mean, ‘Is that it!?’” She then told me her mother had an abortion, two to be exact, and if God healed her mother, He would surely heal me, too.

Anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending His Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again.

Again, I’d love to claim those words, but they are once again the words of Jesus. John 3:17. The verse before that is one you’re probably familiar with: For God so loved the world that He gave his only Son. So no one need be destroyed.

No one. Not even the God haters. Especially the God haters. Because we are the ones who know a version of Him, a version that condemns us constantly. It is a lie that the world is telling them. A lie that is easy to grab onto. A lie that is far too easy to believe.

The God haters need Jesus the most. Not because they are so far gone, but because they desperately desire to know the Real Deal. You know why I know that? Because as a previous God hater, I screamed at God constantly and asked the same questions atheists ask day after day. Why, God, why…

The answer to that question is simple. Go back to the top and reread that scripture.

God Haters and Haters for God

I’ve been watching a lot things going on in the world that are so incredibly ridiculous, particularly concerning the atheist groups. They are fighting such enormous, costly fights to tear down Christianity…and no other religious group.

Here’s just a sample of things they are fighting in our court systems, wasting YOUR tax dollars:

• elimination of white crosses on the side of roads or highways where someone was killed in an accident
• demanding that the metal “cross” that was left standing from the World Trade Center not be a part of the 9/11 Memorial Museum
• making it so children can be suspended from school for praying anywhere on school grounds
• forcing rural neighborhoods to remove pro-life billboards, and in place display pro-choice, anti-Christian billboards
• trying to prevent city funding for a pre-school being built at an old church

When you see these types of things, it makes you wonder why anyone who doesn’t “believe” in God would go to such lengths to stop Him, doesn’t it?

Let’s break it down in simple truths: an atheist is defined as someone who doesn’t believe there is a God at all; while an agnostic is someone who feels there just isn’t enough evidence to support or not support God.

Now if it were me, as an atheist, why would I feel so offended by crosses, prayer, or billboards? I mean, truly, if I believe God isn’t real, then why am I so obsessed with Him and what His believers are doing? I don’t believe in atheism, but I don’t run around and demand every single thing in the world that DOESN’T pertain to God be taken off the air, taken out of the schools, or taken anywhere out of the site of the rest of the world.

See, the world already abides to an atheist world. Everything on TV, on the radio, in the news, in our schools, along the road…they have nothing to do with God or Jesus. In fact, watch a Joyce Meyer or Joel Osteen broadcast on a local television station. The first thing you will see is an announcement that the channel will not be held responsible for the content of the show, nor do they “agree” with the content. Every time I see it, I can’t help but laugh. These shows encourage people, give people hope, and provide practical life applications to be a better person. They share joy, love and peace. Isn’t that what the “secular” world claims they want? Isn’t that what they scream and yell for all the time? Yet when they see it, or hear it, they want NOTHING to do with it! They run from it. They fight it. They denounce it.

On the other hand, when these TV stations broadcast shows with brutality, sex, homosexual relationships, murder, blood and gore, no one is giving you a warning before hand that the station disagrees with its content. You’ll receive no notice whatsoever that they won’t be held responsible if your children are watching and could pick up on these destructive behaviors. But we should be “warned” about God’s love. Ohhh, scary!

With that being said, I firmly believe that atheists are believers in God, they just hate Him. Their behaviors indicate nothing less than that. They are not anti-Muslim. In fact, the atheists are the first ones outside with  picket signs in FAVOR of a mosque being built near the site of 9/11, yelling, “Freedom of religion! Freedom of religion!” Come on, you gotta laugh at these jokesters.

They will fight for any other religious right but the rights of Christians. Those are the ones they will fight against. Why? Because there is POWER in Christ! They fear the absolute power of Jesus. They don’t need to fear dead gods, they have no power. And they surely don’t fear the extremists, because in their eyes if they kill thousands of people, that’s okay, because at least they’re not spreading the gospel and giving people hope of eternal salvation and happiness.

