A_Brittle_Bow's Xanga

Your Favorite Fifteen

Sat, 27 Jun 2009 03:13:10 GMT

I got this post prompt from Pickwick12, and it sounded like fun, so here goes!

Directions: don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you've read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes.

1. The Lord of the Rings. Reading it again this week is reminding me of all the reasons why I fell in love with it in the first place. Outside of Scripture, I don't think there's any more compelling story of sacrifice and salvation.

2. A Wrinkle in Time. I would cite every Madeline L'Engle book I've ever read, but I think this one is the one that started it all for me. The harrowing story of Meg fighting to save Charles Wallace is thrilling every time.

3. The World of Pooh. Still makes me laugh out loud.

4. Emily of New Moon. (And the other Emily Books). This series shaped me as a teenager. It made me believe in writing as a calling I might have, it taught me accept the miraculous, and it opened my eyes to grief that changes you without ruining your life.

5. The Betsy Books. Another series that shaped me as a youth. Betsy taught me who I wanted to be, and proved that girls could flirt and giggle and daydream and still be intelligent and interesting. If I had to choose just one, it would be Heaven to Betsy.

6. Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith. In my nerve-racked college years, and still today, this book gives me hope that Christian literature of high quality can be accepted in the secular world. I have rarely been so moved by literature.

7. Matilda. Another one that still makes me laugh aloud, although I see much more in it now than I did when I first read it as a child. This book taught me that intelligence might make you weird, but that's okay.

8. Carry On, Jeeves (and others by P.G. Wodehouse). There's almost nothing in the world that makes me laugh harder.

9. Vanity Fair. I started this book because I had to read a novel for a college class. I finished it because I was totally enthralled. Thackeray is a master.

10. Sense and Sensibility. Of course, I could put almost anything by Austen, but this one is my current favorite.

11. Homecoming. Not only have I been changed by loving this book, I am still being changed by it as I share it with a student. I am in awe of the writing and the story as I look at it through new eyes.

12. Mere Christianity. The most basic of Lewis' theological works, and the one that captured my heart and made me a lifelong devotee of apologetics.

13. A Few Figs From Thistles. I think this is my favorite of Edna St. Vincent Millay's collections, but in all honesty I'm hard pressed to choose.

14. The Complete Works of George Herbert. Awe-inspiring. There's just no other word.

15. The Complete Works of John Donne. Donne's verse is total genius.

These aren't necessarily my favorite, but they are definitely books that have has a profound impact on me, both as a person and as a writer. What are your favorite fifteen?

Friday, June 12, 2009

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 01:44:43 GMT

Last night at Bible study my pastor had a request for the attendees. He and an elder hold a service at the women's prison in town every Sunday afternoon, and the ministry has been bearing a lot of fruit. So last Sunday, when they took the written prayer requests they take each week, there was such in overwhelming influx of requests that my pastor couldn't handle them all. He brought them to Bible study and asked for our help, explaining that between church duties and his full-time job, he had only had time to pray for a few specifically and for the bunch generally. So everyone who was willing took a few off the pile, until they were all gone.

Last night, before bed, I broke out my little stash of requests and prayed over them. I had been planning to just quickly murmur a petition for each one, but as I read the scratchy penciled notes, I had to pause. I was overwhelmed. There is so much grief in the world.

These women have been on my heart all day. Since I've recently started work in the social services sector, I know that many of those women who scrawled their requests on crumpled paper have beloved children in the system I help to manage. I know many of them are grieved and frightened about their children's future, and about their future with their children. I know from their requests that almost all of them are struggling with addiction of some kind. Although mostly they didn't write about it, I'm certain that all of them have been dreadfully hurt, abused, and betrayed. And reading their words, praying over them, I couldn't help but wonder--what makes me so much more lucky than them? Why, in God's mercy, was there a place for so much sorrow, alongside so much peace?

But even as I prayed, I knew the answer. It is God's mercy that brought people like my pastor and our church, to stand alongside the broken and abused and to offer them grace. It is God's mercy that has kept them alive and seeking, that has brought them to this ministry of reconciliation.

The world is an evil place. Terrible things happen to innocent people every day. But the evil and terrible things are not the fault of God. It is the goodness in the world, not the evil, that is out of place. It is the grace and the love and the acceptance that don't belong in this life, not the sorrow. But God, in his great mercy, gives us blessings that have no place in a sinful world, and sends people to us who have been washed of their stains, to show us how to be cleansed.

