A myriad of excuses arise whenever people face difficulties, especially with marriage problems. Kyle and I began our first of 4 marriage pre-counseling sessions with the pastor who will be performing our ceremony. This week focused somewhat on getting to know us, but to also address a key component to maintaining the ability to work through issues. That key, the thing that can keep people together in even the most amazingly difficult times it agape.

Agape love is that love which comes from God and can not exist without God. There are in fact three types of love: philia, eros, and then agape. Philia may be somewhat recognizable…think of a famous Pennsylvania city-brotherly love or the love that you feel for your best friend. Then there is eros. This is that passionate, sexual love. For a marriage you need both eros and philia, and can’t be survive without the other. Then above both of the others is agape. Like I mentioned before, agape love is given first by God so we can in turn share it with others. It is sacrificial and unselfish (“For God so LOVED-agape-the world that he gave his only son”). Marriage needs all three types of love to survive but the key beyond loving each other with this love, is to first love God.

When there is a strain on your personal relationship with God, you not loving him as you should, then you in turn will face difficulty in loving others in this manner. It is like a triangle of components to maintain such a powerful love.

obey His word

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worship—prayer

When these 3 are cooperating then you will be experiencing the ability to love others (in this case your spouse) with that same agape love, thus loving them with a sacrificial love. How endearing is that. To be loved with a love that you know that that person would give their life for you. This in itself gives you a greater strength to withstand trials and tribulations. It makes something that was once breakable and fragile (depending on either Eros or philia) to intangible and permanent (agape). This is forever kind of love–this is the marriage that God intended.

I am a very opinionated person.  I will never claim to be any other way, nor do I care to be.  With that stated (and I think well known at this point if you have read my posts at all) I receive alerts from a non profit organization about certain legislative issues that are “noteworthy.”  Now, yes it is a Christian organization and yes, they do have to do with many “crazed right winged fanatic” issues and I would like to go on record to say that while I am a follower of Christ and I believe certain issues to be morally wrong, I DO NOT claim to be a right wing.  I am REGISTERED Republican and agree SOMETIMES with certain issues but NOT with the ENTIRE party NOR do I agree OR DISAGREE with the ENTIRE Democratic Party, there are issues I agree with from either side.  That said (and knowing that I will most still probably get a comment about it..thats ok, you can say what you want) I received word that there is a Maryland school board that has stated that (and I quote) “although a parent does have a right to control the upbringing of a child, “that right is not absolute. It must bend to the State’s duty to educate its citizens,”" WOW!!!  Now this is in regards to introducing new curriculum to 8th and 10th graders that includes homosexuality as a normal lifestyle.  Now the issue is that they won’t even LISTEN to the arguments and then they have the audacity to claim that its no longer a parents RIGHT in how they wish to raise their own child?!? EXCUSE ME?  I’m not here judging anyone who claims the lifestyle of a homosexual.  To be honest with you, as a follower of Christ, no I do not agree with the way that you are living but I do not judge you as a person.  I have friends who are gay (and I love them as a person but detest their lifestyle).  BUT HERE IS THE ISSUE:  IF I WERE A PARENT I WOULD NOT BE OK TO HAVE THIS TAUGHT TO MY CHILD AS SOMETHING THAT IS OK AND HAVE THEM TOLD THAT THEY CAN NOT EXPRESS THEIR RELIGIOUS BELIEVES THAT IT IS A SIN.  THAT IS A GIVEN RIGHT OF MY CHILD AND MY GIVEN RIGHT AS A PARENT. And this is me BEFORE I have kids (ha, imagine how I’ll be afterwards when it is my kid).  It’s not ok that all a sudden the STATE is saying parents don’t have the right to raise their children.  I went to public schools elementary through college and I know that you can get a very good education from the public school system but when that same system that I so often defend is telling me that I can either deal with a secular teaching that goes against EVERYTHING that public schools were created and founded on or I can just take my kids and home-school or put them in a private school, then we are at a very, very sad state in our nation.  Yet another step back.  Just a single example, when the Northwest Ordnance was established in 1787 it included a provision for schools that stated “Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged” (Mansfield, 2007).  Amazing isn’t it?  That a state document could possibly include something explicitly including religion and education together?  What about separation of church and state, you may ask?  Don’t you find it ironic that there was not an issue before Everson vs. Board of Education in 1947?  I mean the Constitution was constructed so intricately and so diligently that there would not be a NATIONAL religion and yet in so many documents, religions was still encouraged not diminished.  Now, as shown with issues such as this article from the Washington Post (which is the article linked from the organization’s alert) we have become a secularized society where the only voices that are not allowed to be heard are the ones that speak out against this idea and actually support the ideas of religion and morality and where there disgust being shewn upon those who still believe it, there is proof that the men who wrote “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion nor prohibit the free exercise thereof” wrote this not for freedom FROM religion rather (as it rightfully should be for everyone) freedom OF religion.

I was reading an article about the “faith initiative” being made by the democratic candidates at the debates this week and I had to just shake my head.  Between Hilary’s faith getting her through her marital troubles (which I’m not doubting…don’t miss quote me now) and her problem with people who wear their religion on their sleeves (THAT I think is taken incorrectly and taking the scripture of the Pharisees extremely out of context and way away from what we should be in expressing our faiths…oh wait we’re told to go out and TELL THE WORLD OF THE GOOD NEWS…yeah, anyway getting back to other candidates).  Obama seems to think that DESPITE his beliefs that he should do nothing to try to encourage this nation to do anything about the lack of morals in our society, because we live in a progressive society…(ok…since that’s a reason).  Or the third democratic front runner, Edwards saying that he can believe in both evolution AND have a belief in Christ Jesus (can anyone explain that one to me, because I thought that the bible was pretty clear on the whole God created the heavens and the earth thing, but, you know, maybe thats just me).

