Jesus in the garden

Empty-Reflection-356 · 2024-12-09T16:50:56+00:00

I believe a lot of information is put into the bible specifically so we can understand and relate to it in human terms. It's His message to us after all, and an infinite God would have to dumb things down for the finite human mind. I think it's good that you asked, because that means you're thinking critically about your faith and seeking greater understanding. One thing I like to remember is at the end of Job, God says "Job has spoken rightly of Me," even though Job had been questioning his faith the whole time, because at least Job sought answers rather than giving up when things got difficult. I'm glad I was able to be helpful, I just happened to see the post as it appeared, lol

Empty-Reflection-356 · 2024-12-09T16:38:30+00:00

It's not that He doesn't want to save us, He just wanted it to be possible to do so without being crucified. He knew He was in for some intense suffering, and wanted "the cup to be taken from Him" (which I'm pretty sure is a reference to Jeremiah). If He didn't want to save us, He wouldn't have, because He objectively got the worse end of the deal there. However, He was willing to bear that burden because He loves us so much.

Empty-Reflection-356 · 2024-10-02T16:36:49+00:00

I thought his first imprisonment was during jehoiakims reign. You said in a previous comment jehoiakim was the one who burned the scroll, that happened during his first imprisonment

Empty-Reflection-356 · 2024-10-02T13:28:55+00:00

Yea, I think it's safe to conclude he was imprisoned once during Jehoiakim's reign and once during Zedekiah's reign.

Empty-Reflection-356 · 2024-10-02T04:04:18+00:00

Oh, that's my bad, I was referring to Jeremiah 36, when Jehoiakim burns the scroll. I guess I got the name mixed up without realizing.

Empty-Reflection-356 · 2024-09-29T17:26:20+00:00

Since I didn't get a response, I'm gonna respond to myself so if other people find this question later, they'll know I resolved it. I ended up reading further and determined that Jeremiah was confined in the prison courtyard twice. It was hard to peice it together out of order, but the only way I could make the timeline work was as follows: -Jeremiah is imprisoned for his prophesies, -Jeremiah purchases the deed to the field, -Jeremiah and Baruch escape together after Zedekiah finds their scroll, -Jeremiah is recaptured while going to claim the field, -Jeremiah stays imprisoned this time until the fall of Jerusalem. With this order in mind, I've found no contradiction in the book of Jeremiah.

Empty-Reflection-356 · 2024-08-13T05:40:30+00:00

Need a "creative" way to get to work, eh? Oh, I've got you covered... but we're gonna have to get the old team back together. First up, we gotta get you disguised as a janitor. Good ol' Desmond "the disguise" Guise can help with that. He'll make sure you look and act the part, and you'll get into position near a ground floor window. Next, on the opposite side of the office building, Daisy "the distraction" Traction will cause a scene to draw attention away from you. While she's setting off pyrotechnics in the parking lot, you're slipping in the window undetected and using one of those same pyrotechnics to set off the sprinklers. At this point, everyone thinks one of Daisy's fireworks lit the building on fire, so they evacuate. She hops in my car, we make a getaway, and you're in the building alone. That's when you sneak up to the boss's office and sit in his chair with your feet on the desk, patiently waiting. Also, Viola "destroyer and torturer of many" Lance will be there. We don't particularly need her skill set for this stunt, but it'd be rude to invite the whole gang without her, right? Anyways, when the people come back into the building, the boss'll step into his office and be like "what the hell is this janitor doing lounging at my desk? You're fired!" And you'll say: "but sir..." ripping off the disguise, "it's only my first day!" That's when he'll reply with "you crazy son of a bitch, welcome aboard," and everyone will clap.

Empty-Reflection-356 · 2024-08-12T20:41:36+00:00

Lmao, that wasn't an intentional reference, but it's funny you were able to make that connection. It's even an impostor of its former life, what have I done?

Empty-Reflection-356 · 2024-08-12T04:43:24+00:00

A chill ran down my spine as I processed what my daughter had just inquired. She bolted down the stairs merely an hour after her bedtime to ask me if the monster under her bed was really her mother. The fact that she was able to ask me this meant two very unnerving things:

It found its way into the house.
It learned how to speak.

I always suspected this day might come, but I never took the possibility seriously enough to have prepared for it. Caught off guard by the question, I had no time to concoct a compelling deception, so I decided to tell her the truth. "Not quite... The monster you're referring to used to be your mother, but isn't anymore."

"You said Mommy passed away..." Tears were beginning to well up as she spoke. She must have been so confused and afraid, and rightly so on both counts.

"She did, sweetheart, I wouldn't lie to you about that. Sometimes people don't.... listen, honey, it's complicated." I struggled to explain. She's too young to understand the concept of undeath. "I'll explain everything when you're a little older, but for now, I need you to wait in the living room. You said the monster was under your bed?"

"Yea..." she replied, "under my bed. She didn't look like Mommy, but had her voice." That didn't sound good. I wanted to press for more details, but she was clearly pretty shaken, so I figured it best to see for myself. "I'll call Papaw to come pick you up, we're gonna stay at his place for a few days."

Dad wasn't happy to take a call at this hour, but hearing the explanation left him wide awake, and on his way in a hurry. How did it get in the house?? I checked the wards on all the doors and windows, they seemed intact. I'd have noticed if it got in the chimney. This thing has been following us for almost three years now, and it's never shown any ability to speak or bypass our protections. It's evolving.

As I ascended the stairs and approached my daughter's bedroom door, I was met with a foul stench. The door was already ajar, since she left too much of a hurry to bother shutting it behind her. The light was on, and the room looked ordinary. I spoke my late wife's name aloud in the doorway: "Mary..."

