Forumi Horizont (http://www.forumihorizont.com/index.php3)
- *Literary rainbow* (http://www.forumihorizont.com/forumdisplay.php3?forumid=324)
-- Fragments of my day (http://www.forumihorizont.com/showthread.php3?threadid=6120)

The 4 magical P-s

-perseverance
-patience
-positive attitude
-prayer life

With God, NOTHING is beyond hope

When I first started studying on counseling psychology and when I first encountered people who needed a lot of help, my faith was challenged immensely. I was shaken in my faith: how can God allow this to happen? How can pain and suffering be any good? How can people ever know God if they have experienced so much pain?

I did look more introspectively into my own challenges. Studying on this topic involved to explore my heart, my past, my relationships, my all. Exploring is a scary journey, but during that exploring time, God was always holding my hand... In exploring my past, I could see that God was there even in the darkest times and it made sense to think that even the darkest times in my life were there for a reason, to teach me something valuable so when I looked back ( as I did ) I would say: yeah I wish I could change a few things, but I am actually glad it happened the way it did. This was some sort of healing journey, of being freed up of the past and feeling quite whole as a result, real and human. This reminds me of a Scripture from a beautiful Psalm from the Bible directed to God. Psalm 139 is a Psalm that celebrates life and describes how special we are created, knit together, so thoughtfully shaped and formed. It also describes that what we perceive as darkness, God thinks something completely opposite- he views it as light. What we consider as painful and bad, God sees it as a way to discipline us, or maybe show his mercy, or maybe reveal a greater glory about him. He uses situations to show spiritual ways I did not know before.
Psalm 139:11-13

New International Version (NIV)
If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,” even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.


What helped me see beyond the present ,the past or the future was the event of Christ's death and resurrection. This 30 year old man who was the Son of God, was described to be pure, sinless and perfect. Picture this: He has known nothing else but kindness, purity, love, faithfulness, truthfulness, peace and he comes to us, to a people who are broken and simply human. And now this man who is set aside to be perfect for God, allows himself to bear the brokenness of human beings and to become like one of us, to experience what it means to have a heavy load on his shoulders, heavy of a mess. He agrees to do this even though he knows that God, his Father, will abandon him. All he has known is complete perfectness, yet he took a wild chance, risking his relationship with God for the very first time.
One moment he was God's son- the next moment he was pitiful, loathed, abandoned and alone.
This is a crucial moment during his death:
Matthew 27:45-49( NIV) From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land. About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, ""Eloi, Eloi," "lama" "sabachthani?""--which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" When some of those standing there heard this, they said, "He's calling Elijah." Immediately one of them ran and got a sponge. He filled it with wine vinegar, put it on a stick, and offered it to Jesus to drink. The rest said, "Now leave him alone. Let's see if Elijah comes to save him."

I can picture his cry coming from a place he has never experienced before, his soul deeply crying because he is now separated from the Father God he has always known. God abandoned him as he carried the sins of others, because God in his holy nature does not want to do anything with sin. Yet Jesus knew this, he knew what he was getting into, he knew it was going to get ugly, and he was going to be left alone, abandoned, in pain, beaten up and treated as if he were a criminal.

In a book I read several years ago an interesting quote stuck with me: "One can never speak of hopeless cases, unless one has seen the cross of Christ." Truth is: his case was hopeless. Not only people did not believe him and wanted to kill him, not only one of his friends betrayed him for money (Judas) not only were his 3 best friends afraid to stand by him (Peter denied knowing him a couple of times and the rest just scattered from fear) but his own Father God, whom he had taught about all along, left him on that cross as if a stranger, bleeding until he died. He died of heart failure due to shock and constriction of the heart by fluid in the pericardium. His heart gave way last.

