I am a wife, mother and creative soul. I’m still trying to figure out who I’m going to be “when I grow up”. My heart belongs to Jesus Christ and I am waiting for the blessed hope of HIS appearing. I claim no denomination but when asked, say I am a follower of Christ. When asked tough questions about world issues I always say “well let’s see what God has to say about that!” and we search the scriptures to find the answer.
I spend my days with my family and pets, home schooling, cleaning house and getting outside as much as possible, especially during the warm months. We currently live in Virginia on a little inlet of the Chesapeake Bay, but I am willing to move and go wherever we are sent.
My mission field is my family first, my unsaved friends next, and finally my church family, where we sharpen each other and love on each other as much as our time and health allow. Welcome!
mycheapcamera 
Saw on Pinterest: “If my opinion offends you, you should hear what I keep to myself”. Ha, ha! Nice photo!
I stumbled across your blog from a comment you made on http://into-mind.com/2012/01/08/positive-psychology-the-3-sources-of-happiness/ and thought based on your interest in art, and beautiful photography, you might be curious to contribute to a crowedsourced project about happiness. Its aim is to create a synthesized understanding of what kinds of spaces make us happy through user submitted images and descriptions. Looking forward to a contribution from you! (also, your blog is beautiful, the layout, the colors, the images…stunning!)
all the best!
Thank you so much for the invitation. What’s the process for submitting photos and words?
Your welcome, glad your interested. You can submit a post though the blog http://happyspacesproject.wordpress.com/your-happy-spaces/ and it will explain what the post should include and then you can email it to our email: happyspacesproject@gmail.com.
I love your blog and have nominated you for the Sunshine Award – thanks for spreading sunshine! http://photographybyjoylene.wordpress.com/2012/03/27/sunshine-award/
amen!
love your blog!
Hello,
unfortunately phil closed the comments before I had the chance to explain something that I think of as important, so I hope you’ll forgive me if I send you my reply here. I don’t expect that you approve it as comment (posting here is just a quick way to reach you, not something I do because this has to be done publicly), but I assume your question was honest and you would like to get an answer… So, feel free to delete it (but hopefully after reading it…).
It’s funny that you ask me about hate speech, because, and please, don’t take offense, that’s what you just did (in a small way, but nevertheless). I know that you probably didn’t mean it that way and many Christians do it without thinking twice, but…
Let’s try it this (exaggerated) way: If I said… “Well, I can call for Christians to be executed all day, because you also don’t forbid me to call for the execution of mass murderers!” Would you understand how this was hate speech?
By saying something like that, you imply that the thing you are talking about is as bad as murdering, stealing or molesting children.
But we are talking about two sane, consenting people (mostly adults even) here who, in many cases, even love each other (or just want to have some fun). No one is murdered, nothing is stolen and no child (or anyone else) is molested. By implying that homosexuality falls into the same category, you express that you think it as bad – and sorry, that’s harsh for something that doesn’t affect you (or anyone else who isn’t homosexual) at all. And while there are good rational arguments against murdering, stealing and molesting children, I have yet to hear sound arguments against homosexuality that don’t stem from “It’s icky” or “God forbids it”…
Apropos: To me, these two things (“It’s icky” and “God forbids it”) are the same thing: Sending gay people to hell for being gay and loving each other, doesn’t sound like a loving god to me. To me, personally, it sounds exactly like the justification someone made up: “Uhhh… Two gay people… Icky… Ewwwww… God MUST hate that!” (Of course, when we talking about gay people, we are talking about gay man most of the time). Personally, I don’t even love all people – but I still have no business at all meddling in the affairs of two sane people who do consensual things with each other: I am totally ok with it. Your god loves everyone – and sends them to hell. I hope you will forgive me if I find that strange.
So, if you ask me, you can totally find homosexuality bad. You can refuse to do it. You can even say so publicly. But don’t expect me to think good of you for trying to take happiness away from people just because they don’t conform to some 2.000 year old book, written by bigoted people who defined marriage as being ok between a soldier and his female prisoners, between a man and many women, between a young girl and her rapist, between a man, his wife and her maid, etc. (Marriage as we know it today is a pretty modern concept, anyway.) I know I will not convince you. But perhaps you can see now how that kind of stuff comes across as hate and not love. “Hate the sin, love the sinner” is a nice thing to say – but unfortunately, in reality, it looks pretty much like “hate the sinner” to everyone who isn’t into your personal definition of “love”.
Wish you all the best…
Ah I’m surprising you and letting this stay. I don’t mind differing opinions, and I don’t think you do either.
I disagree that my statements that homosexuality is sin as hate speech, but I see how you categorize hate speech and that defines your thought process.
God does have high standards, and He is very clear about them , or at least in the Old Testament He does. However when Jesus came He said “I did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it” meaning HE is now the standard. He is the one true and only way to eternal life in heaven. So when people accept His death, burial and resurrection as covering for their sin then they are eternally secured for Heaven. It’s God who extends the invitation, it’s up to us to either accept or reject Him, and therefore us who determine where we go. Kind of like a criminal in a court, either they can bail themselves out (in spiritual terms it’s accepting Christ’s bail out) or they can go to jail for their crime. The judge (in my spiritual scenario being God) simply carries out the sentence based on the crime. Did they accept Jesus? if so the Judge sets them free. Did they reject Him? Off to jail you go….forever….So my point here is God doesn’t pick and chose, send or not send based on his whims. He simply does what He said He would do. And as for it not being loving or fair, it’s His world, He made us, He made the rules. Obviously you don’t like that, but personally I appreciate the boundaries. When I was in the world I did all sorts of things. My kids read this blog so I won’t give details, but I DID these things, it was MY lifestyle for quite a while. Then I surrendered my life to the Jesus I grew up hearing about, but had never given my heart to. And it all changed.
You can email me at paigewhitley@me.com if you’d like to discuss this further.
Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t want to imply that you should delete my posting because you don’t agree, only that my posting isn’t quite on topic here, so it would be totally ok for me if you deleted it.
Anyway, I have said all I needed to. I didn’t want to take your faith away, just explain why statements like that already can be considered hateful. To be honest, I didn’t find much in your reply to discuss, we could lead the same boring theological discussion I already had dozens of times, but that was not my intent. What I wanted to show you is simply:
Something can be a religious message AND a hateful one. And if other people don’t share your religion, it only comes across as hateful, because no religious justification will hold any water for this people. If would be different if you had any non-religious arguments against homosexuality or gay marriage, but I’m afraid (or, to be honest, quite happy) that there aren’t any: Homosexuality simply doesn’t concern you. You are not in any way affected by it. You don’t have to take part in it. You (and no one else) are not harmed by it, not even potentially. What two sane people do with each other consensually is simply none of your business. It is your right to say that your religion forbids it – but as soon as you start comparing that to murder, theft or abuse, you have overstepped your bounds and started to become a preacher of hate, sorry.
Yes, I know that your religion commands such things – this is why (or at least part of why) I don’t buy into the whole “religion of love” thing (I also don’t buy into the Islam, religion of peace thing). But that doesn’t make it less hateful. It doesn’t make it less wrong.
Honestly, I have my problems with religions. I don’t want to forbid them, but they tend to have some really terrible side effects for some people. Fortunately, there are other ones, who really understand what “love” is and don’t confuse it with “wanting people to be exactly as I demand”.
I appreciate your reply. I have problems with religions too. They are politicized and harmful to the masses. But a lack of higher accountability has proven to be fatal in history.
You have your faith in yourself. And I have my faith in God. And as freedom of religion allows, we are both taking our own path.
Good luck and thanks for being gracious here. I do appreciate that very much.