Married folks chime in

A comment made on the last post prompted this brief entry. Here's the jist of it: 'It's a belief I have as a married person, but honestly have not been tested in.'

When I first began writing about being single and celibate I actually was, and I wrote with a personal passion about a subject I felt needed to be on the table way more frequently than it was. When I married in 2002 I continued to write on this subject for about another five years because I didn't want to abandon what, I believe, was my message from God through me to you.

I'm not married any longer - I'll talk about that some more at a later date and how that effects my life now - but the comment I mentioned got me to thinking what some other married folk have to say on the subject. Okay, singles in the midst of the test, don't sigh and roll your eyes... this dialogue will hopefully spark some more conversation.

Married folks, what I really want from you is honest discussion about what is was like not being married and how you conducted yourself. And, what are your thoughts, now that you're married and how will you encourage single Christians without saying, "Just wait, God has your mate." Or my personal favorite, "He's waiting on you."

Click on the link above "married" to read one of the posts I wrote as a married woman then click write over to leave your own comments. As always, keep in mind that each person is entitled to their opinion and that opinion will be respected in this forum. No personal attacks, hurtful language or badgering. It is not my policy to delete comments so please don't give me a reason to.

Stay tuned for future posts about my single and celibate life after marriage; you'll probably be surprised.

Get those engines running... again... head to the highway

I know it's been years since you've heard from me, but I have a couple of ideas I want to share in this venue so I'm kicking this into gear... it'll be a slow gear because I have a lot going on. (Take a gander on my Petula Writes blog to see what's been up.)

So hang in there, you won't be disappointed. You may be surprised at some of my new (?) opinions and ideas on the subject. I'll be back here about twice a month; I'll let you know the days very soon. In the meantime, let's get a new discussion going:

Let's start from the beginning. Do you believe single individuals (widowed, divorced, never married) should remain celibate from sexual activity and intercourse outside of the boundaries of a marriage? Please share your opinions in the comments and remember to be respectful and without judgement in your tone and language. I don't normally censor comments here so let's not start now.

"Celibacy is a journey, not a destination." - yours truly 

The small print: Your comments and ideas may be used in other writings on the subject. You can get an idea of what the old book concept was by clicking the link. I love to give attribution to sources, if you want to comment but remain anonymous outside of this blog then feel free to leave a note in your comments.

Saying Good-Bye

I know there have been times when I've posted encouraging words about not giving up, giving in, etc. But, at this junction in my life, I'll have to give something up: this blog. Although I've enjoyed writing it and getting the few encouraging comments; I have got to let it go.

It's not just the lack of response and following -- I'm going through a really tough time in my life and I must commit to projects that are going to be lucrative as well as ones that I really, really, really enjoy. So, for now, it will exist without being updated.

Thank you to everyone who has supported Single and Celibate... and may God bless you. Oh, BTW, you can check me out and keep up with me at http://petulaw.blogspot.com or http://petula.gather.com.

Maternity Leave

I'll be on maternity leave for the next four weeks or so... please check back on or about June 30. My baby came five weeks early and weighed in at 4 pounds and 9 ounces. We're doing well... keep us in your prayers.

Just one of those days

I’m having one of those days. You know the kind: fearful, worrisome, not necessarily great and not bad… a need to organize, clean my area in order to move forward in life. You know what I mean. Oh, well if you don’t can you just hang in there with me for a minute while I share (read: vent!)?

There’s no way I’m going to bore you with all the gruesome details of everything that seems to be going wrong. (Hey, please don’t remind me that I recently wrote about incorporating The Secret principles to my life or that I ordered the Complaint Free World bracelet). What I am going to tell you though is that as a human being life can really throw some curve balls. As a Christian, it’s all about how you deal with it.

I know. I pulled a fast one on you. I was going to complain and ask you how you deal with your curve balls. But I’ve realized that few people are reading and/or commenting on my blog. So, it would be a moot point to ask even one more question or pose a scenario for you to respond to. What I’ve decided to do… well, let’s see, I’m still trying to decide if I want to do two things: 1) Shut down this blog or at least cease the updating and posting, and 2) Developing a new, more exciting one.

