Who are we to judge?

I posted something similar on my Facebook page last night, but thought that it would make a good blog post as well. Plus I had some things that I wanted to add to it.

Life whether you believe in God and His promises or not, is full of choices we have to make. I choose to follow God and believe that He does exist and that He does love everyone regardless of the choices they decide to make for their life. He loves the murderer, the rapist, the pedophile and every sinner on this earth, including you and I. Yes, Christians are sinners too.

As a mother it is my job to teach my children right from wrong. To make good choices over bad ones and better choices over just the good ones. It is my job to teach them to love God and follow His word and His plan for their lives. It is my job to teach them moral values and how to resist temptation from peers and spiritually. It does take a village to raise children, but I don't want society raising my kids. I choose the village and the villagers I want surrounding my children.

Am I the only one tired of all the discussions surround the court ruling on gay marriage? We all have our beliefs, we all have our opinions. One side saying Christians are hypocrites and judgmental and the Christians proving them right. God has been and always will be against Same sex marriage.

 

Here is the thing, Christians are sinners just like everyone else. Sin is sin to God, whether it be murder, stealing or rape, premarital sex or same sex marriage, none is worse to him than the other; except that he destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah for this very reason. This is used a lot to prove that God dislikes Same sex marriage/sex, but does anyone remember that he too flooded the earth on the basis that the world he created was overrun with sin?

 

 As Christians it is not our place nor our right to judge, humiliate, condemn or ridicule the actions of others, even if according to our beliefs and God it is wrong. I am tired of hearing that Christians have it in for the Gay community. I am also tired of people using God's name to condemn others and their choices. These people are humans with feelings the same as you and me. They are entitled to live their lives the way they choose, the same as we are. Their choices are between them and God, not them and everyone else. Like us they will have to answer to God for their choices, just as we will for ours. Like the bible says in Matthew 7:1-5 "“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye" 

 

God loves everyone. He loves the sinners alike. He loves us as people, he hates the sins we commit. Love the sinner, hate the sin, we have all heard this line and I am sure a lot of us have used it. You don't hate your child because the misbehaved (sinned), so why on God's green earth would you hate someone because they live a life of sin....just like you and I do?

 

Let's stop judging people, ridiculing people, condemning people, and let's start praying for people. Yes, the Same-Sex community loves to put down our Christian values and our beliefs, however, how many Christian people just treat them like people? How many Christians have shown them that are not judgmental and condemning? Probably not many. Instead of fighting back with words and spewing hatred lets fight back by praying. We know where we are going as Christians, they have no clue, or they do and they are just ignoring it.

 

Society today is all about self-love and doing whatever pleases you to do. The problem with that is evident all over. Children are going to school and shooting their classmates. Drug addicts are beating their pregnant girlfriends to death. Couples are divorcing because it is the easy out, instead of doing everything they can to keep their marriage and their families together. Husbands are cheating on their wives and vice versa. There are consequences to a society that does whatever it wants, whenever it wants, just because it feels good. Doesn't mean it is right.

 

We need to worry about our own lives and our own choices. Does this mean that we shouldn't spread God's word? No, it means that we need to stop judging, stop condemning and start letting our actions show who we truly are, what being a Christian truly looks like (or should look like).

 

 

Domestic Violence & Bullying (Kind of long)

There are two things that irritate and anger me more than anything. Domestic Violence and Bullying. Both are senseless and cause more harm than anything else.

Domestic Violence:

Yesterday a very sweet woman died due to domestic violence. She was one of the nicest people in school and of the brief conversations I have had with her over the years, she had not changed much. We have all heard that sayings, "Love Hurts" "Love is Blind" but the truth is that love should never hurt, certainly not physically. Blindness comes when we refuse to see that the other person is no good for us. It comes when we know that he needs help, and that we should leave him, but feel that we can change him.

You can't.

The only one that can change him is him. He has to want to change and he has to want to get help. Sometimes I feel that for a lot of women the line in marriage vows, "For better or worse" should be removed. This line is meant for hard times in a marriage (or relationship), certainly, financial issues, loss of a job, loss of a child, possibly an affair, but it absolutely does not include violence. Violence is the exception. The first time your partner hurts you physically, is the time to leave. Not the time to rationalize it, not the time to say, he didn't mean it, time to LEAVE.

He may not have meant it, but he did it and he will do it again, especially when drugs are involved. He needs help, but you need to get out. Love is not painful, burning dinner is not a crime, arguing with someone should not land you in the hospital. Whatever the reason, it will happen again. Domestic Violence ends when women (and men) refuse to be abused. When you stand up for yourself and say, I refuse to let you  hurt me. Love certainly can be blind.

Bullying:

This needs to end to. Columbine should set the example of what happens when children are bullied, left out or the target of bullying. Not only is it bad enough that children can be bullied at school, where they should feel safe, now there is cyber bullying. Parents need to take action. YOUR children are the ones causing other people's children to go into a school with a gun and kill people. Innocent people. It is not innocent fun when someone's child is lying on the ground of their school, dead.

