Gotta love those “Bad Guys”…

I love redemptive stories. I love seeing seemingly bad people encounter something or someone and have their lives so utterly shaken that they are never the same and instead become better for it. Have many of you been watching Once Upon a Time? I think Regina is in for one such transition and I am hoping that Rumple will too become (dare I say) good? Is it silly to want the “bad guys” to become good? I think it is that thing inside of me that says know one is beyond reach…the part of me that holds out in hope that even the most jaded or ruthless people can have life changing encounters with God and forever be changed for the better. I have seen it…I am it. In some ways I was one of those hopeless people, I was lost in alcohol and witchcraft before my encounter with God and when I finally surrendered my heart and my life to Him the transformation was nearly instantaneous and it was awesome. God is so faithful and so good. I was seriously lost and had I not been found I would have been doomed to spend eternity away from the very one who created me and loved me enough to humble himself and die on a cross for me. It’s mind boggling  that the very creator of the universe, the God who placed every star in all of the known space (and all of the unknown space too for that matter) would care enough about something seemingly so insignificant that He sought a way to mend the gap between us. I love You Lord God. I thank You. Thank you for showing me the beauty in my own redemptive story and giving me the faith, and hope to see even the worst “bad guy” become “good” because they had a life changing moment with you! Because You love them…and you know what, so do I…you gotta love those “Bad guys”…it’s only the transforming power of encountering Your love that could ever change anyone…and we as your disciples are called to love everyone too. I don’t have to love what they do, or how they live their lives…but I can still choose to love them because You do! I know You do because I know You loved me enough to reach down and pull me out of the deep pit I was in…and I was definitely a “Bad guy”. 

Read Full Post »

There is a season and time for everything

Time moves so fast sometimes, especially when you long for it to go slower. With Christmas just around the corner and the inevitable deployment of my beloved husband shortly after that I am feeling a bit like beating time up. I would like to jump him in a back alley and hold him hostage for a while.

Sadly time is not something we can grasp and since we are consumed with measuring it the fact that it slips right through our hands is all the more painfully evident. All we can ask is what will I do with today? What will I do with this next hour…or minute to make it count…to make it last, even if only as it slips away, a fading mist of a memory.

Read Full Post »