The Greenest Grass

I may get some people upset with this post but here it goes.

My brother in law was brought up in a christian household, was baptized, confirmed, went to church, all the good stuff.  Some where a long the way, he decided he didn't believe in God.  I don't know if he considers himself an atheist or just plain non-religious; but he's dead set in his beliefs and has even lost a couple great girlfriends because of it.

On the other side of things, I worked with a girl a while back, who once said to me, "I don't know how anyone wouldn't believe in God, how can you not?" referring to our I.T. guy who believes in Buddhism.  Now I don't know about him, but I can completely see why you could be non-religious all together.  I don't know much about other religions, and I don't claim to, but I do know many people who consider themselves non-religious, or atheist, came to that conclusion at some point in their lives; it wasn't handed down to them.  (Yes I know before you jump there are many out there that are, but I grew up in a non-religious household, and here I am preaching to you, and my BIL grew up in a christian household, and he is where he is.)  All I mean is when you grow up, you tend to decide who you are on your own.  So why do some people decide they don't believe in Jesus or any other religion?  I don't know, but my best guess is this.  At some point in their lives, living was a struggle for some reason or another.  And they decided, if there was a God, that loves me as much as they bible says, he wouldn't make me go through so much pain, if there was any higher being, they wouldn't make so many people go through so much pain.  And then spend a bunch of time trying to prove it doesn't exist.

But I kind of have a different view; I thank God for my trials, with out them, I would not be who I am today.  I like to think of it like this, "If you are a parent, and you give your child everything they want, and they always get their way, they are going to end up a spoiled, selfish, brat.  Why would our Father in Heaven treat our lives any different?  Plus if everything was perfect, and nothing ever went wrong, it would be a rather boring life.  Eventually, you'll run out of things you want, get sick of always knowing what's going to happen, and just be plain bored of it.  So I am thankful that every now and then, someone said something not so nice to me, I fell and hurt my knee, or the project I work so hard on fell apart in the end.  It brings me back to reality, and makes me so much more thankful for the good times.

Plus our time on earth is a test, how we handle the bad times determines our outcome when leave the earth.  Do we fall apart, blame others for our mistakes, and treat every one like crap because we had something bad happen to us?.  Or do we accept our mistakes, brush ourselves off, and give it another try, all the while with a smile on our faces?  Crap happens, life happens, and you can't predict what's going to happen, so even if you do everything right, doesn't mean it's going to come out perfect in the end.  A quote I like seems to fit well with this post, "The greenest grass is the grass that grows from crap."  So take your crap, deal with it, and grow, you may just end up better in the long run...

There is only one true leader; listen to your own voice...

Since the husband is away this week for work, I decided to go out with some girlfriends for some dinner and gossip on Tuesday.  While we were talking I brought the blog up, and that led to a conversation about Christianity.  My one girlfriend mentioned she had started a bible study for children at her church, and I'm not sure how or why the children ended up at the last one she did, but they had never really heard of or knew of Christ before.  And she said, it was the most heartwarming/breaking thing she'd ever seen when their eyes lit up as she was telling them about Jesus.  Heartwarming because they were accepting him, and really wanted to know more about him.  Heartbreaking because one said, "You mean there's someone who actually loves me for me?" 

Those are the kind of stories I love.  The ones where someone does something not because its going to help them in any way, yes she'll probably become closer to God as she does this, but for the most part it's a completely selfless act, done just out of the kindness of her heart to help others. 

Some Christians see church and tithing's as; I go to church and I give the church money so God WILL bless me.  But so many of us are already blessed.  Just to be alive; to have a roof over our heads; be able to put food on our plates; or have love in our hearts.  But more often than not, we take those things for granted.  Those aren't blessings, that's just daily life, normal stuff.  But for many people it's not.  Especially with the world we are living in today, many don't have those things.  Some children have never felt the amazing power of a hug; or go to bed hungry; or have never heard those 3 words whispered to them by anyone.  So when I go to church it's not to ask God for more blessings, it's to thank God for the blessings I've already been given.

Mother Teresa said it best "Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person".  A smile given to the person walking towards you as you go down the street.  The lady on the side of the road stressed because she has a flat.  The gas station attendant asking you, "Do you want to donate $1 to so and so charity?"  DO IT!  Don't think oh, someone else will help her out, that guy might be weird, I don't want to give him the wrong idea, or they ask everyone every time they are in, they aren't going to miss $1, if I don't do it today.  What if we all had that same way of thinking?  How would anything EVER get done?  When she says, "Person to Person" it means, small things, baby steps, one person at a time.  Imagine if we all adopted that frame of mind, just by helping one person out, wow, imagine the possibilities.  I'm sure this isn't the first time you've heard this same song and dance before, so isn't it time you listen to it?

What will you see?

So I've been listening to the local christian radio station ktis.fm a lot lately.  And every morning they have this thing called the "Name Game" where they say some child's name, and you can call in and talk about your son or daughter with that name, and all of the great things that they do.  One really stuck with me a few weeks ago.  I don't recall the name, but they said that their child said "When I grow up, I want to help people, I want to do good like Jesus."  And the reason I remember it is because they were only 5 years old.  Most children that age go with "When I grow up I want to be an astronaut, a doctor, a fireman/woman, etc...  So hearing this child put it like that, was just like wow, we could all learn a lot from him. 

