I am back! Winter break is finally here, and I have time now to devote to getting caught up with the blog. I am not sure if I am going to make sure I have an entry for every day that I have missed. Technically speaking, I have written about every day for school assignments. My goal in starting this blog was to force myself to write in order to get better at creative writing, but I suppose I will compromise that any kind of writing works.
This is a little idea I thought about yesterday. My professor mentioned that someone wrote that God is a domineering male. I can understand that point of view. In some cases, it seems like women to not have a prominent place in the Bible. Of course, there are great heroines in the Bible and books of the Bible named after women, but women in the New Testament seem to be given the role of housewife and mother. They are supposed to submit to their husbands and are not allowed to be pastors. Now my views on that is a whole different conversation.
Even though it seems like God is displayed as an angry, controlling male, He has many feminine facets to His character. After all, man was made in His image, and woman came from man. So, God split all of His personality traits into man and woman.
A newly married couple was studying the Bible together in order to bond closer to each other while strengthening their relationship with God. They were reading in the book of Jeremiah, and the wife was iritated that God kept saying how He would rain judgment down on people.
"It's all doom and destruction!" she'd complain. "I thought God was love."
The husband argued, "But God does love us."
"If He's omniscient, He should know that humans will always fail Him so He should anticipate we will screw up and love us anyways. Here, it sounds like God is bent on revenge."
Their argument continued until the husband left their bedroom before he said something he'd regret. "This is ridiculous!" he muttered. "Arguing about how God loves us."
The wife had half-tossed the Bible at the foot of the bed, where it lay crumpled. She glanced down at the book and , feeling guilty, picked it up and smoothed some of the wrinkled pages.
"Why don't you just spell it out for me, God? How can I be expected to love someone who bosses me around? That's not love."
She set the Bible on the nightstand and drummed her fingers impatiently on the sheet. The sun was shining brightly that day, and one of the beams shone through the shade, hit the mirror, and bounced onto the Bible. The wife saw something out of the corner of her eye and noticed some colroful images above the book. The Bible acted like a type of prism, that refracted the beam of light into images like from a projector. As she stared closer, the pictures almost seemed like they were moving, like a mini movie.
A shepherd was cradling a lamb in his arms. The lamb's right front leg was bloody, but the shepherd buried his face right into the blood, kissing the wound and stroking the lamb's head. He didn't seem to mind blood was sticking to his cheek and crusting his eyelashes.
The shepherd faded and focused on a father shopping with his daughter, who looked to be about four. They were passing the doll aisle, and the little girl's face shone when she saw the doll at the end. It was love at first sight. She squealed with delight and hugged the doll close. The father gently pried the toy out of her hands and put it back on the shelf. The girl threw a huge temper tantrum, kicking herself to the floor and flailing her arms. The father picked her up and carried her off. Her fists beat into his back but he walked on without flinching. The image switched scenes into a living room. The girl looked older, and she was opening a present, an even nicer doll.
A little boy appeared now. He was gazing up at the stars, admiring them intently. After gazing happily for some time, he pulled out a small notebook that had pages filled with notes. He had been keeping track of the stars' locations. Each star was given a name and a brief description. He began rapidly adding in a new entry.
Next flashed a young woman, about twenty-six. Her left eye was swollen shut and there were cuts on her arm. Her cheeks had paths from tears painted on, and as she brushed away some new tears, a ring was seen on her left finger. A friend was talking with her at a kitchen table. She had her hand on her friend's bruised arm. It looked like she was convincing her to do something. The woman shook her head violently and stared longingly at a picture of a handsome young man. The woman shakily stood up and grabbed her purse. The friend tried to pull her back, but the woman stalked away.
Several shorter images flashed now. A home decorator arranging pillows on a couch, a teacher, two teenagers sending each other text messages expressing young love that couldn't bear to separate them, a mother tickling and kissing her toddlers, an elderly couple holding hands and walking along the beach, a family laughing at something on the television. The last image that flashed was a soldier jumping in front of a group of people and landing hard on the ground, fatally wounded from a bullet.
Stunned, the wife stared at the now blank wall above the Bible. A little voice whispered in her heart, "That's how I love."
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