War and Peace: A Review of Sorts

I finally finished War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy this past week while I was on vacation. I had been reading it since the end of June, and as a result felt very depressed when I read the last line of the book, and finished what I had been reading for about two months. In short, this book was amazing and you should definitely read it, if you are reading this.

There is so much to be learned from this book, about life, about love, about the purpose of being, and most simple, about the human mind and its ways. It is, obviously, the deepest and most thought-provoking novel I have ever read, and I recommend it to anyone. It is well worth your time, despite the 1200+ pages of the vast novel.

The main characters are phenomenally crafted and created, you get a special feeling for them, you become attached to them as if they are indeed real and living right before your eyes. Even though I did not understand the strategies of battle (the book is set during the Napoleon war), I was able to clearly understand what was going on and why is was important from Tolstoy's descriptive writing.

I am not writing a plot summary here. I believe that would spoil the book, which is massively long. However, you will fall in love with the characters stories and themselves, and I will say this; my favorite character is Prince Andrei for his brilliant and final understanding of life and love. This quote pretty much sums up what I love about him:

“Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only because I love. Everything is united by it alone. Love is God, and to die means that I, a particle of love, shall return to the general and eternal source.”

This struck me as being quite profound, as well as this quote spoken by Pierre, the main character:

"Life is everything. Life is God. Everything shifts and moves, and this movement is God. And while there is life, there is delight in the self-awareness of the divinity. To love life is to love God. The hardest and most blissful thing is to love this life in one's suffering, in the guiltlessness of suffering."

There are not enough words to describe how much I loved this book. Just read it, it is quite the accomplishment, and it will teach you many things.

I'm also quite excited for the new BBC miniseries coming out late this year, starring James Norton as Prince Andrei:

I Choose You! Choosing Your Friendships for Life

Friendships define us, and they help us discover who we are, and our purpose in life. I am the kind of person that likes to make friendships for life, a lot of the friends I have now at college I hope to be friends with long term, and I invest more time in my college friends due to distance and the amount of time we spend together.When I started college, I came in with the mindset that I needed to be friends with everyone, and that I needed to be friends with anyone. Coming from a home-schooled household, I was not used to being around a lot of people, and did not realize that I do not need to and should not attempt to befriend everyone. I have come to realize this now. The fact is, that you need to choose your friends because they will influence you for life, either positively or negatively. I have learned that I cannot be friends with just anyone.

Unfortunately this is the case. Not everyone likes everyone.

I have encountered a person, (I am referring to as K) that I choose not to encounter, but run in to a lot because they are on campus for the summer, that I do not want to be friends with anymore. After some drama spring semester and in May when K confronted me and told me that he knew that I didn't like him, (asking why I didn't) I have sought to avoid this person, and began to notice a lot of things about him that I did not like and found ways in which K annoyed me constantly. So much so, that I began to obsess over him, constantly thinking about him and why he annoyed me. I felt the need to excuse myself all the time for not liking K, thinking that I didn't "not like" him for the right reasons, such as looks, manners, etc. I now avoid him, because the more I am around him the more I think about him, and I need to move on from this situation, because he does NOT control my life, and I am letting K do that.

No one is the boss of me      expect God

I talked with my mom about this situation on Thursday of last week. She made me realize that I do have to choose my friends and that I had misplaced K in my "friends spectrum". She drew on the back of her napkin a little dot, which was me, and then drew rings around me. "This ring," (referring to the one closest to me), "is your close friends, this outer ring is your other friends, and this largest outer ring is your acquaintances. When you found out K liked you, you tried thinking about him in this circle", (pointing to the one closest to me), when in reality he is in your acquaintance circle. You need to put him back out here", she said, pointing to the outermost circle.

What I want to say to K, but instead I'm passive aggressive about it

I quickly realized that she was right, and I needed to put K in perspective. I came to see from this experience that I wasn't careful in building friendships, and as a result, had put myself into a difficult and extremely annoying situation. Last semester I thought I needed to try to make new friends outside of the ones I had, and failed to understand that I should value the relationship that I already had. I neglected the relationships that really mattered the most to me, and tried to form closer relationships with people I realize now were not making me a better person. I did not feel edified from being in their company, they did not make me understand myself or help me become a better person. And I knew that I didn't "click" with them, there was no initial attraction or desire to personally be their friends.