I figured out a while ago that the question you need to ask yourself is not, "What do I want to be when I grow up?"  But instead should be, "When I'm 80, and I look back on my life, what do I want to see? What do I want to see that I've accomplished?"  And then figure out how to make that happen.  And this child had already partially understood that at a young age.  He didn't want the popularity of a movie star or an astronaut, he didn't want the stigma that goes along with being a fireman, and he didn't want to be rich, he just wanted to help people like Jesus.  Sometimes children understand God and Jesus more than some of the smartest scholars out there.  There's no well, he meant this, or because he said that means people can't do this, they just know that Jesus wants them to be good, and to treat everyone equally.  And isn't that what it's all about?  Grow up and do everything you can to be a good person, so when you look back at your life at 80, you can be proud of yourself.  And know that God is proud of you.  I think that sums up the bible pretty well, don't you?

Eternal Happiness

So recently we just got dish; so instead of the 4 channels we had with the antenna, we now have 400.  It's opened up a whole new world of television for me.  Shows like, "Army Wives", the inevitable "Jersey Shore" (aka train wreck - yes I'm ashamed to say I tuned in for an episode - but just one!  It's all I could take!)  And there there is one I saw the other night for the first time, a show called "Hoarders - Buried Alive" on TLC.  And all I have to say is WOW!  When did we as a society get the impression that "things" would make us happy?  And most of the stuff in these people's homes wasn't anything of value - emotionally or monetarily, it was just junk.  And the more junk they had, the more stressful their lives were.  But yet they continued to add to it, "Ughh...  Trying to sort this out and get organized is making me stressed and upset.  Let's go shopping and get more stuff."  Stuff that they will undoubtedly bring home, look at/use for maybe a day or so, and then get thrown on top of the already ginormous pile of stuff, only adding to the stress.  You would think at some point they'd stop themselves and say, "Hey, you know what, this isn't working.  I need to change." 

My point in all of this is, God wants us to be happy, we are his children, why wouldn't he?  But some day when our time on earth is done, we leave all of our earthly possessions behind to receive "eternal happiness".  And that's the happiness I'm working towards.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not an angel by any means, and I still love the feeling I get when I find that perfect pair of shoes, (I admit it, I'm addicted to shoes!), and I dream of some day owning that 42' boat.  But God is now, and will forever be first on my list.  If after tithing's, bills, putting some in savings, and what little I can donate to various charities; I have some money left then I'll spoil myself.  But for me, my happiness comes from with in.  That feeling you have inside when you are so close to God, and you've seen his miracles happen, its like your whole soul is happy, it just radiates from with in.  There is no pair of shoes or dream boat that can replace that or take it away, so why even bother?

Just a Small Town Girl in a Big Town World

So this is all new for me.  I recently purchased "The Purpose Driven Life"  Which I guess is what made me decide to start this, but its not what this blog is about.  I wasn't always a Christian, and really was only baptized at 21 for my husband (then fiance) so we could get married.  I started going to Church with him and his family after a year or so together with him, but I didn't really consider myself a Christian.  Yeah I always believed there was something bigger than all of this, all of us, but I didn't really know what it was. 

Only after my father passed away just a few short months before our wedding did I really do some soul searching.  I became depressed, and just angry, I needed help, and I found it in a Christian counseling center.  They gave me what I needed to get through the depression, but I was still angry, I still had so many questions. 

My dad was never very involved in mine and my siblings lives growing up, but he started coming back into our lives, wanting to be part of them less than a year before he passed away.  About a month before his death, he asked me if he could walk me down the aisle, along with my step-father and I never gave him an answer because I was still angry with him for doing what he did so many years ago.  So when he passed away, I was racked with guilt, and having his friend tell me at his funeral that he constantly talked about it, and wondered if he should call me and ask about it, tore me apart.  Basically I never gave him his final wish, he never knew that I really did want him to, but I needed to work through it with in myself first.  So, I started praying, and putting my faith in GOD, what did I have to lose, nothing else had worked, so lets give it a shot. 

Almost immediately I began to feel different, think different, and just have faith in humanity again.  (I know crazy!  Faith in humanity, what is that?!)  Ever since then, my faith has just grown stronger, and I've begun to see things differently.  Quite often I find myself thinking about things; life, humans, god, just everything, and usually it makes a lot of sense, and I find myself wishing I could share my thoughts with other people, maybe they could get some use out of it.  So now fast forward to last week, I've started reading the book, and it pops in my head, why not start a blog?  And the more I thought about it, the more sense it made.  Relate your thoughts and ideas to events that have happened, and put it in a blog.  And if anyone reads it, great!  Even better if someone gets something from it!  I'm probably not the first to do something like this, and I know I won't be the last, but so what, the internet is free and open to everyone, right?  If you don't like it, don't read it, simple as that!

My first "official" post will be tomorrow as I am about sick of typing.  But I do want to say, my spelling may not be perfect and my grammar sometimes atrocious; but I freely admit to it.  So if your gonna call me out on it, you are wasting your time.  I know my thoughts and ideas are debatable, so if you are going to debate it, keep it clean and act with a little class.

See you tomorrow blogger world!