Your "Opinion" on Harry Potter?

About two weeks ago, my friend Ivey invited some of our friends from school to a tea place. All of us were chatting away when Ivey said, “hey, Savannah, I read the first couple pages of the first Harry Potter book!” (I’ve been trying to get her to read the series for months.) However, this erupted in bashing of the Harry Potter series by our other friends. Let’s just say they are damn lucky I kept my mouth shut because I had some things to say.

First of all, I completely understand where they are coming from. Some of my friends grew up not being allowed to watch Harry Potter as children. But seeing as they (nor their parents for that matter) have not read the series or watched the movies, have no right to be saying what it does or does not have in it (i.e. witchcraft or sorcery). While it does have spells and potions in it, you have the take into account that this is a work of fiction. J. K. Rowling used Latin words for the spells, not actual Wicca.

In addition, there is a lot of Christian theology and moral in the Harry Potter series that I think a lot of people tend to overlook:

• Harry Potter didn’t grow up like a king despite his “fame” and lived in a cupboard under the stairs with the Dursleys.
• Harry Potter resisted temptation from characters like Malfoy who are into dark magic throughout the entire series.
• Harry Potter always made an effort to do the right thing.
• Harry Potter defeated death.
• Harry Potter was the only one who could defeat Lord Voldemort.

• Jesus Christ was born in a stable and didn’t grow up as a king the way everyone thought the Messiah would come.
• Jesus Christ resisted temptation from the Devil and those around him.
• Jesus Christ was perfect. He never failed to do what was right.
• Jesus Christ defeated death.
• Jesus Christ is the only one who can defeat the Devil.

Furthermore, all of my friends are over eighteen. I think it’s time they start thinking for themselves. Just because your parents say something is “bad” doesn’t mean you have to believe it. You are your own person and can think for yourself. If you don’t like Harry Potter then fine, but don’t not like it because your parents say so. (If that makes sense.) Develop your own opinion.

That’s all I have to say on the topic.

Savannah

I Might be Going Fully Raw!

Hey! So I know that I haven’t written a post in a few weeks, but I wanted to let you know that I’m alive and all is well. There are several things I wanted to talk about, but for the purpose of this post I will only be talking about one of those things. This is something that has given me a new spark on something that I am very interest in and very well may be what I go into as my career. That is, I’m very interested in eating healthy and living a healthy lifestyle. And I am highly considering becoming a dietitian or a nutritionist or something along those lines.

But what really inspired me was a Youtuber that I came across named Kristina or “fullyrawkristina” as she is known on the ‘tubes. Kristina has been eating “fully raw” for about eight years, curing her body of any type of disease and/or sickeness she had (hypoglycemia—a type of diabetes—and other problems that caused her to be hospitalized at least once a month) as well as changing her eye color from a milky brown to a hazel-almost blue color. Kristina runs the largest non-prophet co-op, Rawfully Organic, in the U.S.

Another one of the raw foodies that I follow on Youtube is Megan Elizabeth. Megan had just gotten accepted into the university that her mother went to when she came down with a mysterious bedridden illness that prevented her from going to school. It wasn’t until she read “The 80/10/10 Diet” and started eating raw that she finally felt good again.

What is eating “fully raw” though? Eating a diet composed of uncooked, natural fruit, vegetables, and seeds/nuts. The book “The China Study” by T. Colin Campbell, Phd and Thomas M. Campbell II talks about how consuming animal products is a main factor in cancer, diabetes, hormone problems (for example, girls getting their periods in their early teens versus when they are seventeen/eighteen), and many others. Another great read which goes into the details of going raw vegan is the book “The 80/10/10 Diet” by Douglas M. Graham, which I am dying to get my hands on. Two other great reads, “The Food Revolution: How Your Diet Can Help Save Your Life and Our World” by John Robbins and “The Face on Your Plate: The Truth About Food” by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson.

All that said I really want to go raw vegan. I was planning on starting over my winter break. Seeing as I’m in college and have practically a month off from school, I figured it would be the perfect time to start. One of the problems I am going to have is that the first couple days of detoxing, I am one of those people who get nauseous. Some people feel really great when they are detoxing, others get sick—almost like the flu. Also, it’s so hard to stay away from food I can’t eat when all my friends get dessert at lunch. It’s so tempting when they bring up cake not to grab a piece or ask them to surprise me with something. I figure if I go a month eating raw, I will get sick if I eat cake. And I won’t want to eat it anymore. So, that’s why I really want to start over my winter break.