These are the people who are taking your religious freedoms away. God haters. Lovers of false gods, and haters of anything that offers hope. Anything good, they hate. Anything hopeful, they see as destructive. Anything pure, they see as tainted. And as you can see from my list above, they are not going to back down. And they don’t need to, because the world listens to that. The media buys it. The media coddles it. The media abides by it, too.

Now I’m not saying that there aren’t many Christian nut jobs out there that make atheists look like Candy Stripers, because there are plenty of those, too. They are the ones who denounce Mormons as Christians, or say Baptists are going to hell, or Catholics worship Satan. The bad part about these people is that they are fighting their own brothers and sisters. They are coming against their own people.

When I lived down South, I started a lunchtime Christian bible group at my job. I asked anyone who believed in Jesus to join us. We had Baptists, Evangelicals, Presbyterians, and a Lutheran. One day, after our group met, a woman from my church said, “It’s just too bad most of them are so misguided. We really need to get them to come to our church.”

When I first got saved, I thought anyone of any particular “religious” label, specifically Catholic, was going straight to hell and they needed to be warned and saved. My grandfather was a practicing Catholic his whole life. After I got saved, I came to see my grandfather and told Him about Jesus—as if he didn’t already know. I was utterly convinced he was going to hell. And then one night as I was out in the living room, sitting in the chair praying, I was able to see into my grandfather’s bedroom. What I saw changed my life.

My very old, stroke-stricken grandfather was on his (bad, aching, nearly paralyzed) knees praying. He did it first thing in the morning, after lunch, and before bed. I realized that my grandfather was more faithful in prayer than I was—the born again Christian.

He used to tell me all the time how much he prayed for me and my son. I thought with him being a Catholic, those prayers were being sent to deaf ears. That faith, that style of believing and worshipping isn’t my cup of tea. But that surely doesn’t make it Satanic or sinful. They practice things differently. Maybe not even entirely scripturally, but if their foundation is set on Christ, then I have no right to say they are wrong and I’m right. Mormons, too, believe in Christ. Everyone thinks they worship Joseph Smith, but they believe he was a prophet, not Christ Himself. Do they practice rituals and sermons I don’t agree with? Absolutely! But I don’t think they are any less believers in Christ because of it. Some religions are misguided in their practice, or rules and regulations. But ask them who their Savior is, and they will proudly tell you, “Jesus!”

We, as Christians, need to get over ourselves, too. We need to let God deal with people, otherwise, we end up looking just as ignorant as atheists. Instead of being a God Hater, we end up being a Hater for God. You are not right. They are not right. But God is! And my relationship with God is not the same as yours. God calls me to worship with my hands high in the air, but God may ask you to be reverent and solemn. God asks me to speak out loud to Him as if He’s in the room, but He may ask you to quietly tell Him your needs from your heart. God may ask me to give $20 to an organization, but He may ask you to give $100. He knows our individual needs. But He also demands that we love others, even those who don’t do what you do. If you don’t believe the same way as someone, respect them and move on. I don’t believe in Muhammad, but I’m not going to scream and yell at Muslims at how misguided they are. I will pray for them instead.

We shouldn’t rebuke someone based on their faith, but rather their sin, if obviously unscriptural (adultery, abuse, drinking excessively, etc.). The religion or religious rituals they practice aren’t sinful. The way I worship may seem to others as cultish. I know many of my family members thought I got brainwashed into a cult when I got saved, because the world doesn’t understand it. Non-believers will never understand our passion for Jesus and the pure joy we receive from His grace and mercy. They will think we are ridiculous, until the day comes when they, too, receive His forgiveness and salvation. Then it will all make sense. Then they, too, will shout from the rooftops and endlessly rejoice in Him.

We need to find a middle ground where we can all live together. Where I can openly express my faith, and the atheists can openly express theirs. We don’t need to fight each other…unless we do.

When we find ourselves victims of censorship based on Christ, we need to stand up and stand against it. We need to tell the world that we are not going to be silenced just because it doesn’t fit into their agenda of sin and hate. Jesus stood up to the Pharisees. He called them out, and so should we.