So when you are dismayed at the state of our world, remember this: you are alive and whole, and that is the work of a God who has sent you. He has sent you to be a minister of receonciliation to those who otherwise might never escape death. And when your ministry to them falls into your hands (and it will, without a doubt), take it up and perform it with all the zeal of our God. Even if it seems as simple as whispering a bedtime prayer for someone you may never meet.

Inalienable Rights

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 02:18:24 GMT

In the past several weeks, I have become increasingly concerned about the fate of faith in America. Not because I think Christians are off-track, or because I think the church is flawed. Rather, I have been concerned because I see our culture becoming increasingly intolerant of our beliefs, and I fear before my children are grown our faith may be culturally unacceptable, or even illegal.

A few days ago, I was watching Dr. Phil. Apparently he is the bravest man in the world, because his topic that afternoon was "Gay Marriage: Right or Wrong?" He had a panel of six experts, three representing each side of the argument, and he strove throughout the show to provide an open forum for discussion and to keep tempers under control. But one question was raised that concerned me, and nobody addressed it; one of the anti-Gay Marriage representatives raised the concern that, if gay marriage is legalized throughout the country, churches will be required to perform ceremonies uniting gay couples regardless of their stance on the subject. Doctors will be required to perform in vitro fertilization for gay couples regardless of their personal beliefs. Psychologists will be required to counsel patients whose sexual orientation they believe to be sinful. Christian organizations of all kinds will be stripped of their right to practice their religion freely. This is not an extremist or unlikely prediction: these things are actually currently happening. For reference, check out this article in The Washington Post.

The argument against Christians is this: once people enter the marketplace, they are providers of a service who must provide it without discrimination. This argument, which had been upheld in courts, is not Constitutionally defensible. In a free country, anyone who is not qualified or comfortable providing a voluntary service within a private organization should be permitted to respectfully refer a potential client to another provider for service. In the same way that a doctor may refuse to treat a relative because of an emotional compromise, a doctor should be allowed to decline to provide a service due to being religiously compromised. But that does not satisfy the homosexual community. Although the doctors and psychiatrists in the aforementioned cases referred their homosexual patients to other qualified practitioners who would be happy to serve them, the gay community sued and won. This battle is not about homosexuals getting the same treatment as everyone else; it is about forcing people to renounce their religious views via litigation.

This attack on religious freedom is visible in other areas as well. The one that particularly caught my attention recently (due to the murder of late-term abortion provider Dr. George Tiller), was the question of abortion. I read this great blog on the subject, which got me thinking and doing research. It turns out that the Freedom of Choice Act, which is supported by Obama, will actually make it illegal for Catholic and other religiously affiliated medical institutions to be protected from being required to perform abortions. Read about it here, at the Americans United for Life website.

I have heard people say that this issue is nonexistent, because gay couples wouldn't want to get married in a church that didn't support their lifestyle, and women wouldn't ask Catholic doctors to abort their babies. The evidence shows otherwise. These things are actually happening. This is not hypothetical; it is real.

These issues of growing importance have one frightening similarity: they strip Americans of faith from the right to live in a way that is religiously acceptable to them. If these issues continue to develop along the same lines, I believe that before I die I will witness the outlawing of morality based on faith. I believe we will witness the revocation of freedom of religion.

Is that right less viable than a woman's right to choose whether to bear children? Is it less essential than a person's right to sleep with the partner of his choice? God forbid! This is the foundational ideal of our country, the primary right upon which our nation was founded. I reserve the right to freely practice my religion in any way that does not infringe upon the foundational Constitutional rights of others. I reserve the right to attend a church that does not marry or ordain homosexuals and to teach my daughters that abortion is morally unacceptable. I reserve the right to petition my governmental representatives to oppose laws that ratify such behaviors. After all, this, like so much else, is a very slippery slope. If we start mandating the actions of religious groups in these areas, where does it stop? Where does governmental interference in organized religion end?

If you care about freedom of religion, join the opposition. It doesn't matter what you believe about homosexuality or abortion or any other hot-button issue; if you believe that every American has to right to practice his religion without fear of litigation, lend your support to the religious institutions endangered by this trend. Protect our freedom of religion. Write your representative. Sign petitions. And most of all, urgently petition God to intervene on behalf of religious America. Pray without ceasing that our right to practice our faith in any way we see fit will not be taken away, now or ever. Through the prayers of the faithful, God works miracles, and he will protect our right to worship him.

