The law of non-contradiction always seems to emerge. The minute you try to disprove it, you use it because of your belief that you are right and the other is wrong. It is strange that those who use the law of non-contradiction to disprove what they don’t like or understand have many contradictions in their lives. You can’t have free love and have a secure marriage, you cannot keep punctuating things with “and.” In efforts to find himself, man’s desires have him contradicting himself. -Ravi Zacharias (paraphrase)
It is interesting how in law, science, philosophy, and in so many other fields, one must be careful as to what one uses as evidence. A lot of what is used as evidence is built on assumptions that if absent, all falls apart.
Too often, we want to find what supports what we want to be true, but we forget that truth is truth regardless of our desires. We can’t have it all. Some things won’t be reconciled; they aren’t meant to hold hands.
Reading through the Old Testament has been such a treat. I am only in the book of Deuteronomy (still sticking to my 90-day challenge), and truly, it’s amazing how the Bible is a fountain in which one can find new things and learn, no matter how many times you have read certain passages. Studying intensely has been such a blessing. It’s great to see how God manifested His glory and was in control, time and time again. It brings us encouragement as we face our problems and struggles, today. We see that our struggles are not something God has not faced before, but that He is waiting for us to recognize Him as God, so He can demonstrate that “He alone is God,” as Doctor Tony Evans likes to say. “Your situation may be different, but your God is not; you serve the same God,” Dr. Tony Evans said in a message I recently heard.
Dr. Evans said, if you are in a financial crisis, see the widow who was down to her last meal, and see how God provided for her. If you need to know where to go, see Moses who was between Pharaoh and the Red Sea, and God opened a road that no one could have predicted. Dr. Evans insists that our problems, issues and insecurities are not a test case for God, instead we should look to the Bible which is full of testimony. When our problems look like Old Testament problems, look to see how God intervened when people called on His name.
I have had many prayers answered recently; for that I am so grateful. There is still a lot on my heart, and I know others are in the same situation. We wait on God in faith. God has placed people in my path who have spoken words I really needed to hear. Through the wait, God prepares our hearts.
Whatever you are going through, remember that God has the final say.
Here is some inspiration for today:
“Retreat to what you know about God. Never let your feelings sit in judgment over your faith.” Dr. Tony Evans
“I want to be a woman who overcomes obstacles by tackling them in faith instead of tiptoeing around them in fear.” Renee Swope
It is not until we are in spiritual and philosophical bankruptcy that we find God. When God wrestled with Jacob, Jacob told Him that he will not let go of Him until He blessed him. God asked him, “Who are you?” And finally, Jacob spoke truth and said, “I am Jacob.” His name means deceiver and cheat. It wasn’t until Jacob acknowledged who he was, that God told him that He would bless him and change his name. [Paraphrase from Ravi Zacharias]
“And stop asking why do bad things happen to good people, don’t do that. You should be asking, ‘Why does God give sinners grace?’ God’s plan is perfect. Isaiah 55:8-9 says it clearly, My ways are not your ways; my thoughts are not your thoughts. As far as the heaven is from the earth, that is how much differently I think than you. Stop trying to be God, and just trust God.” Jeremy Anderson
“Man is not at peace with his fellow man because he is not at peace with himself, and he is not at peace with himself because he is not at peace with God.” Thomas Merton
“Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love Him, and keep His commandments to a thousand generations.” Deuteronomy 7:9
“You shall not fear them, for it is the Lord your God who fights for you.” Deuteronomy 3:22
“You will seek the Lord your God and you will find Him, if you search after Him with all your heart and with all your soul.” Deuteronomy 4:29
[Based on A Crisis that Cries for Revival by Dr. Tony Evans/ Image from Tumblr]
«Ce mec est l’une des plus belles personnes que je connaisse. Quelqu’un de profondément gentil. On a vécu des choses qui nous permettent de savoir qui nous sommes vraiment. C’est un ami avec un grand A». Leila Bekhti
“God is not man, that He should lie, or a son of man, that He should change His mind. Has He said, and will not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not fulfill it?” Numbers 23:19
“What is something married couples and families do not have as much of, compared to college students?” asked my professor.
