Jeaniam

It was a baby that fell into a swimming pool, and was underwater for approxiamately ten minutes. I am at least willing to leave the door open for the possibility that she woke up and experienced no brain damage was due to a miraculous intervention. BTW, she never received CPR. I have heard of other occurances from people I respect; also from people I do not respect and tend to discount their stories.

It seems to me that attributing every evil event in a person's life to their 'believing' or lack thereof bypasses the reality of an adversary. John and I recently dealt with a situation involving a person with no insurance backing into our car. I take exception to the idea that our 'believing' caused the accident. We were also confronted with a friend of ours having a recurrance of cancer who underwent surgery rather than experiencing a supernatural healing. Some people would characterize this person as an 'inadequate believer', but I don't agree with that either. I think undergoing surgery indicates this person's resolve to be healed by whatever means are at their disposal.

I believe that things DO change in the real world. I have seen the dead raised, the sick healed, the mentally ill restored to sanity, etc. through the power of prayer and the truths contained in the Bible. I'm not sure that I (or any other Christian) can manipulate reality. I do believe that I have access to God through prayer and He CAN manipulate reality. I remember much that I learned in PFAL with great fondness. As I have said before, I grew up in a very narrow-minded family and church, and most of what I learned in PFAL was very liberating for me (incorruptible seed, JC is not God, the dead are not alive, speaking in tongues, etc.).

Happy fiftieth. Hope you have a great year.

I'm not sure where you got the idea that Paul pushed religion and legality, since so many of his writings were on the freedom wherewith Christ has made us free (notably Galatians, among others). Saul's namechange to Paul is covered in Acts 13:1-10, but there is not a great deal of detail about the reason why. I was starting to percolate a theory based on what you posted on the Mirror thread, that possibly in the gospels we are told to be followers (akoloutheo) of Jesus Christ because he was still present in the flesh and Pentecost had not happened yet. In the epistles we are encouraged to be followers (mimetes) of Christ because it was after the day of Pentecost, and the new birth and the gift of holy spirit were available. This is just a thought on my part and I have very little at this point to back it up; also this is not an attempt to de-rail this thread, just following up on something you posted elsewhere. Hi, and welcome back, Larry. I hope you had a good vacation.

I thought the topic was degrading women, both married or single; which possibly could be expanded to degrading people of either gender, as I tried to point out in one post. Both men and women are very capable of abuse, sexual or otherwise.

I tend to agree that it should not become focussed on any one particular couple, but I do not agree with the idea that we have tried to focus it on ourselves. I posted an anecdote, someone said they didn't understand, I posted a further anecdote to illustrate what I said, and then various other posters saw fit to bring up ancient history in the form of old posts by John which have already been talked to death.

1. This is the closest to the truth, although I think that there are certain extreme situations when he wouldn't hesitate to strike a woman; and I am not going to go into detail on this thread. 2. Partially true. John has an odd sense of humor. 3. Wrong. 4. Wrong. 5. Wrong. 6. Highly unlikely.

Good point.

You don't expect respect?

What angers me about your (and other's) posts is that no how many times I have said that John has never struck me or any other woman, and is a wonderful husband and father, you persist in believing the exact opposite, and treating me as a child or someone who deserves to be pitied for the misfortune of being married to John. John, at least, treats me as an adult woman with her own mind, who is capable of thinking rationally. Some of you on GSC don't accord me that courtesy. If there is room for change in all of us, maybe it should begin with you. I thought the whole point of this thread was respect.

Well, we were taught that he is looking at us through what Jesus Christ accomplished on our behalf.

Possibly, some of them do. Some women can be just as abusive as any man, and respect in the workplace should cut both ways. On the subject of abuse (not in the workplace, but in the schoolyard), we were confronted recently with a situation involving a woman teacher and several teenage male students in which the female teacher was accused of sexually abusing several students (these accustions included sodomy). She recently pled guilty and now faces a sentence of up to 150 years in prison. I bring this up to reinforce a point that 'respect' in any situation should protect both gender's rights not just one.

I don't know how to get multiple quotes in the same post and I was trying to disagree with several people (not only you). Possibly I should have quoted temple lady since she was the poster who named names. Mea culpa. BTW, I am not sure your 'generic' principles really do apply to ALL marriages.