Mercy

Thu, 28 May 2009 15:49:08 GMT

Mercy is one of the attributes of God that we don't often think about in terms of our relationships with others. And yet, it is one of the most renowned of his attributes. William Langland, 14th century poet of Piers Plowman, said of mercy, "All the wickedness in the world which man could do or think is nothing more to the mercy of God than a live coal in the sea." William Shakespeare wrote in The Merchant of Venice, "In the course of justice, none of us should see salvation. We do pray for mercy. And that same prayer doth teach us all to render the deeds of mercy." In Exodus, as God is passing before Moses, he declares his name to be full of mercy: "And the LORD said, 'I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the LORD, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.'" And repeatedly in the Epistles, the Apostles greet the churches and fellow believers with mercy. So what does it mean to display God's character by giving mercy to one another?

I think many people are uncomfortable with this idea because the act of giving mercy necessitates the need for judgment and punishment. Christians may think, since it's not our place to enact God's judgment on others, it's not our place to give mercy either. It may seem like the prerogative of God. I disagree with that view, and honestly I think that if people showed more mercy to one another, the church and the world would be relieved of so much bitterness. Although we may know that true judgment is reserved for God, often we do not hesitate to give people exactly what they deserve.

We need to show mercy when others are foolish and stupid. When you encounter someone who is making an idiot of himself, the world encourages you to ridicule him, to prove how much better and smarter you are. Have mercy, instead. Pass over the stupidities committed by others and you can hope to be spared ridicule in your turn.

We need to show mercy when others are cruel and selfish. The world teaches us that those people ought to be brought down so that they will cease persecuting others. It tells us that we ought to meet cruelty with better, more righteous, cruelty. The world is lying to us. Have mercy. Mercy and forgiveness are the only things that will change people and stop unkindness.

We need to show mercy when others have wronged us. Our culture is full of stories, movies, songs, that teach us that nobody deserves to be forgiven until she has acknowledged her wrongdoing and apologized. We are taught to never forgive someone who has wronged us or trust her again, unless she can somehow prove she is sorry and has changed. Give mercy. Some people will never realize how much they have hurt us, so the best answer is for us to heal regardless. Some people may never change, so the best answer is for us to be changed instead.

We need to give mercy to others because God gives mercy to us every day. The character of God is never one of resentment, never one of bitterness, never one that holds on to wrongs and withholds forgiveness.

I have a dear friend who has recently filed for a divorce. Despite all the pleas and exhortations of the church, she is determined to carry this through, not because she is sure it will make her happy, or because her situation is unbearable--her faithful husband is a nice Christian man who, despite admittedly contributing to their marital problems in the past, is really making an effort to save things now. But to her, it's too little, too late. She has hardened her heart. She is withholding the mercy she needs to give, because to her, the most important thing is that her husband get what he deserve for hurting her in the past. God forbid that this merciless vengeance should exist among us! God, in his great mercy, forbid that we should harbor such bitterness and resentment!

Give mercy to someone today. Give mercy to the coworker who is the butt of all the office jokes, and resist the urge to roll your eyes and sigh when he comes your way. Give mercy to the person in line in front of you at the grocery store, and don't glare at her as she fumbles through her wallet and takes ten minutes to write a check. Give mercy to your spouse who snaps at you, to your sibling who keeps making the same silly mistakes over and over again, to your parent who just doesn't seem to understand you. And realize that God is living and working in you, changing the world through his inexhaustible, unquenchable mercy.

Biblical Womanhood

Thu, 14 May 2009 22:32:41 GMT

I have heard a lot of people who berate the Bible in the name of Feminism. Now, I've never called myself a Feminist (in fact, I once wrote a poem entitled "Anti-Feminazi Manifesto"), and when women try to re-imagine the Bible based on their compulsive need to be better than men, I really start to get frustrated. An honest and unassuming reading of Scripture gives a portrait of a God who cares passionately about women and their needs, and presents many heroines who are excellent role models for any young woman. Scripture also gives significant guidance to women on how to behave, in addition to the general guidance given for all believers. You could almost say Scripture spoils women: we have a clear picture of the character God wants us to have laid out for us to follow.

The most blatant example of this is in Proverbs 31. One of the commenters on a Revelife post today got me thinking again about this passage of Scripture, which I believe is one of the most maligned passages in the Bible. As a young woman growing up, I heard interpretations of this passage that went something like this: "Proverbs 31 tells young men that God wants them to marry good women and to avoid contact with sinful women. A good woman is one who will be modest, faithful to her husband, a good mother, who will take care of the house and support her husband in his work." You can probably guess that I don't think that's a very accurate description of what is actually going on in this passage. As I got older, I began to realize that a much different picture is painted here.

