In preparation for tomorrow

I have, up until now, avoided anything and everything having to do with the suggestion that the Rapture will occur tomorrow.

However, after seeing this today... I can't resist sharing with you.

Forgive me my odd sense of humor.

Courtesy of Reddit, originally by Jonathon Schwarz

Ecclesiastes 3:4

To everything there is a season, and the season where Dr. A and Mrs. B led the theatre department I graduated from has now passed.

When word spread that these two ladies were leaving the department, Laurel from A Little White Noise began coordinating a surprise party to celebrate their combined 29 years of teaching. In the end nearly fifty people would come by to see Dr. A and Mrs. B, either at the actual event or later in the evening as the festivities moved elsewhere.

It was strange to get to see so many old friends from that time in my life, particularly because I've moved so far afield from theatre. Unfortunately, I did not get to stay as late as I wanted to, due to the utter exhaustion I was feeling from a week of staying up until 3 am.

Admittedly one of those nights was because we went to see Thor (and I echo Sherri's high marks for that movie!). However, the rest of the week I was wrapped up in putting together a slideshow set to music. Laurel had contacted me the week before the event to put it together, and unfortunately I didn't get the message and a chance to start work until Monday, when the event was Friday. This lead to a week of late nights: collecting photos, tweaking photos, finding music, changing music, splicing things together, inserting new pictures, and eventually burning it all off.

Yes, that was the week I didn't blog anything. What tipped you off?

Still, in the end it was worth it. Everyone seemed to enjoy the slideshow, especially Dr. A and Mrs. B.

Throughout the weeks leading up to "The Festival," I found myself reflecting back on the four years I spent with them. Like many of the theatre students, I had a close relationship with them both. They each in their own ways taught me how to harness my independent streak and channel it in a useful manner. They opened my eyes to possibilities in myself that had never occurred to me before--talents and skills that would have remained dormant without their inspiration.

Most importantly, they showed me that one can be a Christian and yet still live in the world and influence the people around you. Too often Christians hide themselves away from the world, creating and performing only for other Christians. They taught me that we can use our gifts and talents out in the "real world," surrounded by all manners of people and lifestyles that "the church" would not approve of, and still bear witness and remain ourselves.

When I first went to college, I was a young Christian in pretty much every sense of the phrase. Had the Christian university I attended stressed "Christian Theater," I could easily have ended up the type of Christian Artist who looks down upon Non-Christians and abhors the sight or sound of anything potentially thought-provoking or outside of my comfort zone.

That or I'd have gone crazy and moved to a different school after a couple of  years.

Instead, I found two teachers who did not hesitate to teach us all that theatre encompasses. Sometimes, this led to them locking horns with the administration. Sometimes it meant upsetting their students by forcing them to consider ideas and lifestyles completely foreign. And sometimes it meant teaching us how to compromise so that our message could be heard, even if it wasn't as overt as originally intended.

While it's true that I've left theatre behind in the sense that I sincerely doubt I will ever design, direct, or run a show again, these are all lessons that I apply each and every day to living. I'm able to acknowledge and contemplate ideas without rejecting them out of hand. It influences my writing, conversations, and debate styles. And all of those skills that they developed and honed in me--organization, design, communication, construction, sewing, drawing, analysis--make me better equipped to handle life as it happens.

Our time together wasn't always perfect. There were times when they made mistakes. There were times when their students (especially me!) made mistakes. But we grew together, and we grew well.

So, here's to Dr. A, Mrs. B, and legacy they've left after 29 years of teaching!

Photo taken by Rebekah Byland

¹ There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: ² a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, ³ a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, ⁴ a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, ⁵ a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, ⁶ a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, ⁷ a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, ⁸ a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.
--Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

The Christmas Story

Luke 2:1-20
New International Version


  In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirnius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to their own town to register.
  So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son.  She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.
  And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.  But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid.  I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.
  Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,
  "Glory to God in the highest heaven,
 and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests."
  When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about."
  So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger.  When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.

