James 2

Faith without works is dead.

Yes, I am doing my homework on my blog. Oh the joys of technology. Every week for my New Testament class I do some sort of project on my choice of 3 topics. As I looked over this week's topics this one jumped out and begged to be a blog post. Here is the prompt:

Your friend, who is investigating the Church, has expressed a question in the letter below.

Dear Christy,

Some of my friends are saying that Mormons are not Christian because you believe that you need to do righteous works along with having faith to be accepted by God. My other friends claim that with the grace of Christ, works are not necessary. They say that if I join the Mormons I would be denying Christ's grace. How should I respond to them?

Your friend

My response would go something like this:

Dear Friend,

Christ's grace brings us up from where we are to His level. After we try as hard as we can to be as righteous as we can, He makes up the rest. I just looked up at my wall and realized I had a picture of Christ up there that I had forgotten about. It's far enough from my bed that I don't normally see it. It's a popular picture, we use it a lot in the Church, but as I look at it now I realize there is no way I am not a Christian. I know Christ is my savior. My heart feels close to bursting now with the love I feel for Him. We believe that we need to prove ourselves before the Lord to be accepted into heaven. We need to work our hardest. Christ lived the perfect life. It was full of examples of kindness and righteousness. Though I could cite scriptures that say how important actions are and even Christ saying keep the commandments and do good, but I'm not going to. Why? Because I believe there is something more important in there. Faith in Christ motivates me to be more like Him. I look up to His example and want that more for me. As my faith grows so does my desire. That I believe is the important part. Faith is a motivator. True faith encourages us to show it through our good works. Faith doesn't sit idly by waiting dormant. It wants to jump out and be shouted from the rooftops. That faith is shown in our actions.

Love,

Christy

Body Image

I've been thinking about body image a lot lately.

It's pretty obvious when you look at me that I am not in shape. Not very close to it either. This is a statement of fact. I've also gained a considerable amount of weight since I've gotten home. However the only reason I really noticed is my clothes stopped fitting as well and I went to the doctors. Now that I've been thinking about it I notice and recognize that I need to take better care of my body.

When I was a freshman in high school I began dieting. I stopped drinking all pop and eating candy. At first I ate diet meal bars for lunch, but then as my sophomore year began I was eating only an apple from breakfast until dinner. During p.e. I ran my heart out, frequently with the goal of pushing myself to the point of throwing up. I did this for a couple reasons. First, the guy I liked only liked skinny girls. I was trying to fit into the mold I perceived he had. Second, all my friends were skinnier than me. Once I started I was on a goal of forever losing weight. I looked in the mirror and only saw how fat I was, how much bigger I was than any of my friends.

Me on the far right October 2006

My friends and I would do things like have formal dress parties where we all got together and put on our dresses and felt pretty. The only one I fit into was mine so I'm behind everyone in the picture to hid the fact that I am in the same dress I was last time.

In January of 2007 I had to have 3 surgeries on my foot leaving me out of my crazy exercise for a while. I never regained the active lifestyle that I had and have basically been gaining weight since.

The real question is why have I been so comfortable with my pretty obvious unhealthy and unflattering weight gain when before, when I looked much better, I was so unhappy with my appearance?