Of course, I know lots of people are going to judge me and wonder if I am getting all my protein and all that nonsense. First of all, on a raw foot diet (not to be confused with dieting), you have to eat large portions of fruits and vegetables in order to get 2,000 calories worth of food. This is mainly because fruits and vegetables are low in calorie and high in water content. So while you might “feel” full, you are just bloated due to the water content. For example, you might eat an entire watermelon for breakfast, 5-7 bananas for lunch with two young coconuts, and an entire head of lettuce or spinach or kale with toppings and a raw dressing for dinner. [In order to keep with the 80/10/10.] You don’t want to eat a ton of fruit at dinner as it sits in your stomach longer than vegetables (this is the same if you eat meat… which takes longer to digest and therefore, you should not eat at night—even though most people do). [A good app/website to use for keeping track of all your calorie and nutrient intake is cronometer (cronometer.com).]

Now I know this seems like an expensive lifestyle. But I can assure you that if you know where to get your produce, it’s not. A good place to start is to buy from a local co-op like Rawfully Organic in Houston. It costs a million times cheaper than in the grocery store. Also, you want to buy in bulk. A lot of times stores will give you discounts if you are buying in bulk. But that’s just my two cents!

I’ll catch you guys later with some more interesting posts!

Savannah

An 'F' on my First Apologetics Test

FOREWORD: Yes, I am a Christian. I do believe that Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior. I believe that He was crucified, buried, and on the seventh day he rose again. No, I’m not going to try to preach or attempt to make anyone a Christian or believe what I do and nor do I have any devious plan to. But I would really appreciate it if you were open-minded to what I have to say. It is not my intent to offend anyone in any way, shape, or form so if you are going to find this blog post offensive I’d highly suggest you not read it. This is strictly my thoughts and opinions on an event that took place during lunch on a cloudy Wednesday, October 16^th.

Without further a-do, here’s the post…

It is pointless to debate with someone who is not a Christian. You can preach all day at him until you are blue in the face but he will not understand—even if you make a perfect point. I’d compare debating a non-believer to trying to make a blind man, who’d never seen the light of day before in his life, understand the color blue. You could say that the color blue is the color of the sky or the ocean. While the explanation makes perfect sense to someone who can see, the blind man still has no perception of the color blue. The unbeliever is like the blind man—blinded by sin.

This happened earlier today as three of my friends and I engaged in a heavy debate with Ivey’s friend from Japanese class—a hardcore atheist with an interest in theology who had studied various religious texts such as the Koran and the Bible—who we had met just minutes before. (Not exactly a great start to a budding friendship.) Each question went around and around in a figure eight—the atheist standing her ground, us standing ours.

One of the things Ivey’s friend accused us of was not being ‘strict Christians’ purely because we weren’t following the Old Testament (sacrificing animals and not wearing jewelry or not getting tattoos) to the ‘t’. She brought up the verse in Matthew 5:18: 'For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.'

We countered that not only was that the custom for the time period, but Jesus dying on the cross paid for our sins so that we don’t have to do all those rituals anymore.

'Excuse me, I couldn’t help but over hear your conversation,' said a nice young man sitting at the table next to ours. 'I believe that the verse in Matthew 5:18 is referring to the Beatitudes.'

'Oh! That’s right! But…' the atheist continued to argue her point with a smirk. If it made her that happy to think that she was right, then by all means…

'May I ask you what you think of three things?' the man injected once more.

'Sure,'

'I used to be a drug addict. I used to smoke and did a bunch of pot. It got to the point that I wanted to quit. But every time I tried I would give up and tell myself I couldn’t do it and I was worthless. It was like a continuous climax ending in ‘crap’ over and over.

'And one day, while I was fixing my car—a few days before I had hit a deer—I sliced my finger on a piece of plastic. When I say I cut it, I mean, a stream of blood was coming from my finger. And so I rushed inside, and as I was cleaning myself up my phone started ringing. Of course, I was in no state to answer the phone, but it was this woman whose child I used to read to. I hadn’t talked to her in years.