The first definitive quality of "the Wife of Noble Character" is that her husband has full confidence in her. He knows he can count on her for anything. This doesn't just apply to keeping his shirts ironed and having supper on the table in time; rather, it refers to a trust so complete that it destroys need. He knows he lacks nothing because he knows he can trust her to make a wise decision about what should be done.

This "Wife" is also an incredibly productive, hardworking woman. She's a working mom, in fact. She's up before sunlight working at what she does best to provide for her family, and she is really good at her job. She's so good that Proverbs compares her productivity with a merchant ship laden with treasures. She's so good that she earns enough to buy her own property, which she uses as another source of income. She's tough, smart, and capable: "She sets about her work vigorously; her arms are strong for her tasks." (v 17) And because she has accomplished so much, so well, when disaster strikes she's confident that her family will be okay: "When it snows she has no fear for her household; for all of them are clothed in scarlet." (v 21) And on top of all that, she dresses well and strives to present herself beautifully: "Her clothes are fine linen and purple." (v 22) But she is never stingy or selfish; she gives liberally to the poor (from her own earnings, we can assume) and has compassion on less fortunate people.

In fact, she is so remarkable that her husband is respected merely because of association. Her husband is accorded a place of honor because her goodnes reflects on him and raises him up. Proverbs speaks of her having strength, dignity, wisdom. And, despite what our culture might lead you to believe, this is not a thankless job for her. In fact, "Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her." (v 21) And the honor she receives is not just from her family--in public, before her whole community, she receives "the reward she has earned."

Feminism has never offered a vision of womanhood superior to this. This Biblical ideal, the Noble Wife, is everything I could and do hope to be. Confident, respected, capable, talented, generous. If I am half the woman described here, I will have reason to be proud. And reading this, I know that to God, no woman is a second-class citizen. Rather, He has designed women to be brilliant, vibrant members of their communities, who are honored by their families, their coworkers, and their world.

Genesis

Thu, 14 May 2009 04:32:14 GMT

There are days when I feel like my life is the earth in Genesis 1:2--"Formless and empty, darkness over the surface of the deep." Today was one of those days. I don't know what I will be doing for the next three months, and that's a phenomenon I've never experienced. I've been contacted by people who want tutoring over the summer, and by people who want me to apply for boring administrative positions, and people who want me to keep my options open in case I get a belated Graduate Teaching Assitantship. I think my husband wants me to take a vacation.

The only person who doesn't know what she wants me to be doing is me.

The lack of structure in my life, combined with the lack of certainty about the near future, makes me feel like the space within my skull is swirling with darkness and mist, a confusion and an emptiness. My mind is a place where unrelated particles float in the void of space, and hoping to produce anything from it is like hoping that those particles will accidentally perfectly combine and explode into worlds. Not probable, if even possible. I feel like one of those improbable people in movies who are buried from the neck down in sand, unable to move, and who seem perfectly placid about it. The tide is rising, and I can't raise the energy to fight what's binding me.

So the words at the end of that verse come as a great comfort--"and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters." Before there was motion, before there was light, before there was conception or creation or growth on earth, God was. He hovered over the formless void, over the empty darkness of waters fathoms deep where nothing dwelled, and in the nothingness before time, God was present. Maybe, even so, His Spirit hovers over me in tense, exulting expectation of the creation that is coming. Maybe above the dark deepness of my mind and my heart, He waits in breathless foreknowledge, envisaging the coming Eden and its new-blooming Tree of Life. Tonight, feeling as I do the terrible and beautiful weight of uncertainty, I find it easy as never before to hope that God is planning a new creation in me, through me. I find it not impossible to hope that, just as I cannot know what I will be doing one month from now, I cannot predict what awesome new work He is about to speak into life.

And thinking that, I guess I do know what I want to be doing. I want to be waiting on the Spirit of God which hovers like a dove over my emptiness to speak those perfect words: "Let there be...."

Needs

Fri, 08 May 2009 17:13:30 GMT

Today I find myself in a situation I haven't experienced since....well, ever. It's a tough, this-is-real-adult-life kind of situation. And I admit, to my chagrin, that the reason it's so tough is because I honestly never though I would be here. I thought my own efforts, my hard-won success, could save me from it.

Which begs the question: is this something I really need to be saved from?