“Friends,” said the kid in front of me.
The class whispered some giggles.
I started out the day in Family Law. Apparently, being a law student is like working for the postal service; rain, sleet, sunshine–you are there in the grind. The glassy walls had us, the class, distracted as we watched how with every passing minute the city turned white. The snow has been falling nonstop since then. Our professor ended the class with a question, “How does one get syphilis?” Silence. Everyone looked out of the window walls at the snow hurricane outside, beckoning us to make our escape from the school. The professor replied, “I guess you need a day and a blizzard to think about it?”
*Students exited quickly*
There is a blizzard outside. The wind is howling. Long lines formed at stores today as people scrambled for water and non-perishable food. Snow has been coming down on us as if it’s being dumped. So, we have stocked up for the apocalypse, and now, we wait. A strange feeling of boredom and apathy seems to take over us when the weather is so perfect for sleeping and blankets. Hurricane Sandy flashbacks, anyone?
I am taking a break from my case reading for some frosty inspiration; a few of my favorite things.
1] Zidane, this man can melt away anything.
2] Are we ever “ready”?
“Great people do things before they’re ready. They do things before they know they can do them. Doing what you’re afraid of, getting out of your comfort zone, taking risks like that–that’s what life is.” Amy Poehler
3]
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“Just by observing Jesus’s inner circle of friends, we see […] Jesus did not simply invite people who understood who he was. When he invited people to follow him, many began a journey that would slowly reveal how little they actually knew about him and who God really was.” Nathan Betts
5] What a pretty package.
6] Always look up because that is where it all is.
“Have you noticed how nobody ever looks up? Nobody looks at chimneys or trees against the sky, or the tops of buildings. Everybody just looks down at the pavement or their shoes. The whole world could pass them by and most people wouldn’t notice.” Julie Andrews Edwards
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“Believe it is possible to solve your problem. Tremendous things happen to the believer. So believe the answer will come. It will.” Norman Vincent Peale
10] Juicing withdraws.
11]
“Don’t waste sunsets with people who will be gone by sunrise.”
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“If you want to get warm, you must stand near the fire: if you want to be wet, you must get into the water. If you want joy, power, peace, eternal life, you must get close to, or even into, the thing that has them.” C.S. Lewis
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“The strongest people aren’t always the people who win, but the people who don’t give up when they lose.” Ashley Hodgeson
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“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.” Albert Camus
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[Boulevard des Capucines, Claude Monet, 1873]
20]
“To a great mind, nothing is little.” Sherlock Holmes
She is an amazing colleague and an even more fantastic friend. Wishing you many blessings.
We have been following in each other’s footsteps for a while, and we finally crossed paths. We were meant to be friends! Someday, we will own that apartment in TriBeCa. 😉
Something tells me time is going to simply evaporate in these next few weeks. It’s time to embrace every moment and savor the details and slow ticking of the clock. It is a beautiful time, a strange time, a difficult time, an emotional time, an uncertain time–it’s time.
I hope that this week you find joy, peace and clarity. I hope your faith grows, and I hope that we can spend less time looking down at others or at our situations and that we may find the time to look up. Find healing; find love; find every blessing placed before you.
Currently, we are waiting for a blizzard in NYC. Pray for us.
Yours truly.
“Endure, my heart; you’ve endured a worse thing even than this.”
Homer, The Odyssey
“As long as I daily make the choice to be guided by His truth, He replaces my hollowness with a wholeness of love that has no gape.”
Lysa TerKeurst
“There are flowers everywhere, for those who bother to look.”
Henri Matisse
“Truth is ever to be found in the simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things.”
Isaac Newton
“God doesn’t respond because someone opens up some new insight for Him. No. In persistent, fervent prayer, God prepares the soil of one’s heart to make room for the seed of His answer, from which will flower an alignment with His will. ”
Ravi Zacharias
“Even when we feel that God is silent, we can be confident that He is working and orchestrating all things, with exact precision, for His glory and our holiness.”
