I wrote this blog entry originally for my husband's blog as a ghost writer. He asked me to do this because I have on occasional, after much prayer, been given words to write out a Bible story into fiction from my point of view. I thought with this being Christmas Eve it might be nice just to use this as my blog for all of you who have not seen it on my husband's blog.
I pray that everyone has a very Merry Christmas and remembers the true reason for this blessed day. Christmas is the day that our heavenly father chose to come to earth as a precious baby in order to save us from the world of sin. He loved us so much that he sent his son to us. Thank you dear Father for saving the world.
March 12th
I cannot believe this is happening. Today while doing my daily chores the angel Gabriel came to visit me. He tells me that I have found favor in the eyes of God and that I am going to give birth to a child. Me a lowly Jewish girl has found favor with God and how I am going to have a child when I have never been intimate with a man. Gabriel then tells me that the Holy Spirit is going to come over me and I will be with child. This child is going to be God’s Son and he will save men from their sin. I just can’t believe this is happening but then again if Gabriel says it is from God then okay. I will follow this path and trust God with all my being knowing that this is His plan for my life. I am really worried though what my parents are going to say. Can you imagine what they are going to say? They are going to think I am crazy when I tell them that I am going to have a child and the child is going to be God’s Son and that I have not just gone out and had relations with a man. I am afraid they are going to disown me because I am a disgrace to the family. To top it off by law Joseph, the man I am betrothed to, has every right to have me killed.
April 25th
Joseph came over this morning. I was sure he was going to break off our engagement but that is not what happened. He told me that an angel appeared to him while he was sleeping last night and told him that I was indeed pregnant by the Holy Spirit and that I was going to have God’s Son. He was to take me as his wife. Also the angel told him that we were to name the baby Jesus and that he was coming to save the world from sin. Can you believe he is still going to marry me? I am so excited. I was so sure that he was going to break the marriage off.
December 15th
It has been almost 9 months since the angel visited. Joseph and I have been preparing to bring this precious child into the world. We are getting ready to travel to Bethlehem because Caesar Augustus has ordered a census be done. This means that we must go to the town of Bethlehem because Joseph is from the House of David and that is where he must report for the census. It is such a long way to travel and I must ride on a donkey in order to get there.
December 24th
The ride of the donkey was almost unbearable. I was so uncomfortable but I knew I could make it. Joseph was so patient with me. He stopped often to let me off the donkey and rest. He did everything he could to keep me comfortable. When we arrived in Bethlehem it was extremely late. The town was crowded with people. We tried every inn in the town and no one had room for us. I thought for sure a family member would have room for Joseph and myself but unfortunately all the rooms were taken. We finally found a stable to sleep in for the night. We were warmed by the hay and comfortable by the sounds of the farm animals in the stable.
I cannot believe the timing of this. I am in labor and here we are staying in a stable. I am by myself with Joseph and there is not a single woman around to help me. I don’t have a clue what I am doing. “Oh Lord help me deliver this child on my own. He is your son and I am so scared.”
December 25th
I made it through the delivery. As I sit and cradle this precious life in my arms I am filled with an overwhelming amount of love for him. It is like nothing I have ever felt in my life. He has such tiny hands and feet and he is ticklish on his feet. I am in awe that God would allow me to raise his precious son, the son who was sent here to save the world from sin. Whatever that is going to mean I don’t know, but if God says he is going to do it then he will. “Lord as I sit and hold your precious son I only ask that you guide me in raising him into the man you want him to be. A man to save the world from sin.”
I hope everyone enjoyed this.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Last night for our date night we went to see The Blind Side. It is a movie based on the true story of Michael Ohr, a left tackle for Baltimore Ravens.
Michael's life story starts out very sad. Michael's mother was a drug addict living in the projects of Memphis. She had multiple children, child protective services estimates 11, all from different fathers and most of whom she has know idea who their father is. When Michael was a young child, CPS came a took him away and placed him in foster care, but Michael never stayed long. Most times he would run away and end up back at his mother's place in the projects and was there to protect her. The movie opens with a friend taking Michael and another young man to a private Christian school in order for them to have an education but most importantly to this friend the opportunity to play sports. Michael and his friend are accepted into this school after much persuasion especially for Michael's part because there are barely in school records on him and know one knows his true age. What records there are from any school he ever attended are horendous in regards to academics. His GPA is 0.6, yes 0.6!! His IQ is 80. But with quite a bit of persuasion the board of trustees permits Michael to attend the private school with the understanding that his grades must improve before he is ever allowed to play sports.
