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posted 6 months ago, edited 6 months ago
2021 art. My Spyro OC / General comfort character, Astra, the DreamWeaver dragon.
Character and Artwork (C) ArtGuts
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The time God touched me and made me laugh when everyone else was crying.....................................................................................................................................The time God touched me and made me laugh when everyone else was crying ..................................................................................................................................... Just wanted to share this little story of how God reached my heart one time... when I didn't want Him to. Sounds weird, right? Why would anyone NOT want to feel God's touch? The mighty one who created absolutely everything, He wants to reach out and you don't want Him to, are you CRAZY?! Well, it went down like this. One evening, a small group of young pre-teen girls were gathered in this one lady's house. We were having our own little church meeting of sorts. Talking about God, reading some Bible verses... and singing songs. The lady had a tiny guitar and started playing and singing a kind of sad worship song. All the other girls in this group got tears streaming down their faces. Quiet sniffles occasionally overlapping the sounds from the guitar. God's presence was strong with all us that evening. I could feel my throat tighten up too. Tears wanting to well up. But I refused to cry. "God's made everyone else cry. I don't wanna cry. God's NOT gonna make ME cry!" I thought. The song ended, the sniffles continued. And then. I felt a tug on the corner of my lips. The briefest smile. And then, suddenly, I burst out laughing! Laughing and laughing and unable to control myself. Stumbling across the little living-room because I just couldn't sit still. Didn't even notice any of the other girls at that point, but I'm sure they must have looked at me like:“What’s going on with that weirdo?” . Almost knocked over a plant before, my best friend at the time, smiled and said:"Ok, sit down, you... you laugh-bug." XD I finally stopped laughing and sat back down on the floor... embarrassed. Don't remember much else from that evening, but that moment got forever stuck in my memories. It was like God was saying:"Oh yeah? You don't wanna cry, huh?" and decided to touch my soul with His finger and infused me with laughter instead. I can just imagine Him smirking as he did that. X3 This moment always reminds me that God has a great sense of humor. Hehe X3 So, it's not that I didn't want God to touch me, per se. It's just that I didn't want Him to touch me in the form of crying , that's all. So, if you wanna take anything away from this. A moral for the story, if you will. It's that God can and will reach you. Even in ways you don't expect. Or perhaps especially in ways that you don't expect. And that's a good thing =D So don't fight Him. Let Him flow and do his thing. I guarantee you'll love it. Because He loves you ❤ ^_^....................................................................................................................................Being tricked about the »Rapture«.....................................................................................................................................Being tricked about the »Rapture«. .................................................................................................................................... In the final days, the Earth will be covered in spiritual darkness.People will exalt and love evil and hate and rebuke truth.Like in the days of Noah, people will be partying and be selfish right up until it’s too late. But as the darkness covers the Earth, God will pour His spirit on all people.The young will prophecy and have visions and the old will have dreams. The Bible says as much and predicted it thousands of years ago. O_O¡And it is happening right now! ÔoÔ People are having »Rapture« dreams and visions, both about going »¡WOOSH!« but also about what the years of »Tribulation« are going to be like. The »chip« , the »Mark of the Beast« , that whole shebang. Very recently, however, people are claiming September 23rd is going to be the day Christ returns... ¡¡¡Yeah, I’m NOT falling for that again!!! Jesus Himself said: »But of that day and hour, no one knows. No, not even the angels of heaven, but my Father only.« (in [Matthew 24:36]) . ¡And, despite knowing that, I STILL got tricked two years ago! This is what happened... I had just been called back by God, in October 2023, and started finding preachers, teachers, prophets and testimonies on YouTube. Some were encouraging, some were warnings, some were garbage and some were just flat out lies. Most of the garbage and lies was easy enough to spot and tell apart from the real ones. But one channel got me... -_-;; A preacher streaming on Facebook and uploading the streams as multi-hour long videos on YouTube. Preaching a good game about having a special Hebrew »Bible Code« that, when prayed over, could be interpreted correctly and reveal secrets from God, about people and events, not meant to be understood until now in this day and age. He nick-named his