January 19 2018

January 16 2016 Greetings My Friend Good vs. evil, what is good and exactly what is evil? Sounds simple enough on the outset but the more I dig into it the harder it is for me to truly discern. For instance I remember back in the day when someone wanted to smoke weed, do drugs that what difference did it make as long as they did not hurt anyone. Sounds good on the outset until I started to see the effects on the family and loved ones. Weed is harmless I heard. I even smoked some but it became a problem when weed was more important than having formula for the baby and I did deal with this issue. I quickly decided I was hurting my young ones if I took time outs to unwind. I needed to be in my right mind and gave up this lifestyle all together. If you ask me what we choose to do does affect others. Today I was reading in Luke the passage “For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit or each tree is known by its own fruit.” We are known by our fuit. I mull this a bit more and I see that others see what we do and we are known by what we do. My son and I were talking recently. He is in his late 30’s and as we discussed the craziness of our family life he recalled when he was very little. He remembered me rocking him, singing to him. He remembers the comfort that action was. I remember doing this a lot. There is something soothing about rocking a baby or that moment the rocking begins to settle the baby. A young lady contacted me on Facebook. She wrote me a note about when she was little and stayed at our home how she loved the way I read the kids a bedtime story. I felt that was a parent’s job, I even enjoyed reading to the children. It is what I did and nothing more in my mind but to another person it was special. Then there is Michele my coworker who was watching me. Her husband had died and after a bit she started dating, invited the man to move in. In short order he went from the attentive adoring man to an angry man. She knew my story, she watched me as I dealt with my struggle and at the right time she approached me for help. We went to Celebrate Recovery and she has not entered into another abusive relationship. My journal entry for “What does the Holy Spirit say” is “God’s idea of a good man and man’s idea of good are not the same - choose God. My next entry “How can I serve others today” reads “love as I am loved by God.” My enabling tendency is to excuse bad behavior because, and I have such a long list like handicaps, addictions, bad day…. God loves me where I am in my dysfunction but He does not allow me to stay there. He lets me suffer the consequences of my actions (sin). When I reach out to God with a sincere heart He then takes me by the hand and walks me step by step away from what my dependency is that is shutting me off from God. That stronghold leaves me and then I find God sending me out to do good. God is my example of good. On my own I come up with a dysfunctional way of being good and I am of no help to the other person or to myself. Evil abounds but through God’s love evil can be concurred. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet