New start in an old blog ??

Hi friends, specifically Sam and Thuy! (yes, the people other than myself who can read this blog!!!! One day you will meet each other, don't worry)

After many years of over-exposure, public attention, or complete open-transparency-everyone-who-has-internet-can-read-my-mind.... I have decided to make my blog private. I used to use my blog as something to encourage others and share the gospel, but I guess from now on I will encourage and share in a more personal way, face-to-face, or through phone or email at least... because for me, this blog has caused me a bit of trauma after I broke up with Adrian...

Yup, it was read by some people who assumed things of me and I basically shot myself in the foot by sharing my heart to the world. From now on, I will be wiser.

I know that the two of you read my blog, can be trusted with my LIFE, and I talk to you often enough so that you will not misunderstand me. Plus, I still wish to share my whole life with a few people. Sam, you don't know a whole ton about my past so I decided that this is one way you can scroll back into the archives of my life museum and see what happened or went through my crazy brain.

My previous blog was www.puritydove.com but DON'T GO THERE, it has been bought out by someone else...Basically my ex gave me that site and then he closed it down without giving me back my journal entries!!!!

Before that, www.xanga.com/puritydove ... I think it still works if you go there, I wrote some very inspiring things and very deep things about me there. And before that, it was Msn Spaces with my biblegurl@hotmail.com email... not sure how to get to that now!

Anyway, hope reading my blogs actually draws us closer together, and doesn't waste your time! Please do your homework/work first! :P

Take care and God bless you **hugs**

What Love Really Is... beautiful...

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. ²And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body to be burned, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant ⁵or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; ⁶it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. ⁷It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. ⁹For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; ¹⁰but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. ¹¹When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. ¹²For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. ¹³And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

(1 Corinthians 13, the Bible)

I actually had the idea of discontinuing this blog but there are a lot of memories that I don't want to lose, and I do have many things I like to share. I think it's just that right now at this point in time, I have so many feelings that are not suitable for sharing. I have lots of anger, depression, bitterness, hopelessness, and crap that will not inspire or help you understand life better in any way. It's just plain old crappy feelings that I have to deal with myself or with close friends, not online.

And this blog, like I always say was meant to inspire. Until I am ready to do that again, I think I will be taking a break from this blog. I still share stuff on facebook though. Okay, so long friends. Thanks for your readership. God bless you all, each and every one of you. Still care about every single one of you.

Famous People with Manic Depression aka Bipolar Disorder

Famous People with Manic Depression

Mania and depression are cyclical and affect all of us, but the intensity varies. We all experience highs and lows from time to time, but in some these highs and lows are extremely intense and disrupt normal life.

Manic depression is one such condition that affects normal living, thinking, and activities to a large extent. There are a number of famous people in the world who have experienced manic depression, and while some have managed to overcome this condition, a few have succumbed to it and committed suicide.

Among famous artists, Vincent Van Gogh is said to be one of the famous people with manic depression, and some of his work reflect these moods, especially the colors and strokes used on the canvas. During the manic phase, he worked like a genius and during one of his depressive phases, he pulled the trigger and committed suicide.

Other famous artists who are said to have suffered manic depression are Michelangelo and Pablo Picasso.

In the class of performing artists, Marilyn Monroe was a classic case of famous people with manic depression or bipolar disorder; an actor par excellence, but could not overcome manic depression and ultimately died by consuming sleeping tablets when she was only 36 years old.

Beside Marilyn Monroe, there are many other famous performing artists and actors who are said to have suffered from manic depression, and they are, Vivien Leigh Butler, Jeremy Brett, Madonna, Cary Grant, Margot Kidder, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Elizabeth Taylor, and Jim Carrey.

There were several leaders who were said to have suffered from manic depression, such as Abraham Lincoln, Napoleon Buonaparte, Mao Tse-Tung, Alexander the Great, Sir Winston Churchill, and Theodore Roosevelt.

Poets and writers, too, are among famous people with manic depression. A few famous ones are said to be Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, Ernest Hemingway, Henry James, Percy Bysshe Shelley Charles Dickens, and Maxim Gorky

In addition to the above, there are many other very famous people who were said to have suffered from manic depression or bipolar disorder. This includes the likes of Christopher Columbus, Sir Isaac Newton, Beethoven, and Albert Einstein.

Manic depression or bipolar disorder is a condition which has affected the rich and famous, writers and actors, poets and composers alike. Irrespective of gender, age, race, and location, manic depression is a condition that needs to be dealt with care, compassion, and courage.

Treatment for manic depression typically involves counseling, psychotherapy, and / or pharmacological drugs. Alternative or natural remedies are available, too.

