Catching Up With Amanda
Dear AGT Community,
My family and I are still amazed at the outpouring of love and concern from you all a few months ago. Your kindness has really made a huge impact on our lives. One thing it’s really made me consider is the value of community. When the waves get higher, it’s so easy to just pull in, batten down, and withdraw. We have an (un)natural tendency to hide from our communities and from God. But one thing I’m learning is that I can’t hide from God, and I shouldn’t hide from community. I don’t always know what to say, or how to say it. And sometimes I wonder if people will think I’m nuts or ignorant, especially when I’m struggling to understand an idea or concept. That’s something wonderful about this community. It’s okay to ask questions (and sometimes miss the obvious, in my case), it’s okay to share thoughts, and we are encouraged to connect and be real.
That being said, some of you were very real with your struggles in your response to my sharing my frustrations and questions. And a few days ago, during a great opportunity to sit down with Skip and Rosanne, I asked about how everyone was doing. Since sharing is part of what makes us “real” people, and hearing our community’s stories is a gift to us all that helps to connect us (and a large part of the purpose of this site), Skip invited me to find out.
So, what’s going on in your world? Daniel, how is your granddaughter and your family? Jill, how are things going for your family? Inetta, how’s your daughter doing? Everyone else, how can we show you community? Even, if you just want to share something amazing God has done for you this past year (2014), or you have a simple prayer request, or you just need to unburden your heart, please share, and let us be your community, let us help you bear the burden (or celebrate), and let us become “real people” to each other.
Shalom to you all!
Amanda Youngblood
Shabbat Shalom Amanda! AGT is a wonderful community! Thank you for remembering us! You have been in my prayers and I’m so glad you posted! I was just reading different sayings about “Blessings” and what I noticed was how many say that we should count our blessings and not our problems. Our daughter is in a much better place than before and like all of us, still quite a way to go. To our great Father be all the praise! May all here have a restful Shabbat!
Shalom, I am new to AGT, I found Skip quite by accident after searching for another teacher I used to learning from. I have been studying Hebrew (and to some extent other Semtic languages as well), and Judaism for about 16 yrs now. I live in a semi-rural part of Oklahoma, and have been searching for something like this for the last 3 yrs. I have been branded a “law” loving wierdo in most Church communities I have visited out here, so other then my wife and kids, I feel pretty lonely in my views out here lol. Amanda, Thank you for sharing your thoughts, community is an Awesome thing, and it’s how life and faith are to be lived out in a Jewish perspective.
Shalom all!
Tony Linn
I appreciate your email. I am private and don’t usually share, but, I sure enjoy listening
to everyone else. My life has been turned upside down this last year, my husband died May13.
I am learning how to live as a single person, never thought or imagined such a thing, always thought
we would be together forever. So, I moved to Florida from Ore/Wa and am working on building a life here.
One of the hardest things to do is find friends. Yah is with me, and I am doing well, tho.
Sherry
Both Amanda and I live in Florida. Where are you?
I live in Valrico, its east just outside Tampa
Sherry – I have a friend in Fort Lauderdale whose husband died in October this last year. She is struggling. I sent her your comment and she said she understands completely. May I put her in touch with you?
John
John, I would like that. Thank you
If you like, you can write to me at jadmath@yahoo.com and I will pass your email address on to her, or give you hers, whichever you prefer.
Hi Sherry,
I’m so sorry to hear about your loss, but I truly appreciate your sharing about it. As you’ve probably seen, there are people here who have walked similar paths and would love to connect. Maybe that’s why Yeshua had to be a man, because we can more easily understand and open up to someone who’s been there. Thank you for allowing us to listen to you. 🙂
Sherry, my heart is goes to you. Five years ago I lost my husband as well. The bottom fell out of my life and I thought I would never survive. I suppose we are never prepared for this. During this time of pain, I relied on the love of family and friends. Most of them do not understand the Way of God, but they did understand my anguish. Keep reaching out to others, and share your grief. I wish we could get together, but we are separated by many miles. I live up in Winnipeg, Manitoba, a long way from Florida. But I have learnt that it is okay to share our lives, our hopes and our pain, sometimes I have shared with complete strangers. In a way, we are all God’s children, He created us all. When we open up first, it is amazing how open others will be as well.
It is so good to have you back Amanda. My husband and myself began this walk in1992. We are blessed in that we had no Internet no crazy teachings to navigate but also no community. We were terrified that we had gone insane. After a few years we finally met a small group of Messianic believerstwhile and experienced our first passover. Our pastor did an excellent job of presenting and then they broke out the sausage lasagna. I was shocked and asked him why we were having pork and he said “oh that’s the old testament!” So it was years before we realized that all of Torah was applicable for us. I honestly believe that those coming in now have many disadvantages. We were forced to do the work. I’m absolutely conv in Cedar that the most valuable discipline we were directed to and have followed is reading the Torah annually. If people would just be content to do that and nothing else, they would be transformed. Even in English! We spend all of Shabbat in the Torah portion. Nothing else satisfies like setting at the feet of the master. Shabbat Shalom ♡ ♡ ♡
Sorry for the typos. This phone is too smart for my own good. 😉
Pam,
I ponder why you say that “those coming in now have many disadvantages”? And I say that as someone who has been around sabbatarian communities since I left Roman Catholicism in the seventies.