I said that the decision John came up with was a compromise and the ONLY compromise I could think of. Please try to read my entire post before you respond.

Right now, I'm wondering what the difference between TWI and GSC is. We had problems with TWI because they wanted to stick their noses in our marriage, and decide that there was something wrong with it because I knew what size tires went on the car and John was capable of changing a poopy diaper and watching his own children. Some of you in GSC take it upon yourself to decide there must be something wrong with our marriage (and I need people to feel sorry for me) because I use the term 'tiebreaker'. As one poster pointed out, since John and I don't think our marriage is broken, why are y'all trying to fix it. In the situation I described (which was the most serious that has confronted us), there really wasn't a compromise position possible (other than the one John decided on); either his mother came to live with us, or she didn't.

In the areas where I was (admittedly not as numerous as you) I never saw any bruises, black eyes, broken bones, etc. In the 90's more and more frequently women (even single women) were treated like second class citizens, but in the early days many men treated their wives (and single women) with courtesy. Once again I don't want these men, many of whom are still good friends of mine to be lumped in with the ones who were jerks.

Roy understood me very well. I was remembering a teaching I once heard on the subject of the uniqueness of everyone's gift of holy spirit, along the lines of my gift of holy spirit was uniquely suited to me and wouldn't work for you or any other believer, and the same for yours. I know there are verses that call upon us to be imitators of Christ, and also of Paul, but I don't think that means that we should try to be clones of each other. As Roy said, we should try to imitate their love, but in our own way, and being ourselves doing it. BTW, thanks for the poem. I really enjoyed it.

John has never struck me, no matter how loud I've gotten on occasion; and I have a tendency to be a screamer, so I think my answer to that question has to be 'No'. I think he exaggerated to get his point across. Beyond that I'll let him speak for himself.

I didn't see any physical or sexual abuse of women in the areas where I was. As far as I'm aware, women were treated with courtesy in the areas where I was. There did seem to be more and more rules about the roles of men and women that seemed silly. I remember one situation in which John and I were having our house exterminated and needed a place to sleep for the night. I thought of the BC's house (because they were going on vacation) and I went to the BC's wife and asked her if we could borrow it. She agreed and we slept there for two nights. The BC didn't have a problem with us staying there but he 'reproved' me for not going to John with my request so that John could go to the BC and ask the question and the BC could decide. Oh, please. I thought the shortest distance between two points was a straight line.

May I inquire into the relevance of Malachi to this post?

Hi, just wanted to wave in passing and thank you for having given me much food for thought. I am trying to catch up with the thread since returning from our vacation. I never thought of 1&2 Timothy in that light. I'll be back as soon as I have something relevant to say.

I have seen people who imitated VPW and other leaders slavishly in an apparent effort to become a VPW or LCM clone, and I've said before that I don't think the purpose of Christ in me is for me to become a clone of anyone. I think the purpose of Christ in me is to magnify the good aspects of MY personality, and allow me to fulfill that unique role that I have in the body of Christ. I have seen people who imitate VPW to the point of imitating his jokes about India paper and drinking Drambouie, but I think that the point of Christ in a particular person is to allow that person to be able to teach the Bible in his or her own particular style and with his or her own particular viewpoint. I happen to enjoy Drambouie and really filthy jokes, but I did those things before my involvement with TWI and I still do them now that my involvement with TWI has ended. I think each person's role in the body is unique and any effort to imitate each other actually diminishes the Body of Christ rather than enhancing it. We don't need multiple Jeaniams running around, it is sufficient (some would say more than sufficient) that we have one; and, if I can say this without causing an uproar and a huge misunderstanding, we don't really need multiple clones of Jesus Christ running around, we had one and he has fulfilled his role in the Body. Now what we need to do is add his good qualities in our hearts so we can fulfill our own unique roles in the Body, IMHO. Yes, I know the Bible tells us to be imitators of Christ, that's not precisely what I was trying to say.

Thank you very much, WG, and Bramble, for your comments and your support. I never meant to say, or imply, by the tie-breaker comment that John's plan is always the one that prevails.

Yes, there are people who regularly post on greasespot who have met us, and know very well that we are two people, not just one person posting under two different names. If you check our profiles, you will see that John was born in May, 1954; and I was born in October, 1957, among other differences.