'So I answer this phone call and the woman goes on to say she’d been praying for me lately. She said God showed her a vision of me climbing up a mountain. And just before I would get to the top, I would find myself sliding back down on the rocks.

'It was at that moment that I just started bawling my eyes out.' He continued. 'So the second thing that I wanted to say was that I was on a mission trip to Africa and Papua New Guinea. I had sold my car to go on this trip. And after we had been in Africa, I was trying to earn some money to pay for the Papua New Guinea part of the trip. It came down to the last twenty-four hours before the money was due and my friend ended up double paying for the trip because he ended up getting a scholarship for the trip. Well, part of his money went to my trip. However, I was still short of about five hundred dollars up until three hours before the money was due when an anonymous donor donated the money—you know the whole you give and receive thing.

'I just wanted to hear what you had to say about those scenarios. Do you think that that was God’s work?' He finished.

'Well, I think that it was nothing more than coincidence,' she replied.

The whole conversation reminded me of my apologetics Bible class my senior year of high school (I went to private Christian school from pre-K through 12th grade.) The theme verse of the class was 1 Peter 3:14, 'But in your hearts, set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give a reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.' As Christians we are called to be ready to give a reason for the hope that is our hearts. We need to be readily available to those who are earnestly seeking the Lord and who are looking for salvation.

The atheist presented herself as a skeptic - someone who refused to believe and could not be convinced of the truth. God doesn't call us to persuade the hearts and minds of those that are choosing not to believe. If it's in God's plan for her to be saved, then she will be saved. He will open her mind, and it's not up to us to try to save her. She is nothing more than a 'dead' corpse, and it's going to take a miracle to revive her.

I’m really sorry for the terribly long post, but I just had to get my thoughts out on paper. And instead of just writing them in a journal (diary, whatever you want to call it), I thought this needed to be shared. That being said, I am open to hear what your thoughts! Please feel free to leave any and all opinions in the comment section down below.

Savannah

Here is some suggested reading if you would like to look more into Christian theology:

-The Bible (NIV)

-New Evidence that Demands a Verdict by Josh McDowell

-Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis

-The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis
-The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis

SUBSCRIBE FOR GOODNESS-SAKES PEOPLE!

I noticed that I am having more page views lately. If you are unaware, on the right-hand column if you scroll down, there is in fact subscribe button for you Google users (and if you don't have a Google account by now, shame on you). It should say 'subscribe' or 'join this blog' and/or you can follow me on Google+. That's fine as well. If you are worried about receiving emails, don't worry. I have turned this feature off so that I will not annoy y'all. And if you follow a ton of blogs, I would highly suggest checking out this website called Blogglovin'. It condenses all the blogs that you follow into one place. I actually put mine on the site under 'precious0443' so you can find me.

Have a good night!

Savannah

#MotivationalMonday—It’s All About Your Body Language

"Looking around this table I know this isn’t true at all," my good friend Sarah said, indicating we were nice, beautiful young ladies—she was right; there was no reason why each and everyone of us wasn’t good enough or incapable of being in a relationship.

"The problem is in our body language and how you hold yourself," she continued. "We are coming off as very defensive and unwelcoming. Guys are insecure too, and it’s really hard for them to ask girls out. They’re the ones who face rejection."

And as it turns out, 40% of how we communicate is purely done by our body language. When we slump and cross our arms, we not only make ourselves feel worthless, we are giving off a defensive signal. We aren’t appearing very welcoming with our heads down. (It’s no wonder we are all hopelessly single!)

However, there are some very simple ways to fix this, the first of which is to stand up straight. Standing up straight not only makes you appear more confident but makes you feel confident as well (it actually triggers the feeling of confidence in your brain, which I found rather interesting). Hold your head up high and smile more. Not only will you make others around you feel better, you will lift your own spirits as well. It may seem awkward at first (especially for me, being someone who doesn’t smile very often). Suck in your stomach/fill your ‘womb space’ as it helps to calm you down if you are nervous. (Breathing in through your nose and out through your mouth will also help to keep you calm and relieves anxiety.) But these are just a few things that can help you seem confident and become more confident. You know what they say, a confident woman is an attractive woman!

I hope this helps anyone that is struggling with this issue. Just know that you are in no way alone, and you don’t have to feel that way! Let me know if you have good tips in the comments below as always!

Savannah