Seek the Lord while he may be found;
call on him while he is near.
Let the wicked forsake his way
and the evil man his thoughts.
Let him turn to the LORD, and he will
have mercy on him,
and to our God, for he will freely
pardon.

"For my thoughts are not your
thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,"
declares the LORD.
"As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than you
ways
and my thoughts than you
thoughts.
As the rain and the snow
come down from heaven,
and do not return to it
without watering the earth
and making it bud and flourish,
so that it yields seed,for the sower
and bread for the eater,
so is my word that goes out from
mouth:
It will not return to me empty
but will accomplish what I desire
and achieve the purpose for which I
sent it."


What more can I say?
No one says it better than the LORD Himself.

The end of simple fun romance movies

My favorite movie genre is the romantic comedy, I just love watching the two principal players fall madly in love with each other. The light hearted stories and the sentiment is so real that it envokes memories of when my husband and I first felt like that and all the wonderful emotions that accompany that wonderful stage of love. In fact, I love any kind of romantic movie where you watch a relationship blossom into all encompassing overpowering love. I use to just sit and take in all the feelings and really experience the joy of it.

Lately however, these movies have lost their appeal to me. I cringe when the characters portray those all consuming feelings as it reminds me how recently I've seen that kind of overpowering love from a completely different perspective and the consequences of that emotional bond that I never really seriously consider before. I've seen the potential of that kind of love become so powerful as to destroy the bond between parent and child, sister to sister, brother to sister. I stood in the gap as this family reeled at the loss of their daughter in daily increments until all fellowship was eventually lost.

It was 'eros' love that completely took over all the reigns of common sense in both lovers while they completely lost themselves in one another.

At first everyone celebrated this seemingly 'too-good-to-be true wonderful man that waltzed into their and their daughter's life. Never did they imagine that this 'academy-award' performance would like all movies, come to an abrupt horrific end. Was he really prince charming? Maybe he WAS that prince charming but this obsessive eros love had so consumed him that it become his master and lord and changed him almost instantly to a over protective, controlling man determined to win over the girl of his hearts obsessive desire. His control over her was hypnotic and quite frightening as she willingly lost all sense of who she was, and let this man become her everything. She became more than just a chameleon of him but by osmosis she blended into him so much so that you couldn't see the difference between her and him. I sat restricted behind the wall they built and watched eros-love divide and conquer all in its path. I felt shear pity for the struggling mom who was side-swiped and dumbfounded by was what happening as she desperately searched for some kind of familiar trace in her daughter that she recognized. She became incapcitated as she fought to preserve a dwindling relationship that was doomed from the first kiss. Instead of the joy of welcoming a new member into the fold she had to grieve the loss of one who was the apple of her eyes and she was powerless change anything. She was in a battle with eros-love, a battle she could not win.

This wasn't the sweet love that the mother experienced 25+ ago, nor was it that joyous love she enjoyed in all those wonderful romantic movies. No, this was obsessive love determined to put at much space between the dear daughter and her entire family. The father suffered in silence as he watched his daughter's ambiance drift away as a rip tide pulls a swimmer helplessly from the shore. My heart sank as I watched the younger siblings as they painstakingly held on to every hope and clung to every remaining picture in the family album waiting with abated breath for that phone call, text message or e-mail from the one they adored.

I'm reminded of a movie in the early 80's titled Endless Love with Brooke Shields. It portrayed the descending sanity of her teen lover sprialing so low that he resorted to setting fire to her family's house just so he could get a glimpse of the object of his obsession which had been torn from him by the love and protection of a discerning father who saw the potential destruction of his dearly loved daughter. If memory serves me correct, the boy even tried to kill what stood between him and the breath of his life and ended up serving time in prison. I never thought much of that movie until I was propelled in this real life drama.

Sweet innocent love once portrayed in my favorite movies like Bounce or While You Were Sleeping has been transfigured to the bewitching love of movies like the Twilight series which propagates such dangerous bonds between two emotionally immature young people. I cannot partake in that same reckless joy that my DVD player once graced me with without exposing painful memories of a sweet love turned very sour.

God REALLY loves the screw-up

Mark 2:16-18 ¹⁶When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the "sinners" and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: "Why does he eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?" ¹⁷On hearing this, Jesus said to them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.

Every mother's day sitting at church every MALE pastor seems to think that the Proverbs 31 sermon would be the most appropriate sermon for that day. I think that someone needs to shake those pastor with a good hard and shake and say "ARE YOU KIDDING ME?" Why in the world would a screw-up mother who gets ONE day a year to have her children praise her when she doesn't deserve it or have a day when she is at least honored by Hallmark want to sit for an hour hearing about what a perfect mother is. But no, these pastors seem to think that the Proverbs31 woman will inspire these screw-up mothers on to greatness when in all actuality the screw-up mom sinks lower and lower in her pew while the excruciatingly painful description of the perfect woman/wife/mother is held up and honored and portray so eloquently. I've been a mom for 22 years and I have met maybe a handful of mom's who are even close to that prototype and I never actually met nor heard of a Proverbs 31 mom. Of course there is that mother of 20 kids, Michelle Dugger who is the ultimage Proverbs 31 mom on TV but everyone knows that reality TV is more drama than fictional sitcoms. The rest of us relish the idea of having our children love on us one day with undeserved compliments and home-made construction paper cards without any complaining or whining that day only to have our pastors burst our bubbles EVERY year by setting us the perfect fictional mother model that NO mother will ever be able to obtain this side of eternity. I think that this Mother's Day, I shall stay home and watch Joel Osteen on TV or the Internet. If I'm gonna avoid being convicted again of how I failed motherhood another year, I might as well be completely lied to and live in my short-lived fantasy world thinking I'm the greatest mother who ever lived and God is only gonna give me great times, great wealth, and great self-esteem. I am so glad that we have Mark 2: 16-18's principle to comfort us in our time of self condemnation. I think that God must love a screw-up because we are the ones who know how flawed we are. Luke's parable about the Pharisee and the Tax Collector give us screw-ups great comfort. The Pharisee is the self-confident, self-assured with high self-esteem person who praises God for his good life, thanking him that he is not a lowly tax collector. Then you have the tax collector, a complete and utter screw-up who most people loathe going into the temple, plagued by low self esteem and no self confidence and insecurity all his life, goes humbly before the Lord, head bowed waiting to be struck down and simply begging for mercy and another chance. Jesus tells us "I tell you8 that this man (the lowly tax collector) rather than the other went home justified before God. " God loves a broken and contrite spirit and there is no other mother more with a broken and contrite spirit as the 'screw-up' mom. Thank you Jesus for giving me a new mercy this morning.