Changes Part 3 -- God's Provisions

Having come up with a plan and implemented it, we discovered that we could do more than we had originally hoped for. We were also learning a hard, yet needed, lesson. The simple fact of the matter was, we had a great deal of abundance right after we were married, and we squandered it. We were poor stewards of what God had given us. Had we lived as wisely and frugally then as we were forced to do so now, we likely could have gone 6 months before even having to start worrying. As it is, we were being made to rely on God. And God provided.

We went to KC for Thanksgiving, and stopped and visited my parents on the way up and back. It was an excellent trip, and one we desperately needed to make, if for no other reason than to just get out of town for awhile. When we made it back, Sam did his two gigs--neither of which he was paid for. Both were through OCU, and the bureaucracy there to get paid is atrocious. Once again we were faced with a situation where money we had counted on in our budgeting suddenly wasn't there. However, Sam also picked up a job playing for Hanging of the Green at our alma mater, and it was going to be a hefty paycheck, so we weren't overly worried. My parents came down, and all of us went back to Shawnee to see the performance and just enjoy Christmas cheer.

After the show, we went back to meet up with Sam, only to find out that the check that he would normally have had waiting for him on his music stand wasn't there—we wouldn’t receive it until after Christmas. So, yet again, the rug was pulled out from under our feet. Thankfully, God provided for us through both sets of parents. They really came through for us, and I hope to one day be able to do the same for our children.

Time and time again, God showed us that if we relied on Him, He'd always come through. Thanks to such kindnesses, we were able to get through December. Another plus about December was Sam going on Winter Break. We finally got to have our honeymoon--three weeks of just basically the two of us in our apartment.

Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, we continued to do the two-week menus and shopping. I revised my schedule, so that instead of doing particular duties each day such as sweeping or dusting, I assigned a particular room to a day. I also decided that I'd do what I called my "Daily clean," wherein right after breakfast I'd always do a certain list of chores: empty the dishwasher, wipe down the counters and stove, wipe the table, pick up general clutter, clean the litter box, make the bed, pick up clothes, wipe down the sink/counter in the bathroom, and check to see if the trash needed taken out. It sounds like a lot to do, but the thing is that after a couple of days, I had it to where I could get it all done in about 20 minutes. And that 20 minutes makes a HUGE difference.

After that I'd do my thorough cleaning of a given room--vacuum/mop, dust, disinfect, etc. All in all, it would take a grand total of about an hour to do my daily and room cleaning together. Then came the job hunting activities. In the afternoons, when not working on Christmas, I’d organize some part of the house—closets, drawers, cabinets, etc.

I was very happy making our apartment into a home, but I also continued to look for a job. I got an interview with a temp agency, which wanted to place me into another call center situation. However, the tests they wanted me to take, and the regulations for the business (very strict regs), discomforted me, and Sam was weirded out by the whole situation as well. So we decided that I wouldn't do it.

About this time we took another hard look at how we were living. The simple fact of the matter was that while we were tight on money, we were the happiest we'd ever been. I began to slow down in my job hunting. I did fill out a few more applications, the last of which was Wal-mart. In all of the time I'd been doing this, the call backs I'd gotten were all from smaller businesses or adverts I'd seen on Craig's List. Not one of the big retailers/companies had gotten back to me. I kind of figured that if anyone would hire me, it would be Wal-mart, so I submitted an application to them.

To this day, I have not heard back from them.

Fast forward past the Christmas blizzard of '09 (a separate post for another day) and the trip to Wellington to the beginning of the New Year. I sat down and built a menu for the whole month, and we went and did all of our shopping in one fell swoop, aside from things like milk and eggs, which wouldn't necessarily last a month. So far we've managed to stay in our budget of $200 for the month (or $50 a week) for both groceries and household supplies, such as toiletries, paper products, light bulbs, etc.

Sam and I also sat down and discussed the changes in our lifestyle. We found that, frankly, we both liked and enjoyed having me home and not working. As Sam put it to me, "It's not like you sit at home and just surf the internet all day. One look at our apartment shows that." In many ways, I feel like I've become, instead of a Stage Manager, a Family Manager. I keep the house clean, I provide meals, I plan the grocery trips, I track receipts and purchases, I balance the checkbook, I keep track of bills... and by doing so, Sam is free to concentrate on finishing his Masters degree and worry about getting gigs and providing for us. Sam told me just this afternoon: "Frankly, I think I have the easy part."

