"I'm Sorry" Doesn't Always Mean Sorry

Have you ever spent some time "people watching" at the mall or local park?  It's a very inexpensive and entertaining past time because people are so fascinating with all of our kinks and peculiar quirks.  Lately I have thought of a very entertaining montage I could make at my office if I could manage to set up a tape recorder unobserved.  In the office to my left, I am constantly amused with the frustrated outburst, "Seriously!"  In the office to my right the silence is often relieved by a weary, burden laden sigh that carries farther than they know, couple this with all the other signature sounds in the office and it would make a very interesting recording. But besides being entertaining it has caused me to reflect more seriously on what my signature phrase or quirk would be, and in this state of idle curiosity I asked God to reveal myself to me. To be honest, I never really expected God to answer, do you ever does that; Ask God a question, without really expecting a reply?  Are you ever shocked when he answers?  I was.

The next week, in quick succession the head accountant brought several problems to my attention during the early hours of the morning.  We are preparing for the yearly audit and she has been a little unduly stressed so I knew her frustration wasn't directed at me, she was merely requesting that I take the time to fix some of the issues.  I listened to her vent, accepted the task put before me and said, "I'm sorry".  To which she immediately replied, "Why?  Was it your fault? You didn't make this problem, why should you be sorry."  I had no reply; I hadn't even realized I had said anything, never even conscious of the phrase that I employ so often.  Several times that day she expressed frustration at my frequent use of those two words, "I'm sorry".  By the end of the day she’d had quite enough...with my last slip up, she came storming into my office and said, with fists on hips, "Would you stop saying you’re sorry all the time!"  I was blown away, suddenly the light bulb flashed and I realized my absent minded prayer had been answered.  And it had been answered very succinctly and with rapid fire procession since it almost took me an entire day to recognize what I was hearing.  WAKE UP AMY!!

To Be Loved Like Leah

"Then he charged them and said to them: "I am to be gathered to my people; bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite, in the cave that is in the field of Machpelah, which is before Mamre in the land of Canaan, which Abraham bought with the field of Ephron the Hittite as a possession for a burial place. There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife, there they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife, and there I buried Leah" (Genesis 49:29-31).

I would be hard pressed to find one person in this life that has everything they ever wanted and is completely happy. Life isn't about complete fullfillment, for we were never meant to set down roots. This becomes so obvious when we observe the perfection of God's creation. The rose with it's breathless beauty is tempered by the wicked thorns. The storm in all it's tempestual furry has an eye of calm stillness. The skunk is actually an adorable little rodent I would love to pet, if I wasn't repulsed by it's noxious fumes. The pleasant mildness of Michigan's summers must be enjoyed along with the sometimes cold harshness of it's winters. The ocean is full of mystery and beauty but it can also deal death with impunity. The cure is often worse than the disease and what is good for me never tastes as good as what is unhealthy. Everything has a down side, nothing is perfection unlimited. Everything and everyone will dissapoint sometimes and nothing of Earth is permanent. 

The same can be said by the lives we live. For every day you spend on the "Big Rock Candy Mountain", with perpetual sunshine and lemonade springs, you will know the valley of fire with quick sand, fire spurts and fearsome rodents of unusual size (Princess Bride). Quirky lyrics and children's fairy tales aside; for every season of plenty you will experience the ache of want and need. For every birth, a life is lost. For every hello a farwell stalks us from the years to come. For every healthy life the plague of disease lies dormant in our very cell structure and genetic code. Regardless of where we run and what we do, want and need are our constant companions.  That knowledge will bury us if we do not learn to change our focus.  If we expect that life is about our happiness and fullfillment, than the boat that is our life will be in constant risk of capsizing. 

"Because of Whom, by Whom, in Whom, and Through Whom..."

I was listening to Dr. Ravi Zacharias this mornig as he read a speech made by Malcolm Muggeridge.  Malcolm was an English journalist, author, media personality, satirist and a soldier/spy during WWII.  For most of his life he was an agnostic who later converted to Christianity.  His words inspired me.  After much search I finally located the full content on a June 28, 2010 post by another Blogger, Bob Hyatt.  Enjoy.