I try to be objective enough to see how good I have it, to know that no matter how bad it seems to get for me, the mere fact that I live in this country is itself a sign that my life is so much better than many others'. If I had happened to be born in Mexico, say, I could even now be sweating out the swine flu in a rudimentary hospital with only a slim chance of survival. So I realize that I have it easy. Why, then, do I still react to my problems as though they are serious crises? Do others do that as well?

Jesus told his followers that since he, "the Son of Man," had no place to lay his head (that is, no home or income or security), that his followers would live that kind of life, too. I think most people take that as a statement concerning persecution for the faith, of a kind. Since we follow Jesus, some of us will follow him to places where there is no quality medical care and no comfy bed at night and no surety that we will not be attacked. Many people interpret that statement as an assertion that Christians are citizens of another country who will never be "at home" in the world. While I think it is both of these things, I think it is also, significantly, a statement about God, about Jesus, about what kind of Lord he is. "Don't kid yourself," Jesus says. "This isn't about gaining security and wealth and a good home. It's about following me and gaining my character." Worldly success is not important to Jesus, and our worldly success is not his primary plan for us.

I don't think that means that God has decided to teach us all a bunch of lessons by making us struggle and endure hardship and always come up a little short. I think it means that struggle is the nature of the fallen world, and God does not promise to change that nature for us. Instead, he promises something that is, in the long run, much better: to give us anything we need to accomplish the goals he has call us to accomplish, to live and breathe and work. He promises to change, not the world, but us.

So I guess the answer to my question is that I don't need to be saved from my problem. I need to be saved from my doubting, my worrying, my self. And that is a hope I can count on being fulfilled, a need I know with surety will be met, not only with sufficiency, but with glory. "And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus" (Philippians 4:19"

The War Against the Obvious

Thu, 07 May 2009 15:57:32 GMT

This morning, reading a post on Revelife, I realized what generally bothers me so much about these things, and why I so rarely check them out: the blog writer wrote an excellent post and posed a challenging question, and in response all the commenters either bickered about denominational beliefs or made comments that were so obvious it was like a replica of 3rd grade children's church. I won't talk about the arguers here--maybe another time. Instead, today I am wondering why, when confronted with a serious question, so many Christians thoughtlessly give only the classic answers: Love people and stay focused on Jesus.

Seriously, it's gotten to the point in my life where I start to be afraid I might deck the next person who tells me the solution to my problems is to love my neighbor and keep Jesus first. Obviously! Nobody's arguing that! (I'm not arguing that with you, Harry!) Nobody on Revelife is going to read that and think, "What? Follow Jesus? What kind of Christian blog is this?" These things are the foundation of our faith.

The question, which is real and challenging and sometimes terrifying, is What does that look like?

Seriously. On an average day, when you're heading to work and loading the dishwasher and clipping your toenails, What does it look like to keep Jesus first? It's so easy to just say, "Well, we need to stay focused on Him," and then go our merry way. On a normal day, when your coworkers are gossiping and your husband is stressed about finances and your best friend comes over to watch a movie, What does it look like to love your neighbor? If we knew the answers to these questions, really knew and understood them, then many of the struggles and queries we experience daily would disappear.

I think that the answers to these questions are ones that deserve heartfelt discussion and earnest study. For instance, I really believe that one of the ways in which we should love our neighbors is by giving them unconditional forgiveness and acceptance. However, I also believe that one way to love one another is by telling the truth, sometimes the hard and terrible truth, no matter how much we'd rather keep quiet. So there is a real question there, a need for Christians to learn how to reconcile these two ideas that sometimes seem in conflict. To learn how to judge when is the proper time to speak out and when a hug and an "I love you" is all that's required.

Let's admit it: sometimes it's hard to know how to keep Jesus first when there are a thousand other demands on our hearts--loved ones in sickness or pain, friends whose marriages are falling apart, a troubled spouse, children who are looking to us for guidance and unconditional love, heartache and sorrow that seem dreadful enough to wipe everything else out. What does it look like to make Jesus the focus of our lives in the midst of these troubles? How can the average person accomplish that? I'm not afraid to admit that whenever I think I have these things down, I find myself in a new situation that requires something more of me, and it takes real Bible study and prayer and the prompting of the Spirit and the godly council of my friends to help me navigate my way through.

