"Religion"

I've been going through a lot of changes lately and I just wanted to express them here, because I have nowhere else to express them.

I've been looking into a wide variety of religions lately, mostly just for curiosity and simply wanting to be more educated on different religions; not for personal reasons. I feel like a lot of young Christians should do this, because sometimes they want to tell people about God, but have no knowledge of other religions. If you're a Christian, you believe NO OTHER religion is real, so you must be able to discredit the others.

Anyways, I haven't considered myself a Christian for quite some time. I know God is real. No one could convince me otherwise, because I have FELT God. No religion that I've looked into has made sense to me, though. I believe that God loves us more than we could ever comprehend. God loves unconditionally (more abundantly than any human could possibly love)! My parents' love for me is the only thing that I know that is closest to unconditional love. No matter how stupid I am, my parents are there for me and want the best for me. Even if I murdered someone, my parents would still love me and would visit me in jail. I know they would. That's unconditional love. That being said, why would God (the one that loves us TRULY unconditionally) want to put us in hell for eternity and have us be permanently separated from him? God does not want that for anyone, so I do not believe he would make that so. That's the thing that I've struggled with though. "If God doesn't put us in hell, then what's the real truth?"

I feel like God has been working on me lately. He's been showing himself in the most random of ways. First, I think he showed me how unconditionally my parents love me (as much as human's can), but they aren't perfect so they did not always do the best they could for me. They didn't always even try their best, because they are human, like me, and are flawed. No matter how much you love someone, you will not always treat them how you should, because everyone has a selfish nature and you sometimes default to that when things are hard. Anyways, this occurred to me while I was reading a novel that seemed totally unrelated to this lesson, but through it, I felt like God was saying: 'Look how much your parents love you, even in their flawed human way. Think of how much more I love you.' God didn't just make my body that my parents also kind of made by accident. He very deliberately made my actual soul. So that, I feel was my first lesson to open me up to the next lesson.

The next book I read was by a "medium", a person who believes they speak to spirits, and was also just a random book I wanted to read out of curiosity. This medium believes she has a relationship with God and believes that God gave her this ability to speak to Spirit to help people (to tell them that their loves ones are at peace and in heaven with God). I don't really want to focus too much on her, but some of the things she said REALLY spoke to me. She said that since she grew up Catholic, some of the things Spirit told her was hard for her to accept, but that Spirit has told her about the afterlife. The Spirit said to her that there are many levels of heaven and the lesser souls (of murderers, rapists, etc) are put into the lowest levels of Heaven. How we act towards people and how much spiritual growth we achieve on earth determines how high you get up into Heaven. BUT when we get to our level of Heaven, it doesn't have to end there. We can stay in Heaven and slowly achieve one-ness with God OR we can go back to earth in a new human body and achieve spiritual growth and a higher place in heaven much quicker. You can do this as many times as you want until eventually, you become one with God. You don't BECOME God, but you become like Jesus, one with God. (I believe that Jesus was a very advanced soul and that his life as Jesus was his very last life on earth and after his death, became one with God). I believe this is why everyone in their own religion KNOWS that their God is real. When Catholics pray to Mary or other saints, they feel that affirmation from God. Christians know God is real, because when they pray to Jesus, they get that affirmation from God. Other people of other religions know their God is real and you cant tell them otherwise, because they have felt God in maybe the same way as you, but with a different religious figure that may be another advanced soul they pray to (Gautama Buddha, could be an example). This has all just cliqued with me! Since reading this, I don't feel confusion or animosity towards God for sending people to Hell. I feel such peace and I feel like I can pray and have a relationship with him, finally!

 These new beliefs I have are basically Hindu beliefs. Hinduism has a lot of other stuff that I don't find necessary (like rituals, statues, the same God with different aspects similar to the way Christians have God, Jesus, and Holy Spirit). There's nothing really wrong with that, but for me, I don't need to call God a new name or do any certain thing, but pray to him (the same God I always have prayed to). The unconditional-loving creator.

Other things that make sense to me in Hinduism is that Hindus do not believe in converting others. They believe that the relationship between a person and God (whatever religion) is valid. I wouldn't consider myself Hindu now, but that, I truly agree with! More than ever, I am happy for people who believe in Jesus and have a relationship with God! I myself, couldn't accept the Hell-aspect and some other aspects of Christianity. But I feel so happy, full, and I want to spread God's love to others as he gives it to me. I just feel so peaceful and content.... oh my gosh. Thank God! I wanted God to reveal himself to me and he did. Other people can think that I'm wrong and I'm confused, but I know that I'm re-starting a relationship with God and no one can tell me otherwise. <3

Life is so good + first chapter of book

Things have been so good!! I just feel like I've been in this state of learning lately. I feel like I'm learning to love more unconditionally. I don't know if a person can really love unconditionally--only God can do that--but I feel like he's teaching me to be more loving. It's amazing. I feel such peace in my life right now. I'm not saying life is PERFECT right now, because it never is. But I feel so much peace and love in my life. You hear so much right now: "love yourself". We love ourselves plenty. We do a lot of selfish things because we love "self". But how about loving others? Trying and asking to have God's unconditional love? If you work on that, I believe you'll have more peace and actual love for yourself.

Anyways, feeling so good! Obviously things have changed in me lately and you might be able to tell. Lauren talking about God? Who are you and what have you done with the Lauren I know? I still don't believe that everything in the Bible was right. Jesus was a man, I'm not going to pray to him. Mary was a woman, I'm not going to pray to her. Gandhi was a man, I'm not going to pray to him. Gautama Buddha was a man, I'm not going to pray to him. I'm working on having a personal relationship with God, the one and only who created us, and if he shows me that the Bible is completely right, that Jesus is god and more than a very advanced soul, then okay, awesome!

I also wanted to share the first chapter of my book, for anyone who wants to read. It hasn't been touched by my editor yet (or maybe it has, but she hasn't sent it back to me). So here goes!

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