THIS BLOG IS INDEED ABOUT ME, MY EXPERIENCES,AND ULTIMATELY MY STRUGGLES THROUGH THE TRANSFORMATION OF A BUTTERFLY (ME). MARIPOSA MEANS BUTTERFLY IN SPANISH. BUTTERFLIES GO THROUGH 4 STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT: CHANGE, REBIRTH, NEW LIFE, AND NEW CREATION. TYPICALLY THE BUTTERFLIES SEEN ARE YELLOW = WISDOM AND BLACK = CREATIVITY...THESE I DO POSSESS, BUT CRIMSON SYMBOLIZES BOLDNESS, IMPETUOSITY AND ENTHUSIASM SOMETHING I AM WORKING ON REGAINING
Rom. 12:2 And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by
the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and
acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
Your mind does according to what is put into it. Your mind can either "act" or "react". When things happen to you, your mind will pull from what it has been feeding on and address the issue based on what is in it! You see, it's like your mind is atool boxand whatever tools you have put into it are the tools you have to work with. Thus, when circumstances, trials, tribulations, etc. come your way, you have to use the tools that you have to deal with the crisis. If all you put into your mind is garbage, then yourdecision makingwill suffer because your mind cannot deal with situations properly. And it will also cause you to live according to your thoughts instead of living according to the Word. See, the more God we put into our mind, the more of him we will have to handle our situations and circumstances when they arise. Reading the Word and understanding it will begin to saturate our minds and renew us from the wrong thoughts. And our thinking will be subject to his Word instead of our own way and we can effectively give our problems to him. To truly give it to God, we have to make sure we have allowed him access to our minds as well as our heart. Many of us only allow him access to our hearts and therefore, when we talk to him, he feels far from us. We sometimes try to carry him around as a tool to use when we need him, while we constantly fill our minds with negative things via sinful lifestyles, people, places, music, movies, etc. that showcase immoral things instead of the Spiritual things from God. Eventually, that takes a toll on us. It begins to out weigh the "God" in our minds. So, when problems or situations come, our minds "react" to them based on what we have filled our minds up with! The more evil in there, the more we react evilly. The more God in there, the more God can act for us. Sure you may have salvation in your heart, but your mind can definitely lead you away from thepresence of Godand you can be a gospel disaster! How many Christians do you know like that? Come to church, serve in church, talk about church, but their homes are a mess! That's because they have accepted Christ in their hearts, but their minds are not sober. To be sober minded requires you to protect your mind from corruption so that you do not walk according to worldly thoughts, but you govern your life by thinking on things above. Sure it's good to have a clean heart, but for your heart to STAY clean, you must have a renewed mind. Suggested Reading: 1Pet. 1:13, Rom. 12:2, Eph. 2:3, Phil. 2:5
When Emory made the announcement back in late March that California's Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger was going to give the 2010 Emory Commencement Speech, I was very disheartened and disappointed in Emory's selection. I was not the only one who was upset about this; many of my other colleagues and friends felt the same way, especially those who were from California. We wanted to know who was on the selection committee and who was on the list of probably speakers. But of course there was no way for them nor me to get that top secret information.
As the time for graduation drew near, I debated back and forth several times about attending the Commencement ceremony that morning, or just opting to only participate in my school's (Rollins School of Public Health) Degree Ceremony. After contemplating over this issue, I decided, "hey you only graduate once from the Public Health program, might as well make the most for my 2 years of hard work at Rollins!"
With all this being said, I was in no way disappointed in the Governator himself. His speech did impress me, and it was funny and inspiring -- key elements to a good commencement speech. I am glad that I chose to attend the commencement exercises with my other fellow graduates, friends and colleagues of Emory!
Enjoy the speech! Feel free to let me know how you think Gov. Schwarzenegger did with his 2010 Emory Commencement Speech.
Did he say, "I'll be back." You'll have to watch to find out.... ;-)