You Can Never Go Home

A good friend's daughter went off to college this week and although her son left just last year, this was different. My friends tell me that guys are less communicative when they're at home and even worse when they leave. So to have one's daughter leave home is difficult, because you loose your girl to hang with, do the domestic stuff, the girly stuff with and the late night chats when they finally get home. Well, you can still have the late night chats, if you can stay up really really late!


But as hard as it is on the moms, it is, in some ways, harder for the kids. My friend said her daughter was planning on coming back for high school Homecoming, to visit friends (and family!) a couple of times in the near future. I didn't have the heart to tell her. The visits taper off quickly and then disappear completely. Their friends make other plans, more exciting things to do than go home. The kids start to change once they're on their own and many friendships can't withstand the transformations. The ones who shared so many interests just a year ago find they have little more in common than their hometown.

Then one day they are married and living in another city. When planning to come stay at your house for the weekend, they mention to their spouse that it is fun to go home. At which point the spouse replies, "We are home!"

Dallas/Ft. Worth's Got Talent!

In case you weren't paying attention, the winners from this summer's reality shows So You Think You Can Dance, Last Comic Standing and Nashville Star all claim the DFW area as home! We definitely got talent...

In a Moment

Recently, while watching a final episode of a talent-based reality show, I thought about the changes happening in the winner's life. I pondered the "reality" that his life would never be the same. I wondered what it would be like to walk in his shoes, to know that my dreams had come true and there would be no going back. It made me think about the life changing moments that occur in our lives every day. Some of them involve life and death situations: the diagnosis that means certain death, the accident that snatches a life in an instant, the conception of life. All these change someone's life forever. The ripple effect reaches beyond the immediate circle in all directions.

This is never more evident than in the decision to accept Christ as Savior. From the thief hanging on the cross next to Jesus whose soul was saved at the last possible moment to the millions who come to him today, all have this in common: life is never the same after the decision is made. In a moment, life changes forever. And although the process doesn't end with that one decision, the journey begins and the struggles, triumphs, and everything in between all lead to another moment...in which we meet God. That's a reality we can all win!

2 down, 1 to go!

Thank God for family returning safe and sound! Soon for the one in Michigan...

On Loving Well

Why did God choose my particular testy? Testy is that person in your life that you find difficult to love. Not the person whom you could really hate, the impossible one, the foe. But testy is the problem person that aggravates, disappoints, challenges in every way. In my Bible study, it says God uses these people to "complete something lacking in us. If we never learn to allow the character of Christ and His love to flow through us to those persons, then they were placed in our lives for nothing but pain and no gain." The idea that God chose these particular people to be in our lives is at first upsetting. For me, as well as a lot of other people, the testy person is in our immediate family. So we're around them, a lot. And we have certain expectations when they are family: they should be easy to love, they should find it easy to love us, they should accept us as we are. If we are honest with ourselves, we may discover that they have the same issues with us: we may not meet their expectations, fulfill their needs as a loved one. Whose to say which came first, their disappointment, or ours?

But when we begin to love them, we reach deeper into God's love, the love God wants to share with us and all those around us. I believe I felt this recently, when I prayed earnestly, not for my testy, but for my foe, the person who hurt me more than anyone else, ever. I prayed for his health and happiness, for his soul to be delivered to Heaven and for him to feel my love. When I finished my prayer, a feeling came over me and seemed to fill me. It was a glimpse of God's love, the pure love that is God. It was a passing moment, not long. I believe it was brief because my love is still growing, not mature yet. Some day, when I love better, I'll feel the love of God even more.

What have I learned from God's word about loving different types of people? Likely, each of us is a combination of all types of people rolled into one person. We are someone's testy, someone's foe, someone's joy to love. There are many who don't even know us. We want the opportunity to turn everyone's heart to accept us and begin to love us as God does. So if that's what we want, we should be willing to give it to others.