We all sympathize with the dead. The children who were gunned down, but what about the shooter? Does anyone stop to think about them and what caused them to do something this heinous? No. People just want justice (and rightly so) but where was the justice when your child was bullying the one who decided to kill everyone?

The shooter didn't wake up one day and decide to kill classmates. We all sympathize with the women who is beaten day after day who finally kills her tormentor, but no one sympathizes with bullied child who goes to school to end his/her torment. No one should die because of bullying or domestic violence, but the truth is prolonged harassment or violence changes a person. It changes them inside and creates something else entirely. Something broken that leads them to kill their tormenters. It doesn't happen over night. It doesn't even happen over a few incidents. It happens over years of daily psychological torment. A battered women who kills her spouse is not different than the bullied student who kills his classmates.

It is worse when it is children that are killed for sure. When it is your child lying dead on the ground because one child was bullied. It is worse because school is where children should feel safe not fear for their lives. Home s where we should feel safe as well. Yet these are the two places where the most hurt and damage is down. A bullied child could once go home and escape their bullies, a domestic violence woman lives with it in her home and can't escape, unless she chooses to. Now, thanks to technology, the bullied student can't escape from it at home. Cyber-bullying is all to real and now the whole world can witness and apart of it. There is no escape.

We need to teach our children the dangers bullying can have on someone. We need to ensure that when they leave our care, they know that bullying another child can have deadly consequences. It can have repercussion no one parent, teacher or child, should ever have to face. I realize that when our children leave our home, we can't control their actions or their behavior, but we can makes sure that they know the difference between right and wrong.

The parents. Ever noticed that the parents of these children are attacked once their child kills other people? Human nature of course. Yet no one attacked the parents of the bullies while they were tormenting another child. Mostly cause the bullied child doesn't share his pain, until it becomes tragic. I sympathize with these parents because in today's society both parents work in order to survive ad the children go around unnoticed. Mom's are out working and too tired to at night to send much time with their children. Dads too. Children are left alone more often than now while their parents are out trying to support the family. You blame the parents, but in reality you should blame society as a whole. Parents who don't care that their child is bulling someone (and yes there are parents who don't care, in fact some cheer it on), but when their child dies at the hand of the classmate they bullied...all the sudden they care.

The girl I went to school with, that many of us went to school with, should not be dead this morning, making her families and those who knew her, world a darker place today. The parents of columbine should today be walking their children down the aisle, watching them go off to college and beginning a whole new chapter, yet, they are mourning their children instead.

Domestic Violence and Bullying need to stop.

Until the next Scribble......

Persoanlity test results.....

For class I had to take a personality test and this is what I got.....

 

 

ISTJ - "Trustee". Decisiveness in practical affairs. Guardian of time- honored institutions. Dependable. 11.6% of total population.

Free Jung Word Test (similar to Myers-Briggs)

personality tests by similarminds.com

 

Introverted (I) 54.84% Extroverted (E) 45.16%
Sensing (S) 73.33% Intuitive (N) 26.67%
Thinking (T) 68.75% Feeling (F) 31.25%
Judging (J) 83.87% Perceiving (P) 16.13%

 

Have you ever taken a personality test? I would love to read your comments on the results and what your opinion is of test of this nature.....Leave comments (you may have to join and follow...)

Updated....

the coffee pages tab...enjoy

Messy house....A Blessing?!

Motherhood the land of a messy house, kid wars, food wars, the occasional embarrassing scene at the grocery store where your toddler throws a fit because you wont buy her (or him) the cookies she wants. That place where you look at the little angels who came from your body and see monsters who have invaded your home. Motherhood. That title you wished for and planned for since childhood when you played with your dolls and pretended your bedroom was your house and the neighborhood boy down the street was your husband ( because you were not going to be a single mother, no little girl plays single Mom house).

There are numerous times when I have walked into my house and the only thing I can see is the mess. The toys on the floor, or the odd scraps of little papers and things that seem to make their way onto the floor. The hair ties, shoes not put where they belong and backpacks thrown about wherever they land. The mess. How many of you can relate? I mean really, what if the neighbor down the street comes by to say hello? It never happens, but because your house is a mess you know they will.

As I walk through the door I close my eyes and pray silently that when I open them it will all miraculously be clean. Of course its not. So the other day I was struck by a thought. A simple thought that made me stop and relook at the house as I walked in.

What did I see? Still a mess, but it wasn't that I saw a mess it was what the mess reminded me of that day. (Funny isn't it, God gives us these little messages and unless we in the mood to hear it, we may miss them). This mess, that can so easily aggravate me, became something totally new. There are little people living in my house. These people that God gave me and that I am blessed to come home to. I am lucky to be their mother. I have little ones (and not so little ones) to come home to, where some mothers only have memories. This mess signifies that I am blessed to have my children at home, able to make these messes and aggravate me. While I would still love to come home to a clean house (and occasionally, like yesterday) I do, the mess is now a welcomed site and a reminder that regardless of what we need or don't have, I am blessed, because I am a mom to 4 amazing children.

