Practicing Forgiveness

"True sorrow leads to repentance and the changing of ones ways."

Its not too uncommon to hear some such admonishment. And it's needed -- we ought to truly be sorry, instead of just apologizing because it's expected. It seems, though, that instead of only encouraging people to truly be repentant of their actions, we should also be fostering within people true forgiveness.

Just as people say "sorry" out of obligation, so do people say "I forgive you" "'sok" "no worries" or some other nice-ity.

First, "'sok" and "no worries" do not even begin to constitute verbal forgiveness. It's merely a polite way to respond to an apology of sorts (regardless of sincerity).

Second, just because the words "I forgive" exit your mouth does not mean you truly forgive the offender. Forgiveness is not merely words.

Forgiveness is commonly defined as granting pardon or remission. I don't think most people even begin to comprehend what that means, but another accepted definition is to quit feeling resentment. That's right, forgiveness is more than words, it's an emotion -- one that we, most likely, have to cultivate.

How do we cultivate forgiveness? How do we shed feelings of cold shoulder, revenge, spite, or just simply a hurt that you hold against someone? Aren't some things just too big to forgive?

Forgiveness is active. It's alright if, after initially granting forgiveness to someone, you find yourself struggling. This is where we must practice forgiveness. We must seize these hurt-filled moments and consciously decide to forgive - to not hold the offense against the offender. And we must do this until we teach ourselves, cultivate within ourselves forgiveness.

This can be a process, as every situation requiring forgiveness varies. And while it may feel as if some hurts are too great to forgive: say "I forgive you" and actively forgive whenever you have the chance.

After all, Jesus has forgiven all of us of every single wrong thing we have done -- and all those things we ever have or should have said "sorry" for was ultimately directed at him. He no longer holds our offenses against us if we accept him for who he is - our king.

If he can forgive everyone of wrongs done against him (which, since he king, is treason and rightly punishable by death) then how much more, especially after receiving such a forgiveness, should we willingly and gladly give forgiveness to others.

To give completely. That is what forgiveness originally meant, and it still holds true. Forgiveness is to completely give away resentment against another. It is not something we merely say to appease. Forgiveness is something we must practice, and, in Jesus, we have a great example to follow.

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Friendly Reminder: Holidays Approaching

image from http://www.timeanddate.com/holidays/us/thanksgiving-day

Not to freak anyone out, but Thanksgiving is a mere 21 days away. Here are some things that, if you haven't, you should go ahead and try to do sooner than later. Planning in advance saves you time -- especially in the grocery stores as you try to buy all of the ingredients you need for your feast! Not to mention you'll be much less stressed the day - or even week - of Thanksgiving.

• Plan on where you want to eat for Thanksgiving, and who you want invited. Go ahead and send invitations so your (hopeful) guests can make their Thanksgiving plans.
• Make your menu and start looking for deals in the grocery store. Websites such as Money Saving Mom and Faithful Provisions have great posts that both give recipie ideas as well as where to get those deals.
• Decide: do you want to decorate? If you do, do you already have everything you need, or will you have to run out to the store to buy decorations or craft supplies? Go ahead and set up what you want displayed for Thanksgiving. That way it's already done, and if you realize you're missing something you have time to go the store without a huge headache. Enjoy a few weeks of fall colors and reminders to be thankful, that certainly never hurt anyone. :-)

And, as we all know, Christmas comes on the heels of Thanksgiving. I know, some stores have had their decor out since August, but just because you've been blocking it out (I'm right there with you!) doesn't mean that you shouldn't start planning. I know for many, the day after Thanksgiving ("Black Friday") is the official start of the Christmas season. It is for me. Its the day we always do our big push to get our house and yard decorated for Christmas!

It is not the day I start looking for presents. I received an email today "I know it's a little early to be thinking about Christmas presents..." it began. Too early? I'm just under 3/4ths of the way finished! My personal goal is to be finished by Thanksgiving. I don't always succeed, but I usually come close. That is a totally unrealistic goal for some people, but it doesn't hurt to go ahead and start Christmas shopping.