So now Michael is attending a school, has a bed to sleep in but his life will take another tragic turn. The man he was living with, kicks him out of the house because his wife doesn't want to take care of him and doesn't care that this young man needs someone. So Michael does all that he knows to do he lives on the streets. Surprisingly he continues to go to school. He sleeps in the gynasium at night when it is cold. He scrounges for leftover popcorn and drinks in the gym after events. He goes to the laundry mat and washes the only other short he has in the sink and then lets it dry.
In school most the teaches are frustrated with the board of trustees because they allowed a kid like Michael, who they think, is dumb and has no interest in learning the opportunity to come to their school. Now I failed to mention this school is an ALL WHITE Christian school. Now this story did not take place in the 50's or 60's this was in 2003-2004. But one teacher, his biology teacher, realizes that Michael isn't as dumb as they all think he is. She finds a writing that he has done in the trash and realizes he is struggling with being the only black person in this school. She also decides at one point to give him an oral test in her biology class instead of having him write the answers. Lo and behold he knows everything that is being taught. He passes this test with a C. This biology teacher then tells the other teachers what she has discovered and some of them take her advice and start testing Michael the same way and his grades slowly improve. Now they are not A's but at least he is getting C's and D's.
Now this private school had all grades at it and there was a young kid, approximately 4th -5th grade who befriended Michael and his name was S.J. Most kids were afraid of Michael, but Michael was a huge, and I mean huge, guy who never spoke to anyone and never smiled, but S.J. liked him and trusted him. One night after S.J. and his family left the school from a Thanksgiving play he was in, they say Michael walking on the side of the road in freezing rain. The family stopped the car and Leanne Tulloy got out of the car and asked Michael where he was going and where he lived. Now of course Michael had no where to go. She took Michael home that evening and this started a chain of events that would change Michael's life forever.
The Tulloy's took Michael in and treated him as family. A complete stranger, a BLACK complete stranger. They trusted him and they loved him something that Michael never had. Michael was provided shelter, food, and clothing by a prominent WHITE family in Memphis, Tennessee. The williningly and sacrificially opened their door and loved this lonely young man. They provided Michael with a bed, which he had never had to sleep on, as most of his life he slept on the streets or on the couch.
Eventually Michael comes to Leanne and asks if she will help him get a driver's license. So she takes him down but because Michael has been in and out of foster care all his life know one truly knows what his real name is, so the only way they can get him a license is to become his legal guardian. Leanne goes down to Child Services to find out what she needs to do to become his guardian. Well Child Services tells her all she has to do is fill out the form and have a judge sign off on it. They tell her that his mother does not even have to sign the form. Well that didn't sit well with Leanne. So she tracks down Michael's mother and she learns so much more about Michael but the mother is grateful for the Tulloy's to become his guardians. She doesn't even want to see her son. So they become his legal guardians. In the meantime Leanne learns from school records that Michael has tested low all all levels of personality and skills except for protection which he scores in the 98th percentile. This will come into play a little later in the year. He at one point saves S.J.'s life by blocking the airbag in his new truck from hitting the little guy, which had it hit him it would have killed him.
Now it is the spring semester and Michael's grades are good enough for him to try out for football. He has never in his life played football but he is a huge guy and they are all excited because they believe he will be an excellent player. Through it all they train him and help him to become a fantastic football player. You will just have to watch the movie to see what I mean, but I will say that this is where his protective instincts kick in again.
Michael will over the course of the year have a tutor and the teachers will continue to help him in all the ways he needs in order to graduate from high school with a grade point average of 2.52. He will obtain a full scholarship to Ole' Miss University where he will then be drafted in 2009 to play for the Baltimore Ravens.
Now I woke up this morning with this movie still on my mind thinking how tragic Michael's life started but how wonderful it turned out to be. God had a plan for this young man a plan to prosper him, a plan that directed his path to enable this man to shine with God's mercy, glory, and love. If you look back at Michael's life it is amazing that he is even alive. Most young children who have the life that Michael did end up in gang's, drinking, doing drugs, stealing and even in jail or dead, but Michael didn't. In the movie towards the end Leanne asks Michael why he didn't end up like the other kids he was around on the streets and he tells her that when he was little when his mother got ready to do her drugs or whatever it was that was bad she would have Michael close his eyes until she was finished. Then once she was finished she would tell him to open his eyes and that everything was wonderful and fine and no bad things would happen. So essentially Michael chose to shut his eyes to the things going on around him. God used that lesson his mother taught him to protect him from the horrors of the street.
