A person special to me!

Im going to post something thats kind of different for me. I will be writing about a person. Hopefully in a way where you guys can apply it to yourselves.

A couple posts ago I talked about relationships. This post is about a relationship with a person which I hold very dear. Do you have that one person who is always there to talk to? Who will listen to you rant about things, or just be there to care about whats going on in your life? I have a person like that. It is someone who I talk to on a daily basis. She has helped me through many problems. I can go to her about anything. She is truly a gift from God. I can tell her things that I know she won't go around and tell everybody and his brother.

To most people she seems like a pretty happy person. For the most part she is, but like us all she has her struggles too. That is what makes our relationship even greater. It is not just one way. We are both there for each other. Recently she has been a little scared about starting college. She really has nothing to fear. She's a wonderful person: smart, friendly, good sence of humor and all around caring. I will truly miss seeing her everyday during school next year but, im sure she will be having much more fun then me. She is going into a field where she will be able to help even more people. What a gracious gift she will be for many.

I hope the rest of you have someone you talk to who is like she is. One of the most caring people I know.

Best of Luck in college and the rest of your life! God be with you in whatever you do and wherever you go!

Pax Christi

No One Told Me?

As of 8/11/06 Dunkler Geist is a year old. I didn't catch it and no one told me. I feel like such a bad blogger. Not even celebrating a year of semi-intellectual posts. This blog is awesome. It's actually more for me then it is for you readers. It gives me the opportunity to study topics and then write something about them. My spelling and grammer isn't very good, but it's readable. (At least I think so.) I hope you enjoy my posts. Though this one is pretty pointless. Give me topics to post about and hopefully I can get at least one more post up before school starts.


Happy Birthday Dunkler Geist!

Struggles and Relationships

We all go through struggles. Each and every one of us. Some greater struggles and some lesser struggles, but they take a toll on us in someway. Do we pity others for their struggles? Why should we when everyone has them. The person who should be pitied is the person who feels like they are alone.

The architecture at the Seminary in Fort Wayne focuses on two of our relationships. Relationships with others and relationship with God. The buildings are made out of diamond shape bricks -- Concordia Brick. In the dorms, classroom buildings, cafeteria, and commons the bricks are laid horizontally. Showing man's relationship with man. But in the chapel they are vertical, showing man's relationship with God.

--I never really liked the phrasing. What does it mean to have a relationship with God, many people probably don't think it means the same thing as I do. My relationship with God is all his doing, His Baptizing me into His Death and Resurrection. Him coming to me in the Divine service. His Spirit entering me to open my lips and declare His praise from my body . His putting Truth, Forgiveness of Sins, and Eternal life into my mouth. My praise isn't worthy. I can do nothing that is worthy. The only reason I am considered worthy is because God sees me through His perfect Son's Blood.---

Our relationships with other people do matter. These people we will be spending eternity with. We are here to help others, to love them, to forgive them. Christ focuses a lot on how we are to treat one another in his teachings. Love your neighbor as yourself. We can't do that perfectly. We will covet our neighbors possessions, tell lies about him, and even murder him be it with words or actions. If we do all that is our Salvation in jeopardy of course not. It's permissible but is it beneficial. Why do we keep parts of the Law? Our salvation isn't based on it. We do it because it benefits us and others. We feel good when we do something kind for someone else. At least I do. If we shut everyone out and are mean to everyone. Who will be there when need someone? Does that mean you can't dislike someone even to the point of hate? I don't like a lot of people. Those feelings don't mean anything. "I could hate you today and love you tomorrow. Those feelings don't mean anything they will die with me. If I love you in Christ, that is eternal. - Pr Dreyer

Now, to our Relationship with God. There are many songs even hymns that talk about how everything will be all right if we do this or that to God. Our struggles will be gone if we pray about them. When in actuality, when we do pray about our hardships or struggles how often is the answer no, not now, or I have a different plan for you? More often then we would like it to be. Do not be discouraged though. Throughout everything you do there will be struggle, but we are blessed with a far better comfort then any struggle we encounter. That comfort is Christ on the Cross. Christ's mangled, bloody, body is what give us forgiveness from the blackness covering us-- our sin. From that broken body of Christ also comes our white garments so that we are not naked. These white garments are the water that washed us clean at our baptism and the broken body itself with the blood that came out of its side with the water. The flesh that the Word became. The sacraments that come from that Word are the greatest comforts we have. To the world this seems foolish, but God chose what is foolish to shame the wise. He chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. He chose what is low and despised in the world even things that are not, to bring nothing things that are. So that no human being might boast in the presence of God. (I Cor. 1:27-29) This worldly foolishness, our comfort, comes from God the source of our life in Christ. Whom God made our wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption (I Cor. 1:30)

What greater comfort is there than that? Not drugs or alcohol. They just drive you deeper into breaking the relationships you have with others and breaking the relationship God has instituted with you. Struggles will come and go but know that you are not alone. Share it with ones you trust. Your pastor is a great person to talk to. If you feel lonely surround yourself with others and build relationships with them. Also, do pray about them. Pray that the Lord will help you through them. When you pray focus on the cross, that great comfort of ours.

The Lord be with you all in your struggles and in times of peace.

Pax Christi

Mark (cont.)

In between the feeding of the 5,000 and 4,000 there is the story of the Syrophoenician women's faith. Jesus makes his way into the land of the gentiles. The woman came to him and told him she had a daughter who was possessed by an unclean spirit. The women was a gentile and she begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. Jesus says to her "Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children's bread and give it to the dogs." She answers him with, "Yet even the dogs under the table eat the children's curmbs." Jesus first limits his body (bread) to the children of Israel. The woman had been blessed with great faith and for that, her child was cleansed from the demon (baptism). Thus, the sacrament was opened to the gentiles with the feeding of the 4,000.

With the feeding of the 5,000 the people did not really need anything to eat, it was more of a luxury. With the feeding of the 4,000 the food is necessary. They people gathered would not make it home without fainting because of hunger. The disciples still do not understand, they ask how one could feed the people with bread in a desolate place. They have 7 loaves this time. Seven is a gentile number, it is the number of deacons that the apostles appointed to watch over the Gentiles in acts . 7 is also the number of completion, Christ giving his body completely. This points to the Lord's supper basically in the same ways as the feeding of the 5,000 did. They picked up the pieces left over. They gathered the pieces in 7 bushel baskets, bigger then the ones used at the feeding of the 5,000. 7 baskets for the gentiles and they are complete meaning it will never run out.

Thanks be to God for the opening of this wonderful mean of grace to the entire world! The Sacrament of the Altar is a great gift. Where else can Truth be placed in your mouth? The body of Christ sustaining us for eternity and the bread sustaining us for our time here on earth. Through this we receive forgiveness of sins. Without having to do anything!

I may add more to this later, if something else comes to me to post. I'll basically be putting this post and the last one together, probably adding scripture where you would have had to look it up before, before I put it up on my HT Blog.

Pax Christi

Side thing

Well since Jared yelled at me I updated the side bar thing.

Over there ------>

Eventually ill get a good post up. Soon I promise

Pax