[TruthTalk] Getting to know you.

[Judy Taylor]

Good idea Terry on a difficult medium.  Dean says he is not good expressing himself here and feel's more comfortable with IM and personal speaking. Some are better at expressing their feelings than others.  Not sure where I stand in all this. I am learning to love more perfectly and am aware that we are all equal at the foot of the cross;  I don't try to picture any of you one way or the other but from what I know, do appreciate everyone's specialness in the Lord..   I was born and raised in Melbourne Australia; both ggrandfathers on my fathers side came to the colony to spread the gospel, (they were Primitive Methodist ministers). However within two generations the truth had been lost and today my family in Australia are in darkness and frantically looking to psychology, eastern religion, whatever for some relief and peace but in their ignorance they continue to reject the fount of living water thinking they know all about it and there is nothing left to learn because they went to SS in a dead denominational Church,   (one neice who is now a schoolteacher even taught it).  It was a shock for me to learn how deceived I had been for all those years and this may be why I am such a stickler for God's Truth.   I met my husband while on a working holiday and for 20yrs we were a Navy famly living overseas; it was during these years that I returned to the God of my fathers - (a God I had not known) and I began a serious study of the scriptures (trying to make up for lost time). This has been a transforming experience for me; the more I know Him through His Word the more I love Him and desire to do His Will; if I appear to you to be beside myself, please bear with me and forgive me.  judyt     From: Terry Clifton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> It occurred to me today during an off line conversation that though we are almost all brothers and sisters in Christ, we at the same time are strangers.  I know a little more about some of you who have been on TT longer, and I know David Miller from spending part of a weekend in his company, but I still do not know any of you well.  I suspect that most of you have the same problem.  I picture the more educated among us as standing around in a gown and miter board with an armload of books, maybe some horn rimmed glasses thrown in.  They probably picture me as the redneck dropout who can barely sign his name.  Got the straw between my teeth and the pickup truck on blocks in the front yard.  Trailer trash. I know I have to love you all whether you are my brother or my sister or my enemy.  That is a command, not an option.  Seeing that is so, I am going to love you all, BUT...... there exists in my opinion, a responsibility on the other party's part to not make it harder than necessary to carry out this command.  Again, my opinion; I think it is much easier to love someone you know rather than someone who is just a face in the crowd or a voice from the podium.  With that in mind, at the risk of appearing bossy, let me suggest that we stop criticizing for one week, and concentrate for the same length of time on revealing ourselves to others in an effort to get to know one another more intimately, like brothers and sisters are supposed to.  Let's start with something easy, like what do you find awesome about your Lord?  Just to get it going, I will open up first, sharing a thought that started the idea of this post. When I walk outside on a sunny cloudless day, I look up and see a beautiful blue sky.  Then I become aware that this is not a canopy or a ceiling.  I am actually looking light years into space.  Looking through the blue, not at it.  At night it is even more wondrous.  You can look at the same sky that was blue, but now it has a billion twinkling stars.  So many that no one has been able to name them all or even count them.  They are God's creation!.  All He had to do was speak, and they were.  Then I think that I am observing all this from a platform called earth that is not anchored to anything.  It is held in place only by God's will .  It is a giant ball of dirt, one planet among who knows how many, and I, a very temporary, very insignificant speck on one ball of dirt, am not only recognized by the most powerful being in the universe. I am loved by Him, so much that He sacrificed His own son to save me. THAT is awesome!  Who's next? Terry