Now, the saddest part is that the GOP isn’t any better!  They have their own guys saying the same thing (something along the lines of I believe that God created the earth but I can’t know how or what kind of time frame–need I repeat myself on the VERY FIRST LINES OF THE BIBLE???…oh my) and then some are saying that we should do a preemptive attack against Iran (um…NO!) and that the immigration bill is riddled with problems and someone made the audacious remark that the borders should be closed (that included legal immigrants as well BTW…yeah, what happened to this great country of diversity and openness?  uh-huh, lets rethink that one there smart ones).

I’m not saying that I am a presidential expert by any stretch of the imagination, nor am I saying that this isn’t anything more than a bunch of hot air to get the bid from the parties (that’s my guess truthfully, knowing politics and campaigns), but really, I find it dreadfully sad that because we live in a “progressive era” that means that we have to abandon all of our morals and throw our children to the wolves and expect politicians to do nothing because it doesn’t belong in Washington.  At this point I have to ask you, if not in Washington, then where?  Homosexuality has infiltrated our churches, which if it is excluded it is seen as “bias” rather than the SIN that it actually is (that scripture not opinion and not just Old Testament Jewish laws FYI–Romans 1:26-27, 1 Timothy 1:10).  Children are expected to learn evolution in schools (I debated with my 7th grade science teacher about it when I had to) but Creationism can’t be MENTIONED yet alone suggested as a possibility (despite the proof against evolution that has been found over and over again).  It’s one thing after another and it breaks my heart.  Families are criticized when they teach their children about abstinence rather than “safe sex” (even birth control isn’t 100% and teenagers aren’t likely to remember to use it as needed to prevent a pregnancy and it doesn’t prevent STDs so I guess that rules out that “safe sex” idea…oh wait, abstinence is the only “safe sex” there is–and God commands it–).  So, churches are being attacked, schools are being attacked, families are being attacked.  Those seemed like ideal places besides Washington but this “Progressiveness” has overrun them so all thats left is Washington.

I’m not suggesting amendments (I don’t like changing the constitution, they misinterpret it enough as it is).  I’m suggesting morals (the new dirty word in this society evidently).  I’m scared about what the world will be when I have kids.  It’s a sad sad state we are in and the Presidential hopefuls don’t provide me with a whole lot of hope for the future of my blessed America.

You know, I try to be a tolerant person.  I try to be respectful of what other people believe (as outlandish and just straight up WRONG as I believe it to be) and then as I go and read articles I just begin to to grow more and more angry.  People in America don’t want tolerance of multiple religions, they want Christianity to be diminished and insulted and demoralized and put down and the want every other religion as long as it is blasphemous and insulting to be upheld! AND I AM TIRED OF IT!!!   I just scanned through “popular” or most hit blogs to see what they were doing and maybe what I could add to my page to make it a bit more interesting and let me tell you what I found.  On the first page was technical info that I didn’t really comprehend (I’m a poli sci major, I keep to the word sections), the second page was simply a mom talking about putting her kids down for naps…ok, well since I’m not at that point in my life yet I can’t pull from that (but I understand the reason for all the hits, if I were a mom, I would probably share all the cute, funny, and frustrating stories about my kids too, I know that they will be the center of my life when I get to that point), but it was the third hit that got me going.  I didn’t really see anything special on his (or her) page but I was intrigued by one of the tabs that read “Atheists Links” or something like that.  On there was a like to a site that got me fuming.  Someone was RANTING ABOUT YOUTH GROUPS TEACHING AGAINST PREMARITAL SEX LIKE IT IS MILITARISTIC AND CONTROLLING!!!  What?!?!  What got me to keep reading in the first place was they listed quotes from a study that had all of the recent stats that were talking about the accessibility and visibility of sex to  kids today by both t.v. , radio, and Internet (basically how often sexual images are shown or displayed on television or portrayed through songs or how many kids have accessed pornography by the time they have graduated high-school on-line)  AND HE SAID HE THOUGHT THE STATS WERE BOGUS!  OK, first off, they aren’t. I have heard them, read them and seen and heard enough to know that they aren’t besides, I know enough people first hand that can testify about the on-line pornography as well to make it true.  Second, it is not militaristic to teach values in youth groups?  OK, a little over the top now aren’t we?  ATHEISTS and AGNOSTICS and EVERY RELIGION is fighting TEEN PREGNANCY.  Now why would we have to do this if parents would impress on their children that they need to wait until they are able married (or oh wait, here is a message for those who don’t like that answer–> DON’T HAVE SEX IF YOU DON’T WANT TO GET PREGNANT, THATS WHAT HAPPENS!  THAT’S HOW IT WAS CREATED)

Tolerance in this country is one sided.  Everyone gets all bent out of whack if Christians begin “preaching” (talking) about saving sex ’til marriage (because, well, that’s what God commands, besides the commons sense of having a kid outside of marriage increases the chances of being in poverty and on welfare), but it’s “tolerance” for Christians to allow society to rot our kids minds with the idea that we are trying to “control” them by teaching them the “straight and narrow” since in the end it  will get them through school and married (probably also with a job) before they begin a family so they are READY AND PREPARED to bring a child into this world and they will likely be more mature because they won’t still be children when they have that child AND they will have the finances to support that child to give it the life it rightly deserves but you know, maybe they’re right…Christians are controlling.