At this time, with the internet as a resource,and more and more Messianic communities spring up, it is so so much easier to “prove all things, and hold fast that which is good”. History will show that the age of the internet will have become a new Reformation. More and more people are casting off the dogmas of Luther, Calvin and the popes as the Holy Spirit shows people a new and better way – the way of Messiah, the way of Torah compliance. This is exciting beyond words. I am personally in contact with people in a few places in Africa and India. I find that these groups often form through the Spirit leading them to a Messianic website and then they start telling their friends…
From his own experience with TW and his travels, I think Skip could testify to this.
Are we witnessing and experiencing the expected revival through the agency of His Spirit that has been predicted to happen before His Second Coming? I think so.
Pam, I appreciate the emphasis you put on faithfully reading and discussing that Torah portion every week. This links us all together in Him. This is what helped Jewish communities survive through the many difficult periods of their history. Living in the age of so many distractions, in the Torah portion both new believers and old times are edified.
While I find the internet to be all that you are describing it’s also causing much confusion and discord between brethren. Slander and factions abound and Messiah is a seldom mentioned feature. And few are willing to actually read the Torah. They simply fill up on others opinions and call it good. TW remains the only blog I participate in for those reasons. I love it because we aren’t told what to think but are equipped to continue to discover for ourselves and share our discoveries with like minded people who are willing to dig into the word and walk in what they find. I’m afraid we are going to pay dearly for our slanderous transgressions some time in the not so distant future.
While I welcomed the announcement that community at AGT’s was becoming more visible and knit together, I have to say it met with a bit of a shock value as well since usually any ‘openness’ many times leads to more hurt and betrayal. But then, maybe that is just me. Either way, it’s time to take this chance again – to be open and vulnerable and hopefully help others as we all find healing in our lives on this journey called life.
So glad you are letting your little light shine out in the open again sister. We need each other.
Dear Pam — I so agree that openness does often lead to hurt and betrayal, but it is also the only road to relationship within a true community– and we all desperately need relationship in a community. Unless we are willing to take a chance and share our innermost thoughts, we can never get to know each other. I’m very glad that you have decided to do so!
Maybe we can each promise the others this: I will not purposely set out to maliciously wound or hurt anyone here with my words or actions. If (or rather “when”, because misunderstandings are inevitable) you are hurt by my words or actions, please give me the benefit of the doubt and realize that was not my intention, that perhaps there is something else going on behind the scenes, and we have misunderstood each other. In the same vein, I promise to CHOOSE not to take offense, but to give the benefit of the doubt to others and assume that their intention was also not to wound. Let’s try to think the best of each other, rather than assuming the worst. And if we must assume, let it be assumed that no offense was intended.
Thank you Suzanne…it is my motto 🙂 … I try to remember that we are all ‘broke’ and live in a ‘broke’ world…… todah rabah!
Sherry, As I say hello to you, I am wondering how many of us “private and don’t usually share” people are reading this site today? I was intrigued to note the several things you and I “privately” share. *My husband and partner for many years moved into Eternity in April of 2014. *I lived in Florida nearer the Gulf but not to far from where you are during my childhood. *I have a special enjoyment for the states of Oregon and Washington as I have grandsons who live in both. If this juncture of life is giving you more freedom to deepen your friendship with our Lord, then I encourage you to begin rejoicing for the Lord does send His friends to us as we are ready. Shalom, Patricia
I agree with the other comments here today that this community is pretty special. I think we can head off possible interpersonal conflicts, especially concerning application of the Torah. If I believe a certain instruction in Scripture applies to me, I can obey, with enthusiasm. I can even share with others my experience. But I cannot insist that everyone else should likewise obey. I was formerly a member of a church that taught the necessity of keeping the Sabbath, and which did not hesitate to try and legislate the “how” of the keeping (not okay to watch sports programs on TV on Sabbath, but okay to watch world news programs on Sabbath, for example). This is what people call “legalism.”
And I wonder if anyone else would be interested in having fellowship by telephone? I have chemical sensitivity, and my opportunities for socializing with people are extremely limited. The “IveBeenSkipped” group sounds really great, but we don’t have a Yahoo account and are having a little difficulty getting one. And besides, as I said, I’m with people so little already, it sure would be nice to at least put a voice with a name.
Last year, I printed my email address and invited brethren to contact me. Dawn and Gene McLaughlin of Ohio did just that. I would never have made their acquaintance without this community. Now Dawn and Gene are friends, we talk on the phone, we email each other, and they even dropped by our place with their motor home late last summer. My wife and I thank God for them.
I wonder, would it be permissible for me to list my phone number here? We have unlimited minutes and usually ask long-distance callers if we can call them right back. That way they don’t have to worry about a bill. Does anybody else have a desire for contact by telephone?
Thomas, I would be blessed to have phone conversations with you. I have unlimited minutes on my cell plan, but a limited life span :). E mail me at
stanleynm@aol.com and I’ll send you my phone number. Looking forward. Shalom, Michael
Thinking of something else here as well – there are avenues of other ways we can ‘talk’ as well – one being skype…or paltalk – we could set up a room in paltak and ‘meet’ once in a while….share, pray together and have fellowship. Just a thought.