It’s not as if anyone will notice. So, if you don’t see any posts after this one then you know that I may not be back, but I think there’s great information here so I’ll leave it for those wandering around in cyber space to read. And, eventually, there’ll be a link to a new, highly-read blog that you’re sure to love and appreciate.

In the meantime, I hope your day is going a lot better than mine. Keep up the good work: you know pray, keep God first and maintain the single and celibate life that God has called for you. If you’re not married, but read this blog because you enjoy it: God bless you in all that you do.

Sin and un-forgiveness

We all may be aware that God does not view any sin as greater than another sin. For instance, he doesn’t look at a murderer and say, “You’re worse than an adulterer or a thief.” But, for a lot of us, committing murder is a greater sin.

So what do you do when you get in a situation where someone has committed a sin against you that’s considered greater than other sins? You may easily forgive your son for stealing money from your purse, but will you be just as forgiving when your husband has sex with another woman?

I know that I can’t answer that question so easily. What I do know is that God expects us to forgive and that’s the bottom line. The gray area is how long it takes, what’s the process and what you do while you’re trying to forgive. In instances where it’s an unsafe situation: say your spouse or significant other is beating on you and abusing you. Of course you have to remove yourself from the situation, but you’re still stuck with having to forgive.

“Stuck…” Even I find that that’s an interesting word for me to choose. I’m just being honest, but when someone has committed an almost unforgivable sin against me or someone close to me I feel almost stuck – forced to forgive. Once the hurt and pain of betrayal has passed then I can move onto forgiveness. Not only because that’s what God says we should do, but for my own wellbeing and soul.

Some people find it easy to forgive others despite what was done to them. Others find it difficult to move on. It doesn’t make one person better than the other. We just have to realize that everyone does things in their own timing. As long as both people reach the same result then I believe God is just as pleased with the slow-to-forgive person as he is with the person who forgave quickly.

“So my heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses.” Matthew 18:35

Excerpts from "The Secret"

This is one of those books that you should probably read for yourself to get the entire gist; however, I thought I would give you a few teasers to get you started on incorporating some secret principals in your life.

“The Secret is the law of attraction! Everything that’s coming into your life you are attracting into your life. And it’s attracted to you by virtue of the images you’re holding in your mind. It’s what you’re thinking. Whatever is going on in your mind you are attracting to you.”

Okay, let me put that one into a simple perspective for you. If you think about debt a lot then you’ll have a lot of debt. So try thinking about money. What struck me was something really small that I think about a lot. I’ve always been a really organized, neat and clean person. I hate disorganization and disorder. When I got married I realized my husband didn’t quite have the gift of putting things away and being organized and neat. Then add two more children to the mix and things really became haywire. So, I’ve been thinking: “I don’t want a messy, disorganized and dirty house.” I think that all the time. What was happening, as is pointed out in The Secret, is that what I focused on is exactly what I received: a messy, disorganized and dirty house. Now I focus on having a neat, organized and clean home. Although that hasn’t completely manifested itself I will continue to have those thoughts to bring it into existence.

“If you can think about what you want in your mind, and make that your dominant thought, you will bring it into your life.”

“Your life is in your hands. No matter where you are now, no matter what has happened in your life, you can begin to consciously choose your thoughts, and you can change your life.”

“Nothing can come into your experience unless you summon it through persistent thoughts.”

There are so many positive principles and tangible “to dos” in the book that I don’t know where to go from here. But here are a few concepts that make so much sense to me: If you’re always telling yourself or saying, “I never win anything.” Then you never will. I’ve changed my thoughts to “I always win something wonderful.” In fact, I’ve taken note cards and written down phrases that I want to remind myself of. For most of my life I’ve said, “I never will anything” and I haven’t, but what makes it so real to me is that I often say “I always get something great for free” or something like that. I always get free stuff in the mail, great stuff as hand-me-downs, awesome stuff from FreeCycle.com, etc. So, why can’t I incorporate that with winning NEW and WONDERFUL stuff? Well, I think I can… thanks to The Secret.

Don’t miss out on incorporating The Secret to your life… it’s the key to having the life you want. (That’s assuming you’ve already got God as your savior!)