Jen Thorn
“If Christianity is just about purely feeling God’s presence, then it has no moral quality whatsoever. Like, what is it about having and receiving affection for and from a human friend so amazing? It is the knowledge that we have of their character. We know our friends and enjoy them. We cannot and will not enjoy God’s presence until we know His character. Christianity is knowing God through Christ, and then enjoying His redemptive presence in our lives.”
Unknown
“Start being brave about everything. Drive out darkness and spread light. Don’t look at your weaknesses. Realize instead that in Christ crucified you can do everything.”
St. Catherine of Siena
“It seems very safe to me to be surrounded by growing green things and water.”
Barbara Kingsolver
“When there is a fight between your heart and your head, experience has taught me that the best thing you can do is pick up your Bible and remind yourself of what God says.”
Christine Caine
“I find a gentle but ferocious strength in being vulnerable. Honesty turns shame into light.”
Erin Brown
“You are waiting on God, but He is waiting on your faith.”
This movie came out 13 years ago (1/25/2002), and it is still one of my favorites.
By: Gabriela Yareliz
This is a tribute to my favorite Nicholas Spark’s book and film, A Walk to Remember. He has written and scripted so many of his books into movies. I am not a fan of all of his stories, however, my favorite is and forever will be A Walk to Remember, based on Nicholas Sparks’s sister’s life. She was a very Godly young woman who died young because of her illness, but she changed people powerfully during her life, like Jamie Sullivan, the protagonist of the movie and book. So, here is a little tribute to the best Nicholas Sparks love story–one that actually happened. It is a walk that never ceases to inspire me, and a walk I haven’t forgotten.
“She was, in other words, the kind of girl who made the rest of us look bad, and whenever she glanced my way, I couldn’t help but feel guilty, even though I hadn’t done anything wrong.” ― Nicholas Sparks, A Walk to Remember
“You’re a wonderful person, Jamie. You’re beautiful, you’re kind, you’re gentle…you’re everything that I’d like to be. If people don’t like you, or they think you’re strange, then that’s their problem.” ― Nicholas Sparks, A Walk to Remember
“I hadn’t done any of the things that I normally did with girls, yet somehow I’d fallen in love.” ― Nicholas Sparks, A Walk to Remember
“I don’t think that we’re meant to understand it all the time. I think that sometimes we just have to have faith.” ― Nicholas Sparks, A Walk to Remember
“It was, I remembered thinking, the most difficult walk anyone ever had to make. In every way, a walk to remember.” ― Nicholas Sparks, A Walk to Remember
“But this is okay. I smile slightly, looking toward
the sky, knowing
there’s one thing I still haven’t told you: I now believe,
by the way, that
miracles can happen.”
― Nicholas Sparks, A Walk to Remember
Does not wisdom call? Does not understanding raise her voice? On the heights beside the way, at the crossroads she takes her stand; beside the gates in front of the town, at the entrance of the portals she cries aloud: “To you, O men, I call, and my cry is to the children of man. O simple ones, learn prudence; O fools, learn sense. Hear, for I will speak noble things, and from my lips will come what is right, for my mouth will utter truth; wickedness is an abomination to my lips. All the words of my mouth are righteous; there is nothing twisted or crooked in them. They are all straight to him who understands, and right to those who find knowledge.
Take my instruction instead of silver, and knowledge rather than choice gold, for wisdom is better than jewels, and all that you may desire cannot compare with her.
“I, wisdom, dwell with prudence, and I find knowledge and discretion. The fear of the Lord is hatred of evil. Pride and arrogance and the way of evil and perverted speech I hate. I have counsel and sound wisdom; I have insight; I have strength. By me kings reign, and rulers decree what is just; by me princes rule, and nobles, all who govern justly.
I Iove those who love me, and those who seek me diligently find me.
Riches and honor are with me, enduring wealth and righteousness. My fruit is better than gold, even fine gold, and my yield than choice silver. I walk in the way of righteousness, in the paths of justice, granting an inheritance to those who love me, and filling their treasuries.
GABRIELA YARELIZ 