Like, I've found myself quite bored with them, frankly

It was after spring semester that I realized that it is necessary to a certain degree, that you choose your friends. You need friends who are going to make you a better person and help you in your walk with the Lord. Your friends should be encouraging your to do the right thing, and to glorify God in your life, and you should, to a certain degree, be able to set good examples for eachother and help eachother to make good choices.

"Do not be deceived: “Bad company ruins good morals."" - 1 Corinthians 15:33

 "Make no friendship with a man given to anger, nor go with a wrathful man" - Proverbs 22:24

"Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another."  - Proverbs 27:17

Aside from the Christian standpoint, Forbes actually published an article on reasons why you should choose your friends, and I thought that they were good guidelines. They are as follows:

1. Strong willed friends can help you increase your self-control
2. Having fewer friends increases the likelihood that you will take financial risks. (studies show that people that don't get adequate social interaction tend to unnecessarily spend money)
3. Too many connections on social media can increase your stress level
4. Close friends may be the secret to long life (personally I thought this one was a little silly, but apparently studies show that people with really good close friends live longer)
5. Friends greatly influence your choices

(If you want to read the full article click here)

Basically, your friendships and relationships with people matter a lot. So we should take precautions and be aware of who we are spending most of our time with, and who we confide in the most.

Have an awesome day! And appreciate your good friends.

Why I am for Divorce

Until coming to college, I hadn't realized that people's opinions could vary so greatly. I knew that people were different and therefore thought differently from things of course, but it hadn't really clicked in my head that people could disagree to the point of heated discussion, and I didn't realize that I could get so upset about someone disagreeing with me on a topic that I think to be elementary. I suppose I kind of was shocked when I started school because I grew up homeschooled and did not have much exposure to different kinds of people and beliefs, and as with any child, before you form your own beliefs you first accept those of your parents, or people who look after you. I didn't start forming my own opinions strongly or realizing that I thought differently from others until college.

Recently this summer I have been exposed to several opinions of others on apparently controversial topics that I disagree with, one of them being divorce. A person who I do not wish to spend company with recently told me with a definite tone of voice that there are very few reasons for divorce. He backed himself up with bible verses. Or, rather, he said that he disagreed with divorce because of "biblical reasons".

"To the married I give this charge (not I, but the Lord): the wife should not separate from her husband (but if she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband), and the husband should not divorce his wife." - 1 Corinthians 7:10-11

"31 "It has been said, 'Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.'

32 But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery." - Matthew 5:31-32

"He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.”"- Matthew 19:3-12

Obviously from these passages, divorce is not ideal, and it is not what God wants. I am struggling with this topic, and I refuse to believe that what these passages are ultimately saying is that divorce is only "acceptable" when it is dealing with adultery. I have several reasons for this:

1. I CANNOT believe that God intends for someone divorced to never remarry. How does this match the character of God? So he wants us to remain unhappy for the rest of our lives, being bound by someone who does NOT honor God?

2. I CANNOT believe that God intends for us to stay with a spouse who is abusive in verbal and physical situations and appears to have no true desire to change/is not changing.

3. I REFUSE to believe that God wants us to stay with someone at the expense of others, when there is no love or God - honoring relationship. i.e children.

4. I CANNOT believe that adultery is the only reason for divorce.

This does not match the character of God. Why would he want us to stay in a relationship that isn't honoring him? Now, I am not saying that divorce should be taken lightly and seen as an "easy" escape from problems in a relationship. But if both you and the spouse have tried to solve your problem to no avail, or your spouse sees no need for remedy. IT IS TIME for a divorce. The marriage is no longer a marriage, because you are not keeping your covenant to one another, and as a result, your marriage is no longer honoring God the way marriage is supposed to.

This is what I currently believe on this topic. I will continue to pray about my opinion and ask God for answers, and to pray for my mother, who is trapped in a marriage with someone who dishonors God with seemingly everything he does, and is constantly hurting my family.