The Meandering Mind of a Christian Woman

I have recently experienced dealings with people who come across as quite pompous and full of themselves. These people do not bring out the best in me, they cause me to feel rage and undermine my self-confidence. I find myself asking what is the Christian response to these people? How do I love these people who bring out the worst in me? So, I stepped back a bit to looked at myself first, am I being unfair to them, is there truth in their behaviors?   I decided that the best approach is to pray for them and for myself. To receive their actions with a grain of salt because regardless of how I feel about them, there are two sides to every interaction and I am not perfect by any means. I pray that God will enable me to let go of the rage and to love as he has called me to do. I pray for the proper perspective when I encounter these situations. I pray for them, that they will be humbled, not in a demeaning way but that they will gain insight into how their behaviors impact others and adju

It is a silly thing but quite often as I’m driving and certain music plays on the radio I envision myself in a movie. Then my mind wanders to what would my movie be about? I think about the plot and wonder does my life have a plot? In actuality every day has a plot. I am currently in a literature based English course and some of the things I have had to read don’t appear to have plots, that which gives meaning to a story. We all want our lives to mean something. So I ask God; what’s the plot to my life? Hopefully, my plot, my meaning, is intertwined in God’s will. I like to think that each day I follow the plan God has laid out for me. Mind you, this is not following blindly, it is trusting completely. I trust that God has me covered, right down to the background music. Whether I understand the plot or not doesn’t matter, that is what trust is all about. Every movie has conflict, tension, tears and laughter and that is art imitating life. Hollywood may never know I exist but God know

I feel as though “please forgive me” should just be playing on a loop. My issue: being judgmental, not in an overt way mind you, but the thoughts that go through my head passing judgment on the slow person, the not very bright person, the not very clean person, the odd person and so on. It isn’t even conscious judgment, these thoughts just pop up. 2 Corinthians 10:5 states: “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” I frequently think to myself…take every thought captive, now, I don’t know about you but I have an unending stream of thoughts, taking each of them captive seems like an impossibility. How do I keep every thought obedient to Christ?   How I wish I had the answer to that! Maybe that loop playing “forgive me” is the key, it creates the awareness I need, the reminder and realization that these thoughts happen is the first step. Yesterday was Sunday and two con

            I have a personal philosophy about the things I post on facebook; I try to only post items that will make people smile (or laugh). I don’t like to post negative things. My thinking is that spreading smiles is much more beneficial to the world than negativity. Politics is a negative, child or animal abuse is definitely negative, crime is negative.   I don’t post those memorial items about losing someone to cancer or some other illness, I choose to remember people alive and laughing not by their disease.             This morning I wondered; am I sticking my head in the sand? Am I just making myself comfortable rather than facing the realities of this world?   I don’t believe I am. After some contemplation I still believe my philosophy is correct (for me at least). Workers in the US Treasury are only shown real bills, no counterfeits, because if you know what the right one feels and looks like intimately, then the counterfeit will be obvious. To me, the negatives are obvious.

            Only 65 days until Christmas! This is the holiday that produces extreme feelings in people; they either love it or hate it. Commercialism has done great damage to the holiday. I have met many a Christian who are Christmased out and that makes me sad. The joy of Christmas isn’t found under the tree, in the store or with a bite of the perfect cookie. The joy of Christmas is found in the manger, God made flesh because he loves us! How great would it be if we take back Christmas from retail and make it all about Jesus, as it should be?             I get really perturbed when people get so excited about Halloween and when Christmas is mentioned they just grumble about how commercial it is. People grumble when Christmas decorations are put out in the stores so early, what if those decorations were out all year long? There will be no bah humbug from me. I think of the converted Ebenezer Scrooge who promises to keep Christmas in his heart all year long; how I wish we could all kee

             I am being held captive in my house today waiting for the furnace repair man. It is a great reminder to not take things for granted. I am blessed with a nice home and it usually has heat or air conditioning as needed. I typically like my house on the cooler side anyway and it is a lovely day outside however, today, I am missing my heat. I really think I am missing it because I can’t have it.             What if forgiveness was taken away? What if it broke? (Thank God that isn’t possible) Have you ever experienced the grudge of another who refused to forgive you for something? It can be so painful because you know you are sorry for your offense but the grudge-holder still wants nothing to do with you. How happy I am that God doesn’t carry grudges, he only carries our sins to the cross. Try as I might to live right, I find myself asking for forgiveness (usually for repeating the same sin) constantly. It isn’t that God is a heavy handed master; it is because I am sincerely s