As I left that movie I was brought to tears, not because of Michael's life but because I was asking myself if God placed a kid like Michael in my life would I be willing to take the actions the Tulloy's did in order to help him and show him love. I honestly don't know if I would do it. I honestly don't know if I could open my heart to that and not judge the child, even though he never did anything wrong. Then this morning I was awakened by the Lord with this thought. Michelle look at your life. "Look at what you went through growing up. Yes your mother was not a drug addict and you did not live on the streets but you were abused and molested as a child. You were a promiscuous lost teenager who drank and smoked and you were on the road to disaster and I, God, stepped in your path and directed you where I wanted you to go. I directed you to a young man and his family who loved you know matter what you had done. I loved you even though you had a child out of wedlock and I forgave you. Your life could have very easily been over by now but I saved you just as I saved Michael. I had a plan for you and I directed you exactly where I wanted you to go and I am still directing you where I want you to go." I know now that if God placed a young child in my life like Michael I could and I would help them as much as He enabled me to because God would be using me to save that child's life and using me to show HIS Glory and love.
Sometimes as I look back at my life I wonder why God allowed so much of it to happen. WHY!!!??? But it had to happen in order to make me into the person that He has made me. It had to happen to get me to this path. It has made me a stronger person. It has made me learn to depend on Him and Him alone for my needs and my love. Yes love. He loves me no matter all the crap I did and no matter all the crap I mess up with now. And it also reminds me that I STILL need him even in my life now. How blessed I am to have a Father in Heaven who loves me so much, to straighten my life and give me all the wonderful blessings I have so far in my life and the blessings I know that will come. I may not be rich with material things, there may be things that I think I need in order to be happy, I may not be skinny and fit, I may only have one child, but I have all that God feels I need and I am going to learn to be content with that. He will fill those holes for me when He feels I need them filled and only then. Thank you Father for loving me and sacrificing you Son for me so that my sins are forgiven. Your love amazing me so much.
Well I better stop writing I think I am scaring my husband because I never write this much.
Michael's life story starts out very sad. Michael's mother was a drug addict living in the projects of Memphis. She had multiple children, child protective services estimates 11, all from different fathers and most of whom she has know idea who their father is. When Michael was a young child, CPS came a took him away and placed him in foster care, but Michael never stayed long. Most times he would run away and end up back at his mother's place in the projects and was there to protect her. The movie opens with a friend taking Michael and another young man to a private Christian school in order for them to have an education but most importantly to this friend the opportunity to play sports. Michael and his friend are accepted into this school after much persuasion especially for Michael's part because there are barely in school records on him and know one knows his true age. What records there are from any school he ever attended are horendous in regards to academics. His GPA is 0.6, yes 0.6!! His IQ is 80. But with quite a bit of persuasion the board of trustees permits Michael to attend the private school with the understanding that his grades must improve before he is ever allowed to play sports.
So now Michael is attending a school, has a bed to sleep in but his life will take another tragic turn. The man he was living with, kicks him out of the house because his wife doesn't want to take care of him and doesn't care that this young man needs someone. So Michael does all that he knows to do he lives on the streets. Surprisingly he continues to go to school. He sleeps in the gynasium at night when it is cold. He scrounges for leftover popcorn and drinks in the gym after events. He goes to the laundry mat and washes the only other short he has in the sink and then lets it dry.
In school most the teaches are frustrated with the board of trustees because they allowed a kid like Michael, who they think, is dumb and has no interest in learning the opportunity to come to their school. Now I failed to mention this school is an ALL WHITE Christian school. Now this story did not take place in the 50's or 60's this was in 2003-2004. But one teacher, his biology teacher, realizes that Michael isn't as dumb as they all think he is. She finds a writing that he has done in the trash and realizes he is struggling with being the only black person in this school. She also decides at one point to give him an oral test in her biology class instead of having him write the answers. Lo and behold he knows everything that is being taught. He passes this test with a C. This biology teacher then tells the other teachers what she has discovered and some of them take her advice and start testing Michael the same way and his grades slowly improve. Now they are not A's but at least he is getting C's and D's.
Now this private school had all grades at it and there was a young kid, approximately 4th -5th grade who befriended Michael and his name was S.J. Most kids were afraid of Michael, but Michael was a huge, and I mean huge, guy who never spoke to anyone and never smiled, but S.J. liked him and trusted him. One night after S.J. and his family left the school from a Thanksgiving play he was in, they say Michael walking on the side of the road in freezing rain. The family stopped the car and Leanne Tulloy got out of the car and asked Michael where he was going and where he lived. Now of course Michael had no where to go. She took Michael home that evening and this started a chain of events that would change Michael's life forever.