Malcolm Muggeridge on the One

“We look back upon history, and what do we see? Empires rising and falling, revolutions and counterrevolutions, wealth accumulated and wealth disbursed. Shakespeare has written of the rise and fall of great ones, that ebb and flow with the moon.

I look back upon my own fellow countrymen (Great Britain), once upon a time dominating a quarter of the world, most of them convinced, in the words of what is still a popular song, that ‚Ä God who made them mighty, shall make them mightier yet.

I have heard a crazed, cracked Austrian (Hitler) announce to the world the establishment of a Reich that would last a thousand years. I have seen an Italian clown (Mussolini) say he was going to stop and restart the calendar with his own ascension to power. I have heard a murderous Georgian brigand in the Kremlin (Stalin), acclaimed by the intellectual elite of the world as being wiser than Solomon, more humane than Marcus Aurelius, more enlightened than Ashoka.

I have seen America wealthier and, in terms of military weaponry, more powerful than the rest of the world put together‚ and that had the American people so desired, they could have outdone a Caesar, or an Alexander in the range and scale of their conquests.

All in one lifetime, all in one lifetime, all gone! Gone with the wind!

England, now part of a tiny island off the coast of Europe, threatened with dismemberment and even bankruptcy. Hitler and Mussolini dead, remembered only in infamy. Stalin a forbidden name in the regime he helped found and dominate for some three decades. America haunted by fears of running out of those precious fluids that keeps their motorways roaring, and the smog settling, with troubled memories of a disastrous campaign in Vietnam, and the victories of the Don Quixote‚  of the media as they charged the windmills of Watergate.

All in one lifetime, all in one lifetime, all gone! Gone with the wind!

Behind the debris of these solemn supermen, and self-styled imperial diplomatists, there stands the gigantic figure of One: because of whom, by whom, in whom, and through whom alone, mankind may still have peace‚ in the person of Jesus Christ.

I present him as the way, the truth, and the life. Do you know Him?”

God Bless,

Amy Charissa Warren

The Beam in my own Eye

"And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye." (Matthew 7:3-5)

My family has always teased me for a "miss speak" when referring to DVD functions; I call fast forward, "forward wind", to their eternal amusement.  Well currently, I am trying to establish a habit of forward winding in my daily thought processes.  I don't know about you, but the service panel of my mind sometimes seems to be broken because the reverse key is stuck.  No matter what I do, replay seems to be the standard function. I have called the service repair man and he has advised me that I need to stop hitting the button, easy enough solution right?    It turns out there is nothing wrong with my thoughts, I simply need to direct them in a different direction.

Every person alive has emotional wounds that just won't fade...probably because we keep picking off the scab by leaning on the rewind button.  We pick off our own scabs, and then helpfully reach over to pull off each other’s.  Often I know that what I’m doing isn’t constructive but I’m not sure how to stop.  How do I change my thinking with something so ingrained in my psyche?

How Do We fill the "God-Shaped" Hole in Our Lives?

I have been spending a lot of time this week contemplating holes.  Maybe it's the seemingly hundreds of holes I drive over on my way to work every day, or the holes in my favorite cheese...Swiss.  It might be the holes in my life left by very special people, or the hole I feel when Sunday morning comes around and I'm without a church.  It's the hole I see when the kids leave things left unsaid but I can read it in their eyes and in my own heart.  Some of it is the holes I see every time my son has a zero grade for another missed assignment or the hole in my check book every time someone expresses that dreaded phrase, "I need..."  Whatever the reason I have been contemplating holes. 

Today on Radio

Today on Radio Here is the Second part of yesterday's message on Staying in Love. Speaker is Andy Stanley with In touch Ministries.

Today on Radio

Today on Radio

This was the message today on Intouch Ministries: Staying in love - Part 1 (Andy Stanley) A very timely message for the week of Valentine's.