Daily Doodles- Day 103- 29/07/24

Daily Doodles- Day 180- 15/10/24

Christians are always talking about God's Love and what God can do for us, but rarely about Repentance and how it's one of the things that we can do for God.

I didn't even know what exactly repentance was until last year and it's not just about feeling bad about what you did. You also have to change your ways and commit to that change.

It's difficult.

Do some more research into what repentance really is for yourself, and as always take your questions back to God.

The tag for this is #agdoodles

The stuff I bought at the first con!

These cute earrings and necklace! I quite like this seller (cherry picked.tt on Instagram) The frying pan earrings are my favorite!

It was my mum's birthday the day of the con and we saw these beautiful turtle earrings that are exactly her style.

There were a couple of stationery booths and I got the transparent sticky notes that I see all over the stationery community. I got these two colours because they were the most pastel and I like the pastels

At the next booth, I got this cute notebook that I use for work...

And these cool pens!

The first is one of those multicoloured pens. It has ten colours! I think the character on top is called Kuromi.

The seconds is a covid vaccine pen! 🤣 I despise that 'vaccine' but this pen is too cute! It's not just a pen though. On the other side has a sort of squiggly stamp and at the bottom of the vaccine part has a covid virus stamp! I found these things out while fooling around with it.

The third is just aesthetically cute. It's, minimalist, pastel pink and has this cute removable heart charm!

I bought some stuff at the other con and I'll post that once I transfer all the pics to my computer.

Not Another Paranormal Romance- Artwork 1

You can read my short story 'Not Another Paranormal Romance' here:

Archive Of Our Own

Fictionpress

Tumblr Post

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These were my initial doodles of some of the characters for my story. This is how I usually start, so I can get an idea of how I want them to look. Some of them change in future artwork.

Gabriella (Denise) is the protagonist, Amaya is one of her friends, Cyrus is the demon/nephilim and Sasha, who has not been introduced yet is a minor antagonist.

Denise's name was changed to Gabriella, because the name Denise is connected to Diyonisus, a greek 'god' (more than likely one of the fallen or their offspring).

Here || Art post #2 || Art post #3 || Art post #4 ||

Art post #5 || Art post #6

Daily Doodles- Day 4- 20/04/24

Not even 10 days in and I missed a day already 🫣 By the time I remembered, it was 12 am and I was too sleepy to care 😆

Thankfully this is a fun and easy challenge, so I'm already caught back up. Decided to draw a pot head and I think she's real cute! You may see some more like her!

The tag for this is #agdoodles

Daily Doodles- Day 15- 30/04/24

Crazy fashion cat lady!

A redraw of a drawing I did in 2015 of a fancy lady wearing a scarf made of live cats.

They look more like cat plushies here, but they're still cute!

The tag for this is #agdoodles

Daily Doodles- Day 124- 19/08/24

I was tired this day and decided to do some literal doodles with my gel and ballpoint pens. She's a cute girl in an oddly coloured fur jacket!

The tag for this is #agdoodles

You don't need anyone's approval for the stories you write and the art you create. But it's also absolutely valid to want some approval from your audience. Kudos and likes don't determine your creation's worth. But it just feels amazing to receive them.

Daily Doodles- Day 199- 02/11/24

I tried to do one of those flowy drawings, but my lines just wouldn't come out all effortlessly flowy. You can see that I struggled.

It's still a great piece though!

I also introduced some coloured pencil to spice it up a bit.

The tag for this is #agdoodles

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Aye, more If you find a vigilante in a dumpster by @lunamugetsu

Making manga/comic-ish art is so fun but a pain at the same time

I'm curious, what do you think of 1st Corinthians 14:34-35?

What we think of it doesn’t matter; what I think of it matters even less; what it says is what matters. It’s the Word of God.

“The women are to keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak, but are to subject themselves, just as the Law also says. But if they desire to learn anything, let them ask their own husbands at home, for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in church.”

Everyone’s got a problem with that because it sounds like the Bible is saying women can’t ever talk in church at all. That’s not what it’s saying, though. You know why? Because this is two verses plucked straight out of a book that has 437 verses in it. That’s like if I read two sentences out of the middle of one of your emails to a close family member and took issue with whatever those two sentences said. Even though the context determines the meaning, so I have no right to get offended when I don’t understand the context. So what’s the context of 1 Corinthians by the time you get to 14:34-35?

The Apostle Paul is writing to a church in the Gentile city of Corinth in AD 53 or 54. That church was a blend of Jewish Christians and Greek Christians. Two completely different cultures were figuring out what the “assembly of the saints,” or “the first church services” were supposed to look like. And to make matters more complicated, they lived in one of the most morally bankrupt cities of that age. Literally, the Corinthian people had a Greek word coined to describe their immorality. So the people who lived there were generally all messed up, in terms of not knowing what was right and what was wrong. That extended to their church services.

The whole context of 1 Corinthians is “what is a church that glorifies the Lord supposed to look like?” The context of the specific chapter, 14, is “what should church assembly that glorifies the Lord look like? What should it not look like?”

How do I know? Read the verses that come before it. At the beginning of the chapter, Paul explains that spiritual gifts are for edifying other people. In fact, everything done in a church service, where the saints are gathered, is not for an individual. It’s for the edification of the whole group. So what might be okay to do in your own home or in private between you and God is not okay, because it’s not mindful, considerate, or edifying to other Christians when you’re in a church service.

