Welcome from the Straightforward Mom.....

Are you looking for encouragement? Are you looking for answers? Are you looking for hilarious stories? Are you just trying to make sure you haven't gone crazy? This is the blog to read! There's a little bit of everything for everyone!

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Great Expectations

I have been reading the book of Mark before I go to bed each night. Last night, I read the following:

"And they come unto him, bringing one sick of the palsy, which was borne of four.

4And when they could not come nigh unto him for the press, they uncovered the roof where he was: and when they had broken it up, they let down the bed wherein the sick of the palsy lay.

5When Jesus saw their faith, he said unto the sick of the palsy, Son, thy sins be forgiven thee.

6But there was certain of the scribes sitting there, and reasoning in their hearts,

7Why doth this man thus speak blasphemies? who can forgive sins but God only?

8And immediately when Jesus perceived in his spirit that they so reasoned within themselves, he said unto them, Why reason ye these things in your hearts?

9Whether is it easier to say to the sick of the palsy, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and take up thy bed, and walk?

10But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (he saith to the sick of the palsy,)

11I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy bed, and go thy way into thine house.

12And immediately he arose, took up the bed, and went forth before them all; insomuch that they were all amazed, and glorified God, saying, We never saw it on this fashion."

As I read the passage, the order of events struck me as odd. Here is a man who desperately needs to be physically HEALED. His friends go through all this effort to drop him through the roof to be HEALED by Jesus. The most obvious thing that needs to be done is the HEALING of this man's body. (Did I drive home my point enough?) What happens when he finally is set before Jesus? Jesus sees faith and forgives the man's sin.

Maybe you are on a holier plain than I, but my first thought was, "Forgiving his sins? What about the poor guy's body?" Forgiveness was not what I expected. I have heard the story hundreds of times, but I never realized the order of the events--or the significance. I had to put myself in the place of this man. Here I am, finally getting my chance after years of suffering to be healed. There is all this build up as my friends rip up the roof to lower me through. I am laying at the feet of Jesus and He says, "Son, thy sins be forgiven thee." I don't know if that is what the man expected, but it wouldn't be what I expected. I would have expected Him to tell me to get up and run a few laps around the synagogue. I wish I knew what was going through that guy's mind when Jesus forgave him of his sins first. Was that what he expected??

As I read on into the chapter, I realized that in a way, I was having an attitude like that of the scribes. I wasn't questioning Jesus' ability to forgive sins, but I was questioning his judgment. Who was I to decide what needed to happen first? Who were these scribes to question Him? Who was I to say the order of how the Son of God does things?

As I thought more about it, the order of events made more sense. What was more important--the forgiveness of this man's sins or the healing of his body? Obviously, the forgiveness of his sins should have been the first thing on his mind when coming before the Son of God. Hopefully, this man was nothing like me--I would have expected to be healed. Yet, God did something much greater for this man than healing his physical body.

I wrote all this to say this--how often do we expect God to work in a certain way and it doesn't turn out how we think it should? I know I am so guilty of thinking I know how things should work out. Admit it! We all have these grand ideas and then we realize that our Heavenly Father has something even greater for us, beyond what we have expected. For instance, the man in the book of Mark probably never expected to be healed. He probably never expected to have the Son of God ever come near enough to him to be healed. When he saw the crowd he probably never expected to get close enough to have a chance encounter. The list could go on and on.

Recently, my expectations have not been great by any means. In fact, I would say I have been expecting the worst. The truth is, we should expect great things. We have a mighty God who thought enough of us to die for us. Does this mean that everything will be great and perfect? No. Does that mean that God's plan always include only hilltops and no valleys? No way. Should we always expect our will to be the best way? You have got to be kidding! What we do have is hope. We should also expect our God to do great things. You will find that He exceeds even our greatest hopes.

Monday, August 1, 2011

Home Improvement Challenge #3: Old habits die hard

I know, I know! Don't yell at me! I took a vacation and didn't blog the next challenge. I know there are people out there waiting! I am very sorry! But here it is without delay!!

So far, you should be getting active and drinking more water. I am proud to say that I have been able to keep up with both so far. The water still gets me here and there, but for the most part, I am drinking more water. In fact, I have been saving money when we go out to eat by ALWAYS ordering water! I have easily saved over 20 bucks on vacation by just getting water where we went.

Now we are on to the third challenge. The third challenge is to kick a bad habit. I believe that from the time I was in the womb, I have been biting my nails. I have never, ever had pretty or nice nails that were real. For one glorious moment I had some nice nails (on my wedding day and for some of my honeymoon). But alas, they did not last long. I have tried for years to quit. I have tried everything that I can think of to stop chewing them but it never lasts long.

A few weeks ago, I started to try again. I did well until they started breaking. Apparently salt water and golf will make them weak. (That's what I was exposed to on my vacation.....I know....horrible conditions.) Even when they were breaking, I did my best not to chew them. Most of the time it did not work. I ended up biting them off so the irritation didn't overwhelm me. So here I am, back from vacation with little or nothing to show. I have three nails that I kept from chewing off (and one of them is halfway off from breaking). This is much harder than the water drinking challenge for me. This is something I have almost ingrained into my being. However, when I decided to kick a bad habit, there was not a thing in the world I wanted to stop doing more than this. Biting my nails has been the one thing that has had the most control over me. I know it sounds stupid, but it is true. It is completely gross and I hate doing it, but I do it without even realizing it sometimes.

So here I am, feeling like I am back at square one with this one. I'll be right there with you when you start this one! Think of something you would really like to stop. Maybe for you it is smoking, over eating, or any other type of addiction. I am encouraging you to take this opportunity, while you have people to hold you accountable, to give it up. With the help of the accountability partners gained in this challenge, I know I can nip this in the bud. That means that you can do it too!

We need more people who are ready to improve their life! Come join us on Facebook at the Home Improvement Challenge! You can find us at http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/groups/235403529814269/. Join the group and keep up with the challenges! It's a great place to find encouragement and a way to make changes in your life!

What habit are you willing to kick? (Yeah, that's right....I called you out! What are you WILLING to give up?) Leave a message and let us know what bad habit you will be giving up for this stage of the challenge!!