Here are some ideas for you to go ahead and start:

• Make a list of who you need/want to buy presents for. When possible, right down specific items you want to buy for them.Write down your budget for each person, and stick to it (if you love giving gifts, like I do, this is the hardest part).
• Compare prices online. Often you can see both online and in store prices. Don't just check the stores and their websites, check to see if Amazon or Ebay (or similar store) has what you are looking for. There is quite a lot you can find at deep discounts on those sites ... and all without the hassle of shopping in an over crowded store and being overwhelmed by the noise, commercialism, and attention-grabbing signs and displays designed to make you spend more. Note: Don't forget to add in shipping to the cost of the gift. Some websites are offering free shipping on all orders during this season, just check and make sure you'll still be getting a better deal/that you're staying in budget before you buy!
• Leave room on your list to fill in what you've bought each person and how much left you have in your budget. Those sites I mentioned above for Thanksgiving help? They're useful in finding good deals on gifts too, especially making good use of those coupons (which they'll often link to :-) ).
• Buy (or make!) some inexpensive, more generic gifts that you can use in case of emergency (you forgot about someone and realize it last minute, like your child's teacher or your work's Secret Santa) or for people you want to remember but but can't drop a ton of money on.

My recommendation with Christmas shopping is to do it year round. I realize it's a little late the throw that idea out there now, but, truly, there is next year you can do that, and it's never too early to begin shopping. Year-round Christmas (birthday, anniversary, etc) shopping not only saves time, but also allows you to get better deals and not feel rushed into making a decision. Of course, all of this leads to less stress which means a more enjoyable Christmas season!

Those are some of my tips to help you have a less stressful Thanksgiving and Christmas. So what do you do to prepare for the holidays? What traditions are you looking forward to? And what do you do to figure out how to buy for those difficult people on your list (in my case, the men in my life)?

Chicken Run {Movie Review}

"Mrs. Tweedy! The Chickens are Revolting!"

"Finally, something we agree on."

In spite of being a little too environmental for my tastes, and having part of the plot being completely foreseeable from near the beginning of the movie, I would still say this is a movie worth watching.

Clay-mation always amazed me. The effort that goes into every second of the film is utterly astounding. Clay-mation is definitely not what I am cut out for; I'm just not that patient!, but I enjoy watching it.

It was amusing in scenes where The Great Escape was parodied; I just am not particularly keen on comparing what happened in a WWII prison camp to chickens on a chicken farm. (admittedly, Mrs. Tweedy's farm is a little over-the-top).

Chicken Run is still an amusing little movie, and all ages should enjoy watching it.

2 out of 5 stars.
Before I had seen The Great Escape I gave it 1 star.

(I'd personally give the movie a PG rating, not the G rating it has.)

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Flawless {Movie Review}

I must say I was quite impressed with this movie. Excellent acting, filming, directing, script, wonderfully executed, and you are completely taken in. I love a movie that makes you think. This one did. At least, it made me think. It is, however, rated PG-13 for brief strong language for a reason. I believe they cursed two or three times in the entire movie, every time was strong. If it was not for the language it could easily be PG.

While the plot itself was wonderful the best part came at the very end of the movie. I was, to be completely honest, shocked at the final message the movie sent to its viewers (mentioned below under "spoilers"). I absolutely recommend seeing this movie.

WARNING: SPOILER AHEAD.

The final message of the movie shocked me because the entire film had, in a sense, been about a woman making it in a man's world. At the end of the film we hear that the woman actually never discovered herself until after she got out of the business world and stopped trying to "prove" herself to herself and others. She discovered who she was by helping others outside of "work." It was a refreshing message, and to have that delivered after such a great plot and story was very memorable and impacting.

4 out of 5 stars.

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Politically Correct Torture

I know this is dealing with a policy that is not currently being discussed, but the article has applicability beyond the one policy.