Facebook group »Night Watchers« (or something like that) , which, by the way, I didn’t find a way to join what-so-ever, despite wanting to at the time. Figured it must have been some private club or something. »shrug« He was also very insistent that people should go and subscribe to his YouTube channel, so that it would grow, get pushed by the algorithm, have more people notice it and his Bible code messages would spread to reach more of God’s people... ¿But if he really wanted his channel to grow and be noticed, wouldn’t he have had his comment sections turned on?... Strange... A few times he’d come out with new »Bible Codes« , provided by another guy in a different country. Apparently, he would receive specific dates (like birth dates and other significant dates) , convert them into »Book, Chapter, Verse« messages in the Bible and give that to the preacher to share with the people in the group. This »Bible de-coder« fella, was also writing a book about Bible codes, and was periodically updating the PDF. It ended up being 777 pages long when he was finished with it, right before December 2023. The preacher encouraged people to donate - nothing wrong with that, a lot of ministries do - but some time after the 777 update, the preacher suddenly had the »¡Rapture Confirmation Code!« What he did next sickens me to my stomach... he told everyone to give ALL their money to the Bible de-coder guy, because, according to the preacher: »¿What are you gonna use it for? ¡The world will end before 2024!« Now, I wasn’t that stupid. But believe me when I say that this guy sounded extremely convincing. ._.;; His tone of voice, attitude, expression of emotions, aura of authority and knowledge of the Bible... e-yerp - he was a preacher alright. So far, this preacher had managed to manipulate me into staying up all night - going outside and stare up at the moon and stars, waiting for Jesus to come pick me up, because: »¡Any time this week, it’s gonna happen folks! ¡Be ready!« Oh, and it was DEFINITELY gonna happen at night in America, because it was gonna happen in the middle of the day in Israel’s time. For 3 months, this preacher, this- pharisee ... managed to discourage me, make me depressed, lose sleep, destroy my daily routine and make me give up on wanting to do ANYTHING . Because: »¿What’s the point in starting something that I couldn’t humanly possibly finish, when time was almost up?« That was the solemn somber thought invading my mind. So, I asked God if I should donate to the Bible de-coder guy. Oh, by the way, this Bible de-coder was supposed to become one of the »Two Witnesses« (mentioned in [Revelation 11:3 - 12]), THAT’S why we were supposed to throw all our money away to him T_T God loves a cheerful giver, true. ¡BUT! I didn’t wait for an answer... so... I ended up being manipulated out of... a sum of money I will not disclose -_-; It wasn’t until later that night that my mind went: »Wait - ¡¿What’s HE gonna use the money for?!« ¡UGH! >_< I felt so... ¡stupid! A) Because I didn’t think of that before donating.andB) Because I got tricked... ¡AS AN ADULT! It’s one thing to be a young teenager and be tricked into giving money away to some guy, just because he tells you a long sob story about wanting to save young girls from being raped in a foreign country... But it’s another thing to be tricked as an adult, because some preacher talks a very convincing game and manipulates you to do the exact same mistake. ¡AGAIN! (That first one, happened in the Christian boarding school by the way... ¡I blame the teachers for even allowing that charlatan to come spew his lies in the first place!¡14 year olds are still children, you’re supposed to protect them! ¡You can’t expect them to know better yet!) Anyway... ¡Talk about double the shame! -~-;; So... 2023 passed... we didn’t celebrate Halloween or Christmas, (which is probably a good thing. According to some sources, Christ’s birthday is on the 29th of October, and Halloween glorifies the devil -_-) ... but rapture didn’t happen. So, checking in on the preacher’s channel, not ONLY was he making excuses as to why rapture didn’t happen, ¡but THIS wasn’t even the FIRST time he’d done so! EVERY year, for SEVERAL years, his excuse was: »Guys, we didn’t have all the information and details - we didn’t know as much then as we do now about de-coding Bible codes. The code changes with new knowledge and- « ¡¡¡Blah blah blah BLAH BLAH!!! ¡¿WHY didn’t I investigate SOONER ?! ¡Stupid, stupid, STUPID! Sad to say, but it took a whole year to recover emotionally from that one.¡Not to mention faith and trust-wise! O_O I have forgiven the pharisee preacher, the Bible de-coder, and even the teachers from way back in the day, since then. It was a lesson about trust and betrayal, learned the hard way. But this is why I’m on higher guard this time. It’s good to have hope, but foolish to have your whole life fall apart because you’re convinced about something. And even if rapture DOESN’T happen, or , it happens and you’re left behind , what matters is to keep trusting God to guide you. Both on your good days and your bad days, as well as on your best days and on your worst days.....................................................................................................................................