Specifically, the Corinthians are all claiming to “prophesy” (get direct revelation from God) and “speak in tongues” (speak in known, but various and foreign, languages) all at once during the service. Everybody’s shouting over each other. Some people are shouting over each other “THUS SAYS THE LORD,” which is a huge deal. Because obviously if you’re going to claim that God has told you something, everyone should shut up, listen, and determine whether or not you’re telling the truth, because what could be a bigger deal than God speaking? But that’s not how the church in Corinth was treating it. Their services were helping nobody, least of all themselves, because it was loud chaotic pandemonium and nobody I was being edified. Everybody was shouting and judging. Including women. By verse 26, Paul is going:

“What is the outcome then, brothers? When you assemble, each one has a psalm, has a teaching, has a revelation, has a tongue, has a translation. Let all things be done for edification. If anyone speaks in a tongue, it should be by two or at the most three, and each in turn, and one must translate; but if there is no translator, he must keep silent in the church, and let him speak to himself and to God. And let two or three prophets speak, and let the others pass judgment. But if a revelation is made to another who is seated, the first one must keep silent. For you can all prophesy one by one, so that all may learn and all may be exhorted. And the spirits of prophets are subject to prophets; for God is not a God of confusion but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints.”

And then he adds,

“The women are to keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak, but are to subject themselves, just as the Law also says. But if they desire to learn anything, let them ask their own husbands at home, for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in church. Was it from you that the word of God first went forth? Or has it arrived to you only?

“If anyone thinks he is a prophet or spiritual, let him recognize that the things which I write to you are the Lord’s commandment. But if anyone remains ignorant about this, he is ignored by God.

“Therefore, my brothers, earnestly desire to prophesy, and do not forbid to speak in tongues. But all things must be done properly and in an orderly manner.”

Do you get it? The point is, “what does this specific situation, which is a church service, look like if we’re trying to do things in a God-honoring, orderly manner? Here’s what it does not look like: women can’t just stand up in church and take up the role of judge over men who are shouting that they are speaking from God, and call certain men impostors and certain men prophets.”

The point is not “all women should never ever speak in all church services because that’s disgraceful, they only get to talk to their husbands and get told what to do.”

If it were, then explain to me why, three chapters earlier, when he’s talking about head-coverings, Paul writes that women can prophesy in public?

“But every woman who has her head uncovered while praying or prophesying, shames her head, for she is one and the same as the woman whose head is shaved.”

(if you want to talk about why the heck a woman has to have her head covered when she prophesies, blah blah blah, let’s talk about that too, but the answer’s going to be the same: context determines meaning, meaning is correct interpretation, etc.)

Additionally, why would Paul be commending the women in the church who have taught their sons and grandsons? How can they teach if they’re never allowed to talk in church, or if their only role in all contexts is “shut up and learn?”

Because that’s not their only biblical role. And that’s not what Paul was saying. Paul was saying, “in this specific context, here’s how a woman (among all the other people groups I’m also addressing) should conduct herself when the goal is to edify the believers in a church service, and not let anything get in the way of that goal.”

Now.

Guess what?

If the Bible did say, “all women shut up and listen all the time, let the men do the talking,” would you listen to it?

You, reading this. Would you have a problem with it? If that’s what God Sid to do, would you sit in judgement over God and say, “no, infinite Creator of all matter and life, You’re mistaken about how You should be worshipped and what these little creatures You made are for, let me correct and educate You with the judgement coming out of the three-pound lump of gray matter, which You designed and graciously allowed me to have in the first place, sitting inside my skull. Let me, the creature, tell You, the Creator, where you’re wrong and what ‘Being God’ should be like.”

I hope not. But I was super convicted reading this chapter for the first time and finding myself a) misunderstanding it and then b) having the appalling gall and arrogance to be outraged by it.

Who in the world am I? Who am I to be outraged, if God did say, “be quiet and spend your life listening to men?” If that were what He was saying, my response should be, “Yes, Lord.”

Why are we so concerned about being allowed to speak? What do we have to say that’s so great, that’s so necessary, that’s so devastating to have “removed” from us, anyway? Why do we care so much about being heard? Is it because we have something to say that could really help men, in the church services? Oh, really? And if we women don’t say it, God won’t edify the men? He’ll be handicapped because we were muzzled?

What’s so offensive about being told to stop talking and ask questions to learn, anyway? Why is that so infuriating, to us? We’re fools. The whole point of the Gospel is, “He (Jesus) must increase; I must decrease.” The best place in the world to be is at the feet of Jesus, learning. Humble. Not producing anything of ourselves, but absorbing everything He has to teach us. Who cares if it’s our husbands He plans to do that through? Who cares if we can’t teach men in church? What, we think God can’t handle that? We think He can’t teach them His own way, that His plan was flawed, that they’re “missing out” because God dropped the ball by telling us not to stand up in service and disrupt everything with this great ‘word’ we have, that nobody else has?

Ugh. God forgive me for ever even approaching a mindset that thinks I have something to say, and if I don’t say it, He won’t be able to accomplish His will. God forgive me for ever thinking my Western modern culture knows better than His divine plan. He designed human beings and men and women and what would best serve us before “culture” or “social frameworks” were ever even conceived of.

We all need to be a lot more humble. Me first.

I would encourage you to test what I said. If you read this, you should spend an equal amount of time studying the Bible for yourself and seeing if I was right, and if that’s really what God said and meant, based on the context, which determines meaning, because there is such a thing as “correct and incorrect interpretation” when the God of the universe meant something by what He said. And I could’ve gotten it wrong. And you don’t want to get it wrong.