But it's not like its drudgery, or I'm his servant. I genuinely enjoy and have found a peace taking care of our home that I've never had in anything else I've ever done--and that includes theatre, which I greatly love. I find it fun to figure out how to make our budget work, how to take care of household dilemmas, and re-organizing everything so that we have an efficient household.

This is the biggest change of all, for me. Never in a thousand years would I have thought of myself as a homemaker. I was taught my entire life that I had a responsibility to go out into the workforce and earn my respect and honor that way. Staying at home, taking care of a house--those are things that either "lazy," "unqualified," or "dumb" people do. No one explicitly told me this, but it was very apparent in the way people talked about it, in the expectations teachers, friends, family, and society have of me. Never in a million years would I be "Suzy Homemaker."

But you know what? I'm working harder now than I ever did at AT&T. The aches I have at the end of the day from hauling laundry back and forth between the apartment and our laundry mat, or from scrubbing the bath tub, or moving furniture to vacuum, prove that. I am working on accounting our family budget. Every day I have to wrack my brain to figure out how to fix and improve things with nothing more than what I have on hand.

Also, because I have the time to devote to making our meals and planning out what we eat and need to make said meals, we are eating better and healthier than we ever did when I was working. We have tasty, homemade meals every day. And because it's from scratch, we're not eating nearly as many chemicals and preservatives as we used to--nor do we intake nearly as much sugar, even with my baking treats for us every week. As a result, between the time I was weighed when we had H1N1 and when I weighed myself at Christmas, I've lost over 15 lbs.

It amazes me. I'm still myself, but I've grown and learned so many things in the past three months, that in many ways I feel like a completely new person. Every day God is teaching me something new about myself, my relationship with Sam, my relationship with the world, and my relationship with Him.

That's it. That's what I have to share with you, my dear friends. I wanted to expound somewhere the changes I've discovered within myself, and I wanted to trace for my own benefit where each of the changes occurred. Do I suddenly think that every woman should be a stay at home wife? Absolutely not. Do I think our lifestyle is the only one that works? Again, absolutely not. But I'm happy with it, and content with what God is doing in Sam and I's lives. And I hope, as time goes on, to share little tips and tricks I have learned. Maybe. If I have the time. :-)

"The ordinary arts we practice every day at home are of more importance to the soul than their simplicity might suggest."

--Thomas Moore

Changes Part 2 -- The Experiment

So to recap thus far: no job for me, savings wiped out by car issues and illness, Sam had a reduced income from what we had had, and I was spiraling towards depression since I was unable to find another job and felt guilty for my parting of ways with AT&T. Allow me to state, unequivocally, that it's a good thing I have an amazing husband. At this point, I think many couples would have been at the yelling and accusing part of the equation. Thankfully, God blessed me with an understanding husband, who told me on numerous occasions he still thought it a good idea that I was gone from AT&T, even if it meant things were tight.

About the second week of November, I privately decided I could not continue the way I had been. I was spending all of my time either looking for jobs or playing on WoW. My sleeping schedule was in disarray. My house around me was in disarray. My finances were in disarray. My life was in disarray. And Christmas was coming.

I knew we weren't going to have much in the way of disposable income for Christmas, but I wanted to make sure I had good gifts for the people in our lives. So I started looking around the 'Net for cheap, homemade Christmas gift ideas. In doing so, I came across two different site types which would be integral in changing my thought processes. The first were "Frugality" sites; these were website dedicated to finding ways to save money and be good stewards of said money. The second types were "Homemaking" sites; these were websites for men and women who for whatever reason didn't have jobs in the workforce, but instead stayed home and took care of it.

As I read through the sites, several things crystallized in my mind.

1. I needed to build myself a schedule. No more going to sleep "when tired" and getting up "when I woke up." No more spending all day, every day at my computer, either searching for jobs or playing computer games. I needed a list of things to do each day and a set time to do it.