I'm not perfect, so I will forget and I will get aggravated because I am not perfect and occasionally, like all human mothers do, will yell and pull my hair out, and later that night I will ask for forgiveness for my yelling and aggravation. I will every night thank God for them, pray over them and pray over myself that I will remember that mess can be a positive thing, even if my personality doesn't agree.

So the next time you walk into your messy house....(and for a brief God-less moment wish for vodka or perhaps a spotless home) remember there is a mother (and father) out there who now wishes that they could open their door to a mess, to fighting siblings or loud music playing and be thankful that you still have that. I know I am.

Until the next scribble.....

To My Future Significant Other....

Wouldn't it be great if we could email or actually write a letter (gasp, yes I said write not type), to our future spouses or significant others? Well here is my letter. Enjoy.

Dear Future Significant Other,

     I sometimes wonder who you will be. What your favorite music is, your favorite book (do you read?), I also wonder if you can put up with me as a person. Its kind of hard I am told. So here is what you must be able to put up with.

     Here is what I do know about you. You don't drink excessively, you don't do drugs and never have. You don't smoke (anything). You have not been to prison. You don't feel the need to go around beating people up, but have the ability to do so if the situation arises (who wants a wimp after all). Family is very important to you.

     You must be able to put up with kids. We are, I am afraid, a package deal. You must have patience, (difficult I know), you must be able to see them as part of me, but as individuals. 4 children is a lot to take on, (alcohol is tempting at times) so you must be strong patient and hopefully better at discipline than I am. Mess

     I wonder occasionally if we have met before, but probably not.

     Shoes. I have this obsession with shoes. Heels, flats, boots, you name it, I probably own a pair of them...so it is a must that you put up with my shoe fetish. O and you may also have to sacrifice closet space to hold my shoe collection (we may need to have a walk in closet or multiple?). Its a girl thing...I refuse to apologize for. I'm sure you have a fetish of some kind that I will have to tolerate!? Guns perhaps? Tools? Cars?

    I love to cook, and I am sure you love to eat. Rolling pins were invented strictly to keep men out of the kitchen. Although if you want to cook with me, I may be open to that. I just ask that you put things were they belong and not wherever you feel like it. I mean would you want me going through your tools and messing them up? I think not....:)

    Do you read? If you do, we will not get along if you read romance novels....been there done that bought the tee-shirt. It doesn't work for the guy to be more emotional or sensitive than I am. You can love your Mama, I expect it, but you can not be a Mama's boy....please.

     God. Is He important to you? Do you have faith? I do, if this bothers you, keep walking. Your lack of faith doesn't bother me, but your soul going to hell might bother you when it happens. Chances are, you do believe in God and I feel that family should go to church together whenever possible.

     Camping... hate t. I will do it, occasionally but it is not my favorite. I am a firm believer that couples can have separate vacations. Feel free to take the boys while the girls and I go to a hotel, order room service and shop. :)

     I lose my keys all the time. Never fails. At least 5 or 6 times  week. Sometimes in the same day. I don't know how it happens but it does. Seriously they need a beeper on them or something  that will enable me to find them when they are lost. They like to hide from me. Truly it is the keys wandering off and not my fault in any way. Oh...GPS is my best friend. Without it (even n O-town) I can get lost. Seriously. It is a knack. I come by it genetically, my grandmother could too. So if we go somewhere, you are better off driving than I am. I will, without a doubt, get lost. Even with GPS I can end up taking the wrong turn....Needless to say, I have gotten lost in some...um...interesting places.

Enough said....

Sincerely,

Your future Significant Other...

That would be my letter. No vodka or alcohol was involved in the composition of this letter. Promise.

 Until the next Scribble....

And The Countdown Begins.....

     Summer is here and the kids are already bored to death...It has not even been a full week. School may be out for them, but it is not out for mom. So finding a working balance will be the goal of the summer...I will probably get it figured out in time for them to go back to school and need to come up with a new plan.
   
     60 more days until are all back in school. K starts school 2 days before the other three do. A wants to move to his dad's house all the way in Maine. The only way he could get any further is if I were to move to Alaska (and still be in the US). Well on second thought Hawaii might be a bit farther.

    60 more days of, "I'm bored", "There is nothing to do", "Let's go somewhere", "I didn't write on the furniture", "He hit me", "She kicked me", and so on and so forth.

    Of course they don't want to do things like, go outside and play (unless its a theme park of some sort), read a book, (video games are the new sit down activity), or play with each other, (a total abomination). They want mom to entertain them and if it is free...nope, not happening. Gone are the days I could put them in the kiddie pool in the front yard and have them be content. Finger painting no longer appeases them.

     Mom of course is lame and boring because she still has to clean and do school work. Time to start planning activities for these little/not-so-little people to do.....otherwise this mommy will go insane before the 60 days are over....o and no camping, unless there is a cabin involved.

    This mommy would love nothing more than to rent a house on the beach for a week....hmmm

Until the next scribble.....