Click here for more pages and articles on Bipolar Disorder or Manic Depression.

Article taken from http://www.all-on-depression-help.com/famous-people-with-manic-depression.html

Quotes I want to remember... (thanks to JL for these!!!)

There is an inner beauty about a woman who believes in herself, who knows she is capable of anything she puts her mind to. There is a beauty in the strength and determination of a woman who follows her own path, who isn't thrown off by obstacles along the way. There is a beauty about a woman whose confidence comes from experiences; who knows she can fall, pick herself up, and go on.
--

Hope for the best. Prepare for the worst.

Second Chance

Yesterday at church I learned this beautiful song named "Second Chance". It really touched my heart, especially when it came to the bridge. I hope to renew my relationship with Jesus Christ, not fill my heart with any other distraction and be dedicated to his will and his love.

The sermon also talked about "getting back in the game" after a failure. Well, I failed at a lot of things: relationships, family, work... but as Jesus said to Peter his disciple, "Feed my sheep", even after Peter had denied him 3x, Jesus is telling me once again to serve Him, no matter how imperfect I may be.

You see, the pastor explained that since Peter had denied knowing Jesus 3x before Jesus died on the cross, after Jesus' death he wanted to get his mind off things or trying to get back to his old self by going fishing. Jesus appeared in resurrected form to make a miracle of fish for them, since Peter and his friends had caught nothing that night. But the miracle of fish was just one of the reasons Jesus came to speak to Peter. Peter was probably ashamed, feeling guilty, sad and mad at himself for denying his Lord Jesus.

When he spread his hands over the coal fire (Jesus had made a coal fire to cook fish) after the miracle of fish, it probably gave him a flashback of when he was around a coal fire and people were asking "Do you know Jesus?" and he kept saying no.

Interestingly enough, Jesus asked Peter three times around this fish coal fire whether he loved him. Jesus asked the first two times with the word "love" in terms of a high spiritual devotion. But Peter answered I love you with only "love" for a friend. It probably hurt Peter a lot to have to admit that he only loved Jesus as a friend/brother, not as a most high God. Then the 3rd time, Jesus asked him if he loved him as a friend/brother. And Peter says, yes.

I think Jesus was trying to help Peter realize what he did, how much it hurt Jesus and himself, and really, help him not to bottle it all in. It's like me, I was denying my feelings but it was not good. Saturday I let it all out, acknowledged my feelings.

The pastor explained that Jesus is able to accomodate to our level. He doesn't expect us to be perfect and love him with a high spiritual love, although that would be nice. I hope you read John chapter 21 for yourself, it's so interesting... www.biblegateway.com has it, here I only put part of it down, and I used the Amplified Bible with more adjectives so you can get what I was trying to say...

John 21

¹⁴This was now the third time that Jesus revealed Himself (appeared, was manifest) to the disciples after He had risen from the dead.

¹⁵When they had eaten, Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, son of John, do you love Me more than these [others do--with reasoning, intentional, spiritual devotion, as one loves the Father]? He said to Him, Yes, Lord, You know that I love You [that I have deep, instinctive, personal affection for You, as for a close friend]. He said to him, Feed My lambs.

¹⁶Again He said to him the second time, Simon, son of John, do you love Me [with reasoning, intentional, spiritual devotion, as one loves the Father]? He said to Him, Yes, Lord, You know that I love You [that I have a deep, instinctive, personal affection for You, as for a close friend]. He said to him, Shepherd (tend) My sheep.

¹⁷He said to him the third time, Simon, son of John, do you love Me [with a deep, instinctive, personal affection for Me, as for a close friend]? Peter was grieved (was saddened and hurt) that He should ask him the third time, Do you love Me? And he said to Him, Lord, You know everything; You know that I love You [that I have a deep, instinctive, personal affection for You, as for a close friend]. Jesus said to him, Feed My sheep.

¹⁸I assure you, most solemnly I tell you, when you were young you girded yourself [put on your own belt or girdle] and you walked about wherever you pleased to go. But when you grow old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will put a girdle around you and carry you where you do not wish to go.

¹⁹He said this to indicate by what kind of death Peter would glorify God. And after this, He said to him, Follow Me!

²⁰But Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved, following--the one who also had leaned back on His breast at the supper and had said, Lord, who is it that is going to betray You?

²¹When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, Lord, what about this man?

²²Jesus said to him, If I want him to stay (survive, live) until I come, what is that to you? [What concern is it of yours?] You follow Me!

²³So word went out among the brethren that this disciple was not going to die; yet Jesus did not say to him that he was not going to die, but, If I want him to stay (survive, live) till I come, what is that to you?