2. I needed to get the house under control and keep it under control. In general, since I moved out on my own, I'd been pretty good about keeping up with the house--typically by having a big cleaning day 2-3 times a month. But this meant that in the weeks between cleaning binges, the house would get pretty wild and overwhelming. I decided that if I was going to be home a good deal of the time, then my home should reflect that fact.

3. It was time to accept the fact that I would get a job when God wanted me to, not when I wanted to. As such, we needed to look at what we were spending money on each month, and figure out how to reduce the bills. It wasn't going to be pleasant, but it needed to be done. This also meant finding ways to reduce home expenditures--food, household products, etc.

4. Lastly, but most importantly, I needed to start relying on God and letting Him get us through this, instead of constantly worrying about it and making myself sick with stress. He feeds the sparrows in the air, and clothes the lily in the fields. He wasn't going to let us starve.

By the time Sam got home from rehearsal that night, I had skeleton of a plan, and by the time we went to bed that night, we had given it some meat as well.

I drew up a schedule for myself for the following two weeks leading up to Thanksgiving. I would get up when Sam did to go to classes and allow an hour and a half to do morning ablutions, make us breakfast and coffee, and then pack him a lunch and send him off for the day. Next would follow an hour and a half of intensive job hunting/applying. At the end of that time, I would spend an hour cleaning something specific around the apartment. (i.e. today I dust, tomorrow I vacuum, etc). If Sam had a short day and was home for lunch, I'd cook us lunch and then spend the rest of the day hanging out with Sam. Otherwise, I'd make a sandwich for myself, and then spend to afternoon working on projects. In this case, those projects were Christmas presents.

We also determined what we could cut out of bills. iPhones had to go--couldn't do the $60 a month data plans. Texting needed reduced. Time to cancel the WoW subscriptions. And so on, and so forth.

Oh, and absolutely NO MORE EATING OUT.

We had already cut most of the eating out, but there were times when we still fell off the wagon, for the simple fact that it was habit. I'm ashamed to admit it, but even though I'd worked hard on making sure we had lunches to take to work with us, when I was at AT&T we probably ate out of 4-5 nights a week. When you consider that for the two of us that meant the bill was typically between $15-$25, we were spending over $100 a week. Obviously, that was no longer feasible.

By this point I had seen several websites about doing menus and doing grocery shopping based off of said menu. As such, since I was already doing the schedule experiment, I decided to make up a 2 week menu and buy groceries to match those meals. I also decided that, as I'm a fairly decent cook, I would stop buying pre-packaged foods such as macaroni and cheese and instead buy the components and make it from scratch. I also dug out my bread machine and decided to make my own bread.

By the time all of this was taken into account, I took my regular two week grocery bill of ~$100 plus two weeks of fast food at over $200, and reduced it down to $46.00.

Now, admittedly, I had a metric ton of foodstuff in my kitchen that just never registered in my brain, and when I built my menu for those two weeks, I based it around what I already had. However, it completely amazed both of us how much we were able to save by making that simple decision.

Armed with our plans, we commenced upon the next two weeks. During that time, I made a startling discovery--I enjoyed keeping my house up. It was hard to get myself into the routine, but I liked how much better the house looked. I also enjoyed cooking meals and taking care of my husband. My kitties were happier because I was up and about and playing with them, talking to them, and cosseting them once I reached the point in the day when I could sit and relax a bit. I found myself constantly attacking the challenge of how to reduce what we spent. I have always reveled a bit in problem-solving, and this was one of the most interesting problems I've had to solve in a long time. Finally, I enjoyed making things for my friends and family. Since I started working on everything so early (for me), I was able to take time and make things properly and with attention to detail, instead of blazing through it all like I normally would.

I also continued looking for a job, and managed to score a handful of actual interviews in that time. I'd had another business request an interview with me, but they sent the request via email and asked for it the same day. I, of course, did not come across said email until that evening.

Despite that, we were feeling more upbeat about our situation than we had in months. Best of all, we'd managed to scrape and scrimp enough that we were able to go to KC and see Sam's sister and her family for Thanksgiving. Sam also had a couple of gigs lined up for after Thanksgiving... yes, things were looking up.