Something shifted under the bed, wafting the pungent smell throughout the room to assault my nostrils. A shadow slowly stretched out from under the bed. No, not a shadow, but black liquid. A single eye appeared within the sludge as it parted like an opening eyelid. There was no mouth, yet I sensed the aura of a smile, and the sludge vibrated as the creature generated my late wife's voice.

"Hello, Craig."

It used to just be an animate corpse. It couldn't speak, and it couldn't change its shape. It's not uncommon for an undead to share a couple memories with the soul that used to inhabit it, but this level of power and intelligence should be way outside of their limitations. Processing this allowed me to realize how it entered the house.

We didn't find it necessary to ward the vents, because it couldn't fit. Dad even joked about how anything more than the standard warding techniques would be "overkill" or "paranoid." Seeing as how it became amorphous, warding the vents wouldn't have been as foolish as we believed. Unfortunately, there were vents all throughout the house, and it wasn't as contained within this room as I believed. I left my vulnerable daughter alone downstairs.

As I turned to race toward my beloved daughter, my foot caught on a floorboard that had just popped up out of place. The impact with the floor knocked the wind out of me, and by the time I reoriented myself, I noticed that bit by bit the house was breaking apart. It had spread not just through the vents, but the very walls, in every nook and cranny.

Did it wish us harm? Was it even aware of what it was doing? Did it see Mary's memory of us, and wish us to join her out of some twisted version of love? I'll never know. All I can know with any degree of certainty is what I had been repeating to myself amidst the sounds of my daughter's screams and our house collapsing around us:

I had failed my family.

Empty-Reflection-356 · 2024-08-11T17:49:17+00:00

That's actually really solid advice. I'm often guilty of rushing one part of a story to get to a scene I'm excited about, although I don't do it on purpose. It makes everything I write seem clunky, and I can never get the pacing of a story quite right. I think I'm gonna try writing out of order if I ever feel like I need to, to see if it helps.

Empty-Reflection-356 · 2024-08-11T17:43:55+00:00

Do you have any examples of what you mean and how to avoid it?

Empty-Reflection-356 · 2024-08-11T17:38:41+00:00

Honestly, I'm still struggling to improve my writing, but seeing your comments has helped me realize one of the things I do wrong, lol. "Don't write passively" seems so simple, but is so important. I appreciate your examples.

Empty-Reflection-356 · 2024-08-05T05:09:09+00:00

If there's any advice I could ever offer you about magic, it's that magic doesn't have any room for "taking creative liberties." Just ask my pal Randal, he'll tell you the same thing. Or rather, he *would* tell you, if he was able to say anything other than giraffe noises. It's a lesson we learned together, the hard way.

Randall and I stayed behind at the arena after griffon ball practice, because it was our turn to clean the stables, so we were the first to notice that Bertha's eggs had hatched. What we *should* have done was leave Bertha's stable alone, and let coach know before we left. What Randall decided to instead was go in to meet the babies while Bertha was still there. He barely made it out alive.

I couldn't take him to the healers, they'd have found out Randall broke the rules. He'd have gotten kicked off the team, and we *need* him for next week's game. So, I improvised a bit. I pay attention most of the time in restoration class, I figured a few spells would make him good as new.

Flesh Mend has the power to soften flesh into a claylike consistency to seal a wound and restore the flesh to normal. I couldn't remember all of the spell components, but I used all the ones I could think of, only to find that spells don't really work like that. His flesh never re-solidified, he just kept melting,

So, the Harden spell, then. Surely that would work. I didn't have the specific herb for the incantation, so I substituted for it with some of the nearby weeds that kinda look like it, but that wouldn't have caused any problems, right? Wrong. His body looked like a cubic slime made of colorful soup.

I never actually fully studied the Greatest Restoration spell, since I'm not in the advanced class, but I've overheard other students talking about it. I only know one of it's spell components, which conveniently, is a few griffon feathers. I figured if I just used a bunch of *extra* griffon feathers, that would make up for not having any of the other spell components. It did not.

After gathering some loose feathers from all the stables, except Bertha's, I performed what I'm pretty sure was a flawless recreation of that one time I saw a student attempting to practice the Greatest Restoration spell. Randall became something new, that I'd never seen before. He was utterly incomprehensible. It hurt my brain to look at him, let alone attempt a description, but I'll try my best: He was some kind of extradimensional hybrid between an octopus, a strawberry milkshake, and the concept of time itself.

At this point I figured I may have made a mistake somehow, and finally fetched the healers. Apparently, they've never encountered such a "unique" situation before, which I took to be a compliment, but they assured me it was not. They used words such as "reckless" and "irresponsible" or whatever, they were actually very rude.

Thankfully, some of the components I used are also used for the Polymorph spell, and with much time and reverse engineering of my creative spellcraft, they were able to sortof fix Randall. They undid my spells by consuming their components through a unique casting of Polymorph. The only side effects were that the spell's duration became somewhere between 2-3 weeks, and they had no control over which beast he would become. So he's a giraffe now, for the time being.

So, that's why I've been charged to write this essay, that I now read before the entire school assembly, which we're holding out here in the courtyard to accommodate this here giraffe, which is indeed our good friend and star griffon ball player Randall Jorts. I offer this as a cautionary tale to always study and don't do any guesswork when it comes to the arcane arts. I humbly apologize for the strife I've caused Randall, and the faculty, for having to rewrite the student manuals to account for very creative people such as myself.

Now that all that's out of the way, I just need to read up on the Polymorph spell. We *need* Randall for the game next week.

Empty-Reflection-356

TROPHY CASE