Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Praise God!!!!

Yeah, Yeah I know I haven't blogged in forever and now two in one day.

I wanted to share a praise with you all. On Thursday, I met with a young teenager from our church. She wanted me to teach her how to study the bible. While I was praying before this meeting, God told me first thing to do was ask her to share her testimony. God explained teaching her the Bible would do no good to her if she didn't belong to Him.

This is a fairly good girl and she comes to church so being the stubborn gal I am I questioned God's directive but told Him yes. Upon getting together with this young person, I told her exactly what God had told me. Then asked her if she knew what a testimony was....she said you mean my salvation experience. After a few brief minutes of sharing a testimony can be so much more than sharing my own salvation experience with her...this sweet young lady told me she didn't think she was saved.

After talking for quite sometime and answering many questions, I assured her that it was not my job to beat her over the head into submission of saying a prayer. This young lady had said the "salvation prayer" numerously after watching a tv preacher but never felt any different or saw any difference in her life. So, when all her questions were answered and we had discussed a few other things I asked her if she had any more questions or anything else she wanted to discuss. She said she wanted to pray to accept Jesus as her Savior.

This young person shared her experience in a bible study class on Monday. After a sharing time, a young adult woman in the class (who everyone would have assumed was saved) shared she did not know Jesus as her Saviour.

Why share all this? Because first we want to PRAISE GOD!!! Second, because we are doing a great misservice to our God. We are assuming that if someone goes to church regularly and is a basic good person they must be saved. We shouldn't assume someone from a Muslim country is lost anymore than we should assume someone from America is saved.

Do you see wreckage or God?

Last night at our women's ministry meeting, a young woman from church gave her testimony and one statement she made has stuck with me. Here is her statement:

"Are we so wrapped up at looking in the wreckage that we our missing what God is doing in our lives?"

We all have stories of wreckage whether it be mentally, physically or spiritually, but the amazing thing is if we look for God we will see Him!

I have been through Henry Blackaby's "Experiencing God" twice in my life and the one thing I walked away with the first time was that at times in our lives we can be so wrapped up in a situation....be it the pain or the disruption to the rest of our lives that we lose sight of where God is in all of it. At that time, I was walking through a tough situation with a close friend of mine and I did what Blackaby suggested in the study. Blackaby suggested we ask God to let us see the situation from His viewpoint and not ours. Doing that changed my view to God's view and my reaction to the whole situation.

Each of us has trials and tribulations in our lives..... But we must do be willing to ask the question posed to us last night...."Are we so busy looking at the wreckage that we miss God?"

Monday, October 20, 2008

BID4PRIZES CELL PHONE SCAM......WATCH OUT!!!

BID4PRIZES CELL PHONE SCAM....WATCH OUT!!!!

I wanted to tell you what I have dealt with today. My cell phone has been receiving a charge of $9.99 a month by a content provider called goldpocket with a description of bid4prizes. I had no idea what this was. This is a cell phone charging scam in my opinion because I NEVER gave anyone permission to charge my account repeatedly....I don't even give permission to anyone for a one-time charge.

Since SunCom is now T-Mobile I called T-Mobile, the T-Mobile rep. Laura was a great help in trying to help me. Between the two of us we found a number for this company bid4prizes. Upon calling them the woman, Rhonda, who answered the phone said I need the cell phone number this is in regard to. My response was you apparently have it because you have been charging my phone for months that has not been authorized by me. She said I must have the phone number....I gave her my number. Her next response was please verify your name and social security number. I TOLD HER NO! for her to give me what she had. I admit I was terse and not my normal pleasant self with this woman. She refused to give me the information she had but said the service had been cancelled as of today. I asked her what about all the months of unauthorized charges. She responded we do not give refunds.

I stated I wanted to speak to a supervisor. Rhonda said I was to give her a number and a supervisor would call me within 24-48 hours. I told her that if I did not hear from a supervisor within 24 hours that I would start procedures to force them to give me back the other months for I never gave permission for them to charge my account in the first place. Sorry this is so long but I know you can help get the word out so other people will check their cell phone bills closely. We had noticed the charge before SunCom became T-Mobile and had reported it but there has been a lot of transition for them in the last couple months. They are doing what they can to help but are limited.