Medical account of the Cruxifiction






Everything became dark that day. His mother mourned. The temple was divided in two. The ground was shaking. Somehow, this dark hour ,the deepest pain that God experienced, was turned into joy the third day when they saw him again, with his hands wounded from the cross. And if God could do this for us all, nothing really is beyond hope. And if nothing is beyond hope, brokenness has a chance to be healed, suffering has not been in vain, light has been present in the darkness, tenderness comes from pain and through him it's amazing how we can love.......
It's only LOVE that gets you through

Yesterday

Psalm 139:11-13
If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,” even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

A friend of mine who studies neurobiology, mentioned yesterday that the forming of a zygote looks like knitting- that in fact God comes up with particular descriptive words that make scientific sense. Interesting thought.

It's one of those moments

when my nephews are 'attacking' their grandma, sorrounding her with blankets, and pillows and giggling out loud, making a mess, destroying stuff,snuggling and being silly. And they call for my attention. What beautifull mayhem!

One less on my bucket list- Shooting

It was a cold winter day yet I had been looking forward to the experience of shooting in the cold for the first time in my life with a gun.
My brother- in- law, his friend and I went on an adventure. They had tried it before, they had more experience than I did; however, for me it was the first time. I wasn't quite sure what to expect. Coming in with a vivid imagination of the civil unrest during 1997 in Albania, remembering quite vividly the shotguns and how afraid I was to even sleep in my own apartment were memories that came to mind when I first touched the little black gun.
First impressions: the bullets were so so hard to get into the gun, it required so much strength, and my hands were cold. My brother- in- law was making fun of the Hollywood movies/ actors who seem to have 'mastered' so easily the using of a gun. How do they even film? -he asked- Hold it, hold it, stop, need to put bullets in, my gun is not ready yet...We laughed.
I was told it is very hard to shoot the target the first time due to hand -eye coordination challenges. I tried to shoot the target and hit it 3 times in a row. I felt a thrill. 'You are a pro." - I heard them saying. I lowered my hand down with my thumb on the trigger when I was alarmingly told: Lori , Lori ,watch out, get your finger off the trigger. You may slide and shoot unexpectedly.
I carried the gun gently. And from that time on, every time it was my turn to shoot I would walk on eggshells and analyze thoroughly if I was being correct in the handling of the guns. I began to feel scared and I began to miss the target all the time. My brother-in-law taught me another lesson: You are analyzing too much, let go of yourself and don't think. And that's what I did and I kept hitting the target again.
He kept joking around again,this time about boyfriends.
-You need to take a picture of me with a gun or riffle.-he said- so you can show it to the guy you are dating and say: You see this guy, he is my brother-in-law, he is crazy, if you hurt me , he'll come after you.
I cracked laughing because the tone of his voice was quite hilarious.

Here's an article

of tips and resources on how to be prepared for traumatic events ( on what happened to the Boston Marathon Attack) and how to deal after traumatic events. I have grouped together a few things i think can be helpful for people and made a post out of it on my site. Hope it helps anyone who reads it.


http://fromloriewithlove.blogspot.c...15283dabc89d5b9

She knew she would get bored really easily, and maybe that is why she never settled. She also knew she had adventure in her mind and God would grant it for his glory. So she delighted in the Lord for she knew ,he would give her the desires of her heart. After all Christianity was not for warming a pew on Sunday morning, it was a calling to save lives and that involved wilderness, scratches, wounds, blood and sweat and at the end: living remarkably close to her full potential, to what she was meant to be, to what she was created to be. A life of wild goose chasing- chasing after the Holy Spirit ,not after her selfish desires, knowing risking it all would mean gaining it all, knowing forsaking everything would lead to the transformation of being completely full.
Lorie*

A walk to fight stigma on mental illness

We only need a true friend to walk with us,to fight off pretty much anything the world throws...


http://fromloriewithlove.blogspot.com/

on Faith and Flying

http://fromloriewithlove.blogspot.c...15283dabc89d5b9

Darling, I have waited for so long...

http://fromloriewithlove.blogspot.c...15283dabc89d5b9