Politically Correct Torture Written by: Frank Turek Is waterboarding torture?  If it is, we've been torturing our service members for years.  As a United States Naval Aviator, I attended SERE school in the California desert in 1985.  SERE (which stands for Survival Evasion Resistance and Escape) prepares combatants for the possibility that they might be taken prisoners of war. While many aspects of the training remain classified, I can say that we received treatment far more challenging and uncomfortable than anything the terrorists ever experienced at Gitmo or Abu Grab.  As has been reported elsewhere, waterboarding was common at SERE school as it was in my class.  It was done to help us resist giving up sensitive information in the event we were interrogated by the enemy.  SERE is probably the most impactful training I've ever experienced. Now, despite decades of its use on American service members, President Obama declares that waterboarding is torture when used on terrorists.  Is it?  Reasonable people cannot disagree whether scalding a person's skin, dismembering him, or beheading him constitutes torture.  Those are undeniably torturous acts that our enemies have inflicted on Americans.  But since waterboarding leaves no permanent physical damage, reasonable people can disagree over whether or not it's actually torture and should be used on terrorists.  I'll address that question in a future column. What I'd like to address in this column is the shocking inconsistency of the President's position.  Despite being against waterboarding, President Obama does not seem to think that scalding, dismembering, or beheading is torture in all circumstances.  In some circumstances, the President actually approves of such treatment, so much so that he is now exporting it to other countries with our tax dollars.  He's even thinking of forcing certain Americans to inflict it on the innocent. In fact, the President along with most in his party and some in the Republican Party, think that such brutality is a Constitutional right, which they cleverly disguise with the word "choice."  Choice in these circumstances actually means scalding, dismembering, or de-braining a living human being—which is literally what saline, D&C, and partial birth abortions respectively accomplish.  (Before anyone labels me an "extremist" for making this point, realize that I'm just factually describing what these procedures literally do.  In my opinion, the "extremists" are those who deny these verifiable truths.) The President might say that the comparison doesn't work because we're not sure about the humanity of the unborn.  He said as much in the Rick Warren debate when he declared that the question of life's beginning was "above his pay grade."  Well, if there's any doubt about when life begins, shouldn't you err on the side of caution and protect what may be a human being?  If you're not sure whether the rustling in the bushes is a deer or your daughter, won't you get a certain ID before shooting? Actually, there is no doubt about the humanity of the unborn.  We are sure that an unborn child is a human being, and we know this not by religion, but by hard scientific data.  The President knows this.  If embryonic life is not human, then why does he insist on using taxpayer dollars to harvest embryonic cells?  Answer:  because they are human.  Moreover, human bodies and body parts are extracted from the womb by abortion, not just "tissue." Finally, it's a scientific fact that at the moment of conception a new genetically unique human being exists.  You haven't received any new genetic information since the moment you were conceived.  Only four things separated you from adulthood—time, air, water and food.  Those are the same four things that separate a two-year old from adulthood.  We don't allow the killing of two-year old humans; why should we allow the killing of humans just a little bit younger who happen to be in a womb—especially those at full term? But the legality of abortion is not the main point here.  That's bad enough, but the President is advocating something even worse.  He isn't just allowing abortion to continue, he seeks to promote and subsidize it through the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA).  That deceptively-named bill will end the choice of certain doctors to conscientiously refuse to do abortions, and it will end the choices millions of Americans have made to restrict abortion through parental notification laws, informed consent laws, and even bans on partial birth abortion.  All of those restrictions freely chosen by the people of this country will be invalidated by FOCA.  The President also wants to force taxpayers to pay for abortions right here in America. Why does he want to do this?  Doesn't he know what goes on in an abortion?  I have to assume yes.  He's a very intelligent man.  That leaves us with one of two possibilities, neither of which is good. Either he really believes that scalding, dismembering, and de-braining ought to subsidized and increased, or he is willing to champion these things to please his base for his own political gain.  The former is madness.  The latter is an example of "the ends justifying the means," which leads us back to waterboarding. Questions for the President: Why do the ends justify the means if they protect you with your base, but the ends don't justify the means if they protect the American People? Why do you think that waterboarding the guilty is immoral, but subsidizing the killing of the innocent is the right thing to do? I'm not intending to be uncharitable, and I hope I am mistaken.  But it appears to me that this President is willing to subsidize the killing of the innocent to potentially save himself, but is unwilling to simulate drowning on the guilty to potentially save thousands or millions of Americans—a simulation that we have performed on our own servicemen for decades.

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Silent and Sounding

When I can't feel you, I have learned to reach out just the same
When I can't hear you, I know you still hear every word I pray

The experience of God's presence should not be confused with the existence of his presence. Unfortunately, this confusion is all too often the case.

When we don't "feel" God, we wonder what is wrong. I think this is normal, but it is something we should work to correct within ourselves. God does not change with our mutability. He is constant. He never leaves.

By him, all is. He holds everything together. He sustains the universe.

He is there, and he is not silent.

Even when we don't have the experience of his presence, it is still present.

I think Michael Ward's explanation of silence in his book Planet Narnia nicely relates to the silence we often feel occurs with God:

"For Lewis there were two kinds of silence, the good and the bad. The bad kind features in the title of the first volume of his Ransom Trilogy (1938-1945), Out of the Silent Planet. The silent planet is Earth, out of which comes the hero of the trilogy, Dr Elwin Ransom, on a journey to Mars. He discovers that, in the language of Mars, Planet Earth is know as thulcandra. Earth is thulc ('silent') because she does not join in the music of the spheres. Earth's presiding intelligence...is 'the Bent One' who has nothing to say or sing to the other planetary angels. Earth's silence is a dumb silence, a dead silence.

