The God of peace will be with you.

Picture of the Day: 

The lovely CIA at our Family Vacation retreat!

Quote of the Day: 

"Go forth a conqueror and win great victories."

-Virgil

Hello, my dearest readers! I regret to say that life has gotten in the way of me keeping up with my blog, but no matter! I shall once more begin to diligently and regularly begin to update this page. It has, might I say, been far too long!

Naturally, with time passing as it has, I have some news to share. Soon, I am to graduate from my university with a degree in English Literature. Last weekend, on January the 14th, at 1:30AM, I was baptized for a "second" time; I had been wrestling with it for a while, but finally decided that I chose to get baptized for the wrong reasons when I was younger, and it was finally time for me to really give my life over. Life has never been better.

I have picked up writing again, having joined a writer's circle with some friends. We meet every other week, and it is spurring me to plow through my apparent writer's block. I have not, as of yet, put much more work into my novels. But such things will come. 

Today, I would like to do an entry on something I read. Please, if you will, take a look at the passage below.

⁴ Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! ⁵ Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. ⁶ Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. ⁷ And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

 ⁸ Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. ⁹ Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.

Philippians 4:4-9 

This block of scripture has been a blessing to me in the past twenty four hours, and I would like to share the blessing with you too. You see, my dog had a seizure last night. I have never been so terrified in my life, of anything. It just kept going on and lasting, and Samwise couldn't breathe, walk, and barely stand. It was horrendous. I panicked, and a huge vet bill later, I am now picking him up tonight after class to, hopefully, be okay.

Guys, if God had not been with me every step of the way, I would have died from fear and anxiety. Last night I had trouble sleeping because I was so worried. I had nightmares I would never be able to bring him home, and every time my phone went off to say I got a text, my heart stopped thinking it was a call from the vet to say they had lost my baby. It was, in essence, no way to live.

The kicker? I don't have to live like that.


God loves me. God will be there for me, and as Philippians 4:9 says, he is the God of peace. I should no longer focus on what happened, or what could have as I am so prone to worry over and drown in. Instead, I should turn my eyes to the brighter things in life and remember that God has granted me so many blessings that this small misfortune (and it is indeed small, for Samwise was perfectly fine after the seizure thing) counts as nothing against my gain.

It is true that my walk with God is just beginning now, but I pray to Him that I will not let something like this ever slow me down again. Instead of praying being my second instinct to panicking, I hope it comes to be my first.

I have the God of Peace with me.