I am reminded of the words of the Apostle in Hebrews 5. " ¹¹We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn. ¹²In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God's word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! ¹³Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. ¹⁴But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil." The teachings "love our neighbor" and "keep Jesus first" are the milk of our faith. We were nursed on them and grew from them and they provided a firm foundation for a healthy spiritual life. And there is no reason why we can't have a good glass of milk every day through adulthood. But if we never move past these, if we are never weaned from reliance on the the basics of spiritual learning, we will never grow up. I want to be able to handle solid food. I want to be willing to explore these concepts to the full.

These questions should be openly discussed among us always, because the reason we have been given to one another as a body is so that we can encourage, uplift, and instruct one another. On earth, there will always be differences of opinion between believers, on matters both trivial and great. But if we cultivate an environment where nobody will ask the questions that are weighing on her mind, because the atmosphere is one of divisive argument or shallow platitude, we have failed in our mission to be the Body of Christ. So I encourage you: don't accept the obvious answer! Ask for explanation, example, encouragement! Don't let yourself or others get away with blowing off the concerns of the church with thoughtless answers! Yes, the fundamental elements of our faith are to devote ourselves to Jesus and to love one another. But if we never explore those concepts more fully, we have only skimmed the surface of the glory and grace of God, and we will miss out on the blessings He is waiting to reveal.

Forgiveness

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 18:57:36 GMT

Our culture today is not big on forgiveness. In general, people seem to prefer to hold on to their anger and have excuses to be bitter. I can understand that. It's really much easier, and, to be totally honest, there are many things I should have forgiven long ago that I still find, sometimes to my surprise, fill my heart with bitterness and resentment. But the Word of God is very clear on this. When Peter came to Jesus, feeling himself no doubt proud of his generosity of spirit, and declared himself ready to forgive his brother up to seven times, he asked the approval of Jesus on his intentions. Jesus, seeing the lack of true charity in his heart, replied, "not seven, but seventy times seven."

How many of us could swallow that instruction, and perform it? How many of us have given up a friendship or neglected a family member because the person had betrayed us eight times, or even just once?

A few years ago, I was faced with a dilemma. Someone I loved dearly had betrayed me in the worst way I could have imagined. I had two choices: I could abandon our relationship, count him unworthy of my trust, and look after the safety of my own heart; or I could do the unthinkable, forgive him unconditionally, choose to trust him, and take the risk of having my heart broken again. Practically anyone in our society would call me a fool for the choice I made. Many people I knew did. But I have never and will never regret my choice to forgive him and give our relationship a second chance. We have both been irrevocably changed for the better by that choice.

Forgiveness changes people. Some Christians will tell you that God forgives us when we repent, but I disagree. The forgiveness of God is unconditional, and all we need to do is accept it.

Now, years later, I have a friend who needs to forgive someone. She either doesn't want to or doesn't know how. But her choice to not forgive is going to change her life, and the life of her loved ones, forever, and for the worse. How can I explain to her the freedom of forgiveness and the joy of relinquishing bitterness? How can I help her understand that by refusing to forgive, she's not protecting herself, but is in fact exposing herself to sorrow and anger that time won't cure?

Have you had to forgive someone, and found it difficult? How would you counsel a friend who had been wronged, and was unwilling to forgive?

To sum up a very eventful seven weeks...

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 17:19:55 GMT

here's a list of 8 noteworthy things that have happened since I last posted:

1. The tutoring center where I worked closed, very abruptly and with no real explanation as to why. Found myself suddenly unemployed.

2. Husband got a job!

3. Took a job waiting tables at Pizza Hut, which deceptively appeared as though it would be a viable temporary source of income and actually turned out to be my own personal hell. Funny how these things turn out.

4. Quit a job waiting tables at Pizza Hut, and ascended from the depths of Hades.

5. Started privately tutoring students. Not currently earning as much doing this as I would like, but since my weekly earnings are > $0, I guess I can't complain. (Like the math symbols there? Yeah. That's because I'm a pro tutor. You've got to know that kind of stuff.)

6. Husband struck by vehicle while riding his bike to new job. He's fine--the bike isn't. And guess what the moron who hit him doesn't have. (If you guessed peripheral vision, a brain, or insurance, you're right.)

7. Due to bicycle accident, find myself in need of reliable and safe transportation for husband, since I am now taking the car to private tutoring gigs. Anyone know how we can purchase, register, and insure a new vehicle for a little over $0/week?

8. Began attending tiny but delightful church near our home. Hooray!

So, yeah. That about sums it all up. If anyone knows anyone who is getting rid of a vehicle and doesn't want any money for it, or alternatively knows anyone who needs tutorizing in the Wichita area, please give a heads up.