Skip to main content

The Body


I had an interesting conversation with someone the other day, a retired minister who I hadn't seen in some time. We were talking about how fun it was for him to be retired and be able to visit different churches and decide where to go.

 Because when you're the pastor you kind of have to go to the church where you work. It's just a thing that happens.

 I told him that I envied him. I love our church where we've been for the past seven years, and I don't see us leaving anytime soon, but there were churches in the past that I didn't like. 

 I mentioned this to him and he said, "But we need to love the body, these are the people we will be in heaven with."

 I agreed that we do need to love them. And I did love them, but no where in the Bible does it say that we need to like them. 

 For a while when we pastored at these other churches I would occasionally have people ask me if I knew of a good church in the area and I sent them elsewhere. I did not send them to the one where we were employed. 

 There is a big difference between love and like.

 I could love the people and take care of them but there were some that I didn't like. And there's nothing wrong with that.

 I love my own body. I do my best to take care of it, but there are parts of it that I don't like. I have bowed legs, I have a bent toe, there is some cellulite (I really don't like that), a scar on my forehead, bump on my nose, and other things that I don't like. Does it make me care for my body any less? No.

 Will you like every person you come across? No. 
Will you like every Christian you come across? No.
Personalities are too different. 
Backgrounds are too different.

 Sometimes these people hurt you. Sometimes they mistreat you. Sometimes they break your trust. Do you have to like them? Absolutely not, but you do have to love them.

 Loving them means praying for them. Caring about them. Not wanting any harm to come to them.

 Sometimes the only thing we have in common is Christ and that's okay.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Kitchen floor woes

I spent a better part of this afternoon lamenting how much I hate my kitchen floor. It puzzles me as to why anyone would install such flooring. Not only is it ugly, but also impractical. It also puzzles me as to why, after nearly nine years in this house, I still have this floor. Well. It doesn't puzzle me that much ($$$). I clean it only once a year.  Don't judge,  I Swiffer and spot clean in between. And I have a dog who does her share of, ahem , cleaning it.  But see all of those deep grout lines? Scrubbing around each brick tile and into those lines is beastly. It's much harder than getting foundation out of the lines on my face. Douse with cleaner. Scrub with rough sponge. Wipe with cloth rag. Rinse with rag. Rinse again in between each brick tile until it's done. Roughly two hours of scrubbing and rinsing. Similar process to removing makeup, but much more labor intensive.  Yes, I could use a mop but scrubbing...
Post a Comment
Read more

Sweet Zoey

 Zoey - August 10, 2020 When we found her I didn't realize I needed her. Sure, she needed us, she was living in woods, alone, surviving on whatever she could find. She was nine months old, the vet later told me when I took her in for a check-up, still unsure I wanted to keep this undernourished mutt. We'd been on vacation in southwest Missouri, near the Arkansas border, in the middle of the woods. I was on the porch when I saw her trotting down the dirt road. A little brown dog. I whistled and she stopped to look at me from across the lawn. Then she continued on her way. Later that night, the family was watching a movie we'd brought (no cable service out there!) and suddenly this furry face popped up in the window, scaring my husband out of his seat. We fed her some people food and went to bed.  She was still there in the morning. We asked around and no one knew where she came from. We fed her some more and she stayed. The next day we went and bought some dog food, f...
5 comments
Read more

Selling items on Craigslist and common scams

I'm selling a couple of things on Craigslist. I've done this a few times before and always, the first interested parties I hear from are scammers. This time in my listing I specified that I will not take money orders and asked that scammers not contact me. Here's the first interested party that I heard from: mr robins journeycristina@gmail.com Is it still available for sale... I replied: Yes it is. Here's the second contact from the first interested party. Note that the name of the sender and the email of the sender are different than the ones from the first contact: Clyde Wright fisherr.mattyy@gmail.com Hello, Thanks for the swift response, just to let you know that am okay with the condition and price of the item, am ready for its purchase and my form of payment will be by sending you Check via UPS next day delivery. I'll be responsible for the pick-up and the pick up money will be included in your payment to avoid delay and to enable pick up company to s...
28 comments
Read more