Have you ever realized that what you thought was just life is actually complacency? You know, that attitude that says, everything is just fine the way it is, nothing needs to change. There are moments in life when that is true; the key word here is “moments”. Moments are temporary. Complacency stretches moments out for   an extended period of time. God has recently pointed out to me that I have allowed complacency to rule my life long enough. For instance; I struggle with my weight, actually I haven’t struggled at all, I’ve let it win. I gave up on myself. Complacency is the liar that tells you certain things don’t matter. I have been telling myself that my weight doesn’t matter because I am the only one who cares about it and I don’t care that much, what a lie! Every time I look in the mirror I do care. There is also complacency about work that can creep into my life too. Rather than doing my best all the time, there are times that I only try to do better than the lowest common deno

Elsa and I went for a walk around the lake at Bauman Park today. I am so enamored of the fall colors, I love how God has supplied the leaves with such brilliant glory in their final moments.             As I walked, I prayed. I have been on an emotional roller coaster for several days now and I finally feel like I am off that ride. (Have I mentioned I strongly dislike roller coasters?) I was thanking God for bringing me through my personal turmoil and blessing me with all these spectacular colors. As we came around the lake I noticed how still the water was and how it allowed for the perfect reflection of the trees in all their glorious splendor. (see the picture I took below) It occurred to me that we are like water, we should reflect the beauty and love of God to those around us. When we are still (knowing he is God) we reflect him near perfectly. Yet, when we are not still; worried, fretful, fearful, we cannot reflect God, just as when the water is rippled and not still it does

I have spent a great deal of my adult life thus far seeking my passion. You know, that one   God given thing that I’ll excel at with a single minded focus. I see people focused on diet, exercise, fiscal security, art, cars, or success (among many other things) with this drive that seems unnatural to me. I care about many people, animals and things, I feel like a jack of all trades, master of none. Will I ever find that direction? I have a feeling though that I’m not seeing the forest for the trees. With so many different things going on in my life (the trees) I am missing out on the big picture (the forest). Each tree has its own beauty, each activity has its own purpose and every part of my life is another brush stroke that God is painting to create my big picture! How often must I remind myself to enjoy the journey? I have to admit it is hard to enjoy the journey when I feel like I’m on a road of potholes. But as I heard in church this morning Philippians 4 reminds me to give thank

Another election season is upon us, it drives me crazy! I despise the party system because I don’t think any of the parties have the monopoly on goodness, truth or economic development. I would love to see a new approach to the campaigning process. My idea goes something like this; first and foremost, no mud slinging; in fact no saying anything about the competitor. A candidate should only be allowed to speak of his/her own platform and accomplishments. All mud slinging does is take focus of the candidate. Not to mention that instead of voting for the most qualified person we are voting for the lesser of two evils. Secondly, all candidates need to back up their claims with reliable documentation to prove themselves.   Third, (this is most awesome) the campaign funds they raise should be used to provide a service to the people and demonstrate if they are able to efficiently manage their funds.   For example; a candidate raises ten million dollars, instead of using it on “campaigning”

This has been a rough day emotionally. I celebrate with my daughter and son-in-law their third anniversary. I also recollect the wedding day and the joy we shared as a family and that causes me to miss my Don. What I wouldn’t give to hold his hand in mine and to hear his laugh! So, I did what I usually do on such days and cried loudly (no one was around except my dogs) and I pleaded with God to ease my pain.             In an effort to feel better I took my dog, Elsa, for a walk. I listen to praise music on my I-pod and try to hear God’s voice. Every so often the urge to cry again would well up inside me, I found if I just tell myself “no” forcefully I can stop the tears. It is a gorgeous day so getting out for a walk felt good.             Then something trivial but odd happened. At first I thought I was seeing a large worm but it was actually a small snake crossing the path in an S-like manner, not much bigger than a number two pencil. Between the fact that it was unexpected and it

The idea that the earth revolves around the sun rather than the other way around was in Galileo’s day, heretical. This point was made in the sermon at church this morning. As I sat and pondered that, it occurred to me just how appropriate the solar system set-up truly is. Consider for a moment how egocentric the human being is already, this is why the original theory stated that everything revolved around the earth. I hypothesize that God put us in the rotation to figuratively put mankind in his place. We, as human-kind, already believe ourselves to be “all that and a bag of chips” but the sun is the center of our universe. There is no living thing that resides on the sun, it isn’t even a planet, it’s a star. Yet, God, in his wisdom, placed it front and center and we revolve around it. I don’t know about you but I think that is so cool! It reminds me how God chooses the small, the humble, the least likely to do his work all the time; Moses, the stutterer, David, the shepherd boy, Gideo