Happiness is not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.
--Franklin D. Roosevelt

Changes Part 1 -- The Setup

(Editor’s Note: When I originally typed this up, it came out to be 13 pages long. As such, I've gone back and broken this up into multiple posts which I will post over the next couple of days.)

Time and again, I'm amazed at the changes God can make in our lives--changes that we never would have dreamed of or contemplated just a year ago. Not all the changes are obviously big--moving, marriage, babies—often it's the little changes, particularly in thoughts and attitudes, that fascinate and amaze me.

Back in October, I parted ways with my full time job at AT&T, and there was much rejoicing throughout the land.

What Sam made between his two regular jobs and the extra gigs he'd picked up would be enough to cover our regular bills, and even if for some reason his gigs dried up, we had enough money put back that we could still pay the rent for 2-3 months. And, by the end of the week, I had a job lined up with a local vet clinic to work as their receptionist, starting the following Wednesday. It seemed that getting away from my previous job was the best idea ever.

That's when Things Started Happening(tm).

First of all, Sam had a gig/audition lined up off in Midwest City with someone he'd met at the school. On his way there, the van died at an intersection with all of his musical equipment in the back end. What's more, his phone did not receive service in the area at that time, so he had no way of contacting the person he was supposed to be playing for. Three hours later he was able to tow the van home and let me and the guy he was auditioning for know what was going on.

As a result of this, Sam never played for that guy again (Sam was unable to contact him until the gig was halfway over), and most of what we had put back into savings went to paying to get the van running again.

The following weekend, Sam, Sherri, and I went to my parents, since we hadn't seen much of them since the reception. We had a good relaxing time (yay for fall break!), and much fun was had by all. However, just before we headed back to the city, I received an email from the clinic I was starting at the following Wednesday, saying "Thank you for your interest in the receptionist position. It has now been filled."

Not a happy Holly.

After church that Sunday, Sam and I met his parents for lunch to catch up on life and to see new pictures of Ruthie. They had come home early from KC due to the fact that Susan had caught H1N1. We commiserated over that, enjoyed the food and pictures, and then went on our merry way home.

By Monday afternoon we were absolutely miserable. We both had H1N1. The next week is a blur to the both of us--neither of us recall any absolute details, except that three days into it Sam became coherent enough to drag us to the doctor, only to be told we had H1N1 and to stay home with plenty of fluids, try to rest, and take this super-duper prescription cough syrup since it was too late to give us Tama-flu.

When the next Monday rolled by, we were at least able to get up and move around, and Sam started going back to school even though he hadn't fully recovered. To be honest, the cough didn't go away for him until the end of November and he didn't recover his energy until Christmas break.

The following two weeks were very rough for me. I spent all day every day trying to find a job. I quickly learned that the big companies don't even ask you to come by any more--they just want you to go to their website and fill out the applications online. I also learned that while my resume was for perfect theatre, it was horrible for getting a job in the "real world." Why? I have a college degree and I've worked for over seven companies in the past five years (because theaters, by and large, are seasonal creatures). Most of these places took one look at my resume and decided I was "over-qualified" or unstable. I managed a couple of interviews, but in the end they didn't pan out.

To put it bluntly I was headed to a bad place mentally. Two weeks of spending all day, every day, combing the internet for job opportunities, filling out the same applications over and over (because most companies use one of three different online forms, any more), and facing rejection over and over again... yeah, it was rough.

Also, at this time the highest paying extra gig Sam had on a semi-regular basis dried up, and we were suddenly looking at trying to get by on basically a third of our "normal" income with most of savings wiped out by car/illness.

I'm not telling you this to throw a pity party or be like "Look at how bad we had it!" Rather, I'm explaining it to you so that you can understand where we were so that God could begin to make His changes in us. As Sam puts it, "Context, dear. Not whining--context!!"

And without this context, God could not setup His changes in us.

There are three stages in the work of God: impossible, difficult, done."

