My Patronus

I'm a HUGE fan of the Harry Potter movies! I only just started reading the final book within the last few weeks and it's SO good... I can't wait to see the first of the last two movies in November!

Now I know a lot of "good" Christians don't watch the movies or read the books & think it's all demonic but it's no more demonic than most of the music kids listen to nowadays or the other movies they watch that promote violence & crime! If someone ever took the time to watch, you would see that it's the classic good versus evil theme that we all struggle with daily. God is acknowledged in the books/movies & so is Jesus (Christmas is celebrated in just about every movie). And besides that, the Bible says that God will get the glory in EVERYTHING & for those of us who love Him, all things work for our good, according to His plan (Ephesians 3:20, Romans 8:28)! That's not the point of this post but I just thought I'd preface with that for those who, without reading further, will quickly judge... anyway, the fight between Harry Potter & the "good guys" from the series is against Voldemort, an evil wizard who is determined to rule the world basically. He uses all these evil beings - dementors, death eaters, etc. - to do his bidding. They kill for him, possess people & intimidate them into doing what they want.

Right or left?

On my drive home today I saw a sign in front of this church that read: "Give God what's right, not left." For a minute, I pondered that & was like "what" lol... but as I drove, it hit me that this is what a lot of us do: we give God what we feel He should have rather than what's due Him. The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 9:7 that God loves a cheerful giver! Of course when we hear/see this scripture, we immediately think of giving money or tangible things, but what about our time? God doesn't just want us to be cheerful when give our tithes and offerings; He wants us to be cheerful when we give whatever we have to give to Him!

How stupid can we be?

I caught a glimpse of this scripture this morning in my co-workers Bible on her desk. It's funny - and I mean "LOL" funny - because I've seen the scripture before but NEVER in this translation! It simply read: 

"Lord, you know how stupid I am and you are aware of all my sins." ~ Psalms 69:5

I walked away, shook my head & laughed because there are a countless number of stupid things we do just in a day's time, not even a lifetime! We, most times, do them without thinking - I mean just plain 'ol stupid crap... things that make no sense... things we didn't have to do or say... things, that when we think back on what we did, we can't even give a reason for what we were thinking when we did them!

Where do they go?

Yesterday a Facebook friend posted about a little girl being stabbed to death saving her sister. His question was basically why does this type thing happen & why do we, as a society, turn a blind eye. One thing that I saw, more than once (something I've seen & heard before) was that the girl was in a better place. It wasn't my post to rant on & on so I made my comment & dropped it but the more I thought about it, the more I felt like something needed to be said. So of course I turned to my own "diary" via Facebook & said this...

"You know something? I get so sick & tired of hearing people say "RIP" or "s/he is gone to a better place" when someone dies. How do you know that? Everybody who dies does NOT go to Heaven - that is the ONLY good place a person can go when they die so if they didn't go there, where the HELL else is good! My good friend died a month ago. My other good friend's dad died yesterday morning. I can only hope they both went to what people call "a better place" but I don't know that for sure. Just because I love them doesn't mean they HAVE to go to Heaven. Just because they were good people doesn't mean they went. I hope they made it. I hope we all make it, but NONE of us KNOWS for sure unless we live the life God intended us to live. The only SURE way to KNOW you are going to Heaven is to be saved & to STAY saved!"