"Mars and all the other planets are also silent, as far as the inhabitants of Earth are concerned, but for a different reason. It is not because these other planets are sullenly mute that they are not heard. On the contrary, they are not heard because their singing in is perpetual. As Lewis explained in an address entitled 'Imagination and Thought in the Middle Ages':

[The music of the spheres] is the only sound which has never for one split second ceased in any part of the universe; with this positive we have no negative to contrast. Presumably if (per impossible) it ever did stop, then with terror and dismay, with a dislocation of our whole auditory life, we should feel that the bottom had dropped out of our lives. But it never does. The music which is too familiar to be heard enfolds us day and night and in all ages.

"In the pre-Copernican model of the cosmos the planets were silent and sounding at the same time: their music was not heard on earth because it was always heard. And it is this sort of silence, a pregnant silence, resonant with significance," that I believe God's presence is to us. Unlike the singing of the planets, however, sometimes God allows us to "feel" him in a more experimental way than normal life accustoms us to. These times should be cherished, but we should not think we are less spiritual when we only have his perpetual, sustaining presence in our lives - what an undeserved blessing and magnanimous gift!


Song lyrics from Brooke Fraser's Faithful
Michael Ward, Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C. S. Lewis, (Oxford: Oxford Press, 2008), 21-22.

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Encouragement

Always be about the work of the Kingdom. Do not live Christ when it is convenient; mold your life around Christ. When He is the focus and the joy and the subsistence of your life you will be more effective for Him on accident than you ever would before on purpose.

I feel so inadequate to say that, but it is true. Do I model it in my own life? Do people really see Christ in me? Some say they do, but is it because they know what to look for? Do the spiritually dead see a difference? Some do, but do they know the source of the difference? What needs to change in my so I can really be effective for God? How can I share Him effectively now? These thoughts and the like have been ravaging me. There are so many points of improvement I ought to make. So what if I know more than "average" about the Bible? What does it matter in the end?

St. Francis is credited with saying "Preach all the time, when necessary, use words." That phrase (taken out of context, I am told) has been the cry of the American church. I don't need to tell my friends about Christ, they'll just see I'm different. Maybe not, but maybe so. But what good will it do them? Actions speak louder than words, but some need words in order for the significance of the action(s) to be realized.

We need to tell people, not just live it. We must do both -- Show and Tell -- Christ to the world. Aye, we need to go to the ends of the earth to share the gospel. We need to tell the unreached people groups about the Messiah. But as we are going, we need to tell those around us. We mustn't neglect our co-worker because we are going to Latvia, we mustn't neglect our neighbor because we are going to Chaz, and we mustn't neglect the annoying person beside us on the flight because we're on our way to Siberia. Every person is equally valuable to God.

I have recently realized what a poor, wretched worm I am. Why should God care about me? Why should He save me? Why should He love me? His love itself is an act of mercy. He knows that we cannot do anything of significance on our own. He has compassion for us. What a just, kind, merciful, Judge He is! Perfectly holy, perfectly pure, perfectly ... perfect. Yet He chooses to use us.

I once had a mental picture put in my brain. It was of the ittiest inch-worm in a little glass container on a stick with a few leaves about. There was a ginormous hand - much, much bigger than the glass container (think Gulliver's Travels big) outside the container, providing what was necessary to sustain the little worm. The hand is God, the worm, myself. I'm a peon. Nothing. But He still cares for me.

We are such fickle creatures. We go from Cloud 9 to the depths of loneliness in the passing of a cloud over the sun. Sad to glad because someone smiled at us. Contemplative to rompings because of a hint of a thought that passed us by. I realized as I saw that inch-worm with the ginormous hand's provision that what rocks my world is inconsequential to God. It's okay; He's still going to provide. I read once that we need to stop telling God how big our storms are, and start telling our storms how big our God is. Such is truth. Why the fickleness? Why the drastic changes in perspective? I think a lot of it is due to a lack of faith in God. Our actions show our faith.

So why don't we tell our friends and family about Jesus? We are afraid of offending them. We don't want to cause a rift in the family. All of these are legitimate concerns. From our viewpoint. I wonder what God thinks. I imagine that sometimes He's going - just tell them, stop worrying. I'll take care of the rest; just trust me. Trust my Word.

I know I have a ways a to go. It's easy to become discouraged because of the sin in your life that you just discovered, or that you never really realized was a problem before. Awhile back I had this thought, which occurred recently again to me - instead of being discouraged by noticing sin in our life, we should rejoice! Be encouraged! It means we are still sensitive to the Holy Spirit; God is working on us. We are getting closer to Him! If we weren't, we would think everything was fine and nothing really needed cleaning up in our act. So I encourage both you and myself to walk the walk. Be like Christ. Imitate Him in all you do, but talk the talk too. No, not Christanese. Talk in relate-able, understandable language. Share Christ, share the gospel, give Him glory. For He has done it.

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