--James Hudson Taylor

Day Eight -- Co-Exist

Sunday mornings are always rough for me, namely because church in general is rough for me. I started going to my current church when Sam and I got engaged, and it's been a very different experience. Up to this point all of the churches I have consistently attended have been, well, small-town churches with no more than about 50-100 people in attendance. This is a much, much larger church (though no where close to being a mega-church, much less a Six-Flags Over Jesus). Which is great and all, but I feel overwhelmed by people every time I'm in there.

Also, I find myself having a hard time listening to the pastor there sometimes. It's not intentional, it's just invariably he'll tell us what chapter and verse(s) he's looking at for the day's sermon, and the next thing I know I've read about 5 other chapters in that book and he's two-thirds of the way through his sermon.

Books have always had a way of distracting me.

Anyway, on Sunday our Pastor was talking to us about the idea of unity and community in the church, which overall I thought was good. At one point, however, he began talking about how American culture as a whole is obsessed with the idea of unity or "oneness," and that in the process we lose truth. He then proceeded to talk about how he had seen this bumper sticker:

and that he had serious issues with the idea presented here. He continued to illustrate the point by talking about how he'd heard a "former President" speaking about why couldn't people of the various religions in the country set aside their differences when it comes to things like abortion and homosexuality and find points of unity. The Pastor disagreed with this because he felt we should "stick to our guns on these matters of truth. What's so great about the ideal of unity if we lose the truth?"

I completely understand, on an intellectual level, what his words were trying to communicate. However, the way he stated it, and the approving murmurs from the congregation set my hair on end. The tone wasn't one of "lets not compromise our values in an effort of trying to find 'unity' or 'acceptance' in the world, for while we are in the world we are not of the world." The feel of the words--and the emotions it sparked in the congregation--was of self-righteousness and arrogance, of hate and superiority. It actually made me grind my teeth.

Because to me, bumper stickers like the Peace sticker above or the better known Co-Exist sticker--


--is about promoting the over-riding tenet of love that these religions claim to profess. Are there sound, objective, Biblical and moral truths that we should live by? Absolutely! (For an excellent argument about this, I recommend C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity.) But tell me what is wrong about recognizing the fact that we are all people, great or small, that we all have the same basic needs--physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual--and that nothing will change unless we can have intelligent discourse? The vibe I received (and it could totally have just been Holly in natural paranoia mode) was the unyielding anger of "we're right, no matter what anyone says, and we shouldn't have to listen to them or try to find out why they think and feel the way they do. We should just get rid of them all. Who needs'em? Damn queers," and so on and so forth....

Should we be willing to discuss our tenets and beliefs? Should be willing to tell someone that they're leading a life of sin and need the redemptive blood of Christ? Without a doubt. Does that give us the right to espouse violence and spew forth hatred and claim that we are "sticking to our guns" and "not diluting the truth"? In my opinion, no. Hate the sin, not the sinner. Show them love. Tell them of Christ and what He's done for us. Explain why our beliefs show their and our actions to be sin. And tell them that we love them any way. That we are here for them no matter what. Because that, that is what the Christ tells us every moment of every day.

I believe my feelings about talking to others about sin is best described with the following:

A good friend of mine at work told me the story of one of the last times she ever spanked her son. She couldn't even remember what it was that he had done that she felt the need to spank him, but it had completely infuriated her. After about twenty minutes of spanking him, he finally stood up, took the belt gently out of her hand, and told her that was enough, which simply enraged her more. Before she could do or say anything, however, he asked her: "Are you punishing me because you truly love me and need to discipline me, or because it makes you feel better?"

He then kissed her on the cheek, thanked her for loving him, and walked out of the bedroom. To this day she still hasn't decided why she spanked him that day.

So here's the thing about talking to people about sin and beliefs in regards to abortion, murder, usury, lying, sexual misconduct, whatever: are we talking to them about it because we love them and need to discipline/help them to learn and grow, or are we talking at them and using it as an excuse to hate them because it gives us a sense of superiority and makes us feel better?

The feeling I got from the people in the church yesterday was the latter.

It terrified me.


"Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can."
--John Wesley


(Please feel free to make comments and discuss as you will, or completely ignore it as you will. All I ask is that it stay cordial and in the spirit of love.)