The Tulloy's took Michael in and treated him as family. A complete stranger, a BLACK complete stranger. They trusted him and they loved him something that Michael never had. Michael was provided shelter, food, and clothing by a prominent WHITE family in Memphis, Tennessee. The williningly and sacrificially opened their door and loved this lonely young man. They provided Michael with a bed, which he had never had to sleep on, as most of his life he slept on the streets or on the couch.
Eventually Michael comes to Leanne and asks if she will help him get a driver's license. So she takes him down but because Michael has been in and out of foster care all his life know one truly knows what his real name is, so the only way they can get him a license is to become his legal guardian. Leanne goes down to Child Services to find out what she needs to do to become his guardian. Well Child Services tells her all she has to do is fill out the form and have a judge sign off on it. They tell her that his mother does not even have to sign the form. Well that didn't sit well with Leanne. So she tracks down Michael's mother and she learns so much more about Michael but the mother is grateful for the Tulloy's to become his guardians. She doesn't even want to see her son. So they become his legal guardians. In the meantime Leanne learns from school records that Michael has tested low all all levels of personality and skills except for protection which he scores in the 98th percentile. This will come into play a little later in the year. He at one point saves S.J.'s life by blocking the airbag in his new truck from hitting the little guy, which had it hit him it would have killed him.
Now it is the spring semester and Michael's grades are good enough for him to try out for football. He has never in his life played football but he is a huge guy and they are all excited because they believe he will be an excellent player. Through it all they train him and help him to become a fantastic football player. You will just have to watch the movie to see what I mean, but I will say that this is where his protective instincts kick in again.
Michael will over the course of the year have a tutor and the teachers will continue to help him in all the ways he needs in order to graduate from high school with a grade point average of 2.52. He will obtain a full scholarship to Ole' Miss University where he will then be drafted in 2009 to play for the Baltimore Ravens.
Now I woke up this morning with this movie still on my mind thinking how tragic Michael's life started but how wonderful it turned out to be. God had a plan for this young man a plan to prosper him, a plan that directed his path to enable this man to shine with God's mercy, glory, and love. If you look back at Michael's life it is amazing that he is even alive. Most young children who have the life that Michael did end up in gang's, drinking, doing drugs, stealing and even in jail or dead, but Michael didn't. In the movie towards the end Leanne asks Michael why he didn't end up like the other kids he was around on the streets and he tells her that when he was little when his mother got ready to do her drugs or whatever it was that was bad she would have Michael close his eyes until she was finished. Then once she was finished she would tell him to open his eyes and that everything was wonderful and fine and no bad things would happen. So essentially Michael chose to shut his eyes to the things going on around him. God used that lesson his mother taught him to protect him from the horrors of the street.
As I left that movie I was brought to tears, not because of Michael's life but because I was asking myself if God placed a kid like Michael in my life would I be willing to take the actions the Tulloy's did in order to help him and show him love. I honestly don't know if I would do it. I honestly don't know if I could open my heart to that and not judge the child, even though he never did anything wrong. Then this morning I was awakened by the Lord with this thought. Michelle look at your life. "Look at what you went through growing up. Yes your mother was not a drug addict and you did not live on the streets but you were abused and molested as a child. You were a promiscuous lost teenager who drank and smoked and you were on the road to disaster and I, God, stepped in your path and directed you where I wanted you to go. I directed you to a young man and his family who loved you know matter what you had done. I loved you even though you had a child out of wedlock and I forgave you. Your life could have very easily been over by now but I saved you just as I saved Michael. I had a plan for you and I directed you exactly where I wanted you to go and I am still directing you where I want you to go." I know now that if God placed a young child in my life like Michael I could and I would help them as much as He enabled me to because God would be using me to save that child's life and using me to show HIS Glory and love.
Sometimes as I look back at my life I wonder why God allowed so much of it to happen. WHY!!!??? But it had to happen in order to make me into the person that He has made me. It had to happen to get me to this path. It has made me a stronger person. It has made me learn to depend on Him and Him alone for my needs and my love. Yes love. He loves me no matter all the crap I did and no matter all the crap I mess up with now. And it also reminds me that I STILL need him even in my life now. How blessed I am to have a Father in Heaven who loves me so much, to straighten my life and give me all the wonderful blessings I have so far in my life and the blessings I know that will come. I may not be rich with material things, there may be things that I think I need in order to be happy, I may not be skinny and fit, I may only have one child, but I have all that God feels I need and I am going to learn to be content with that. He will fill those holes for me when He feels I need them filled and only then. Thank you Father for loving me and sacrificing you Son for me so that my sins are forgiven. Your love amazing me so much.
Well I better stop writing I think I am scaring my husband because I never write this much.
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