Category: HAPPY JOY!!!

Happy Easter!

I just wanted to take a few minutes to wish each and every one of you a happy Easter!  This is a day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it:)

I spend a lot of time on this blog bitching about, well, life in general.  Griping and complaining are fun for me, and I hope some of you get a chuckle or two out of reading my rants.  However, I never honestly want anyone to come to the conclusion that I am not thankful for all God has given me.  The greatest gift I have received from God is remembered on the holiday weekend  that is just now coming to a conclusion.  God sent His only only begotten Son so that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but shall have eternal life.  This in and of itself is a great thing and is what we celebrate on Christmas.  The greater gift is the sacrifice that was made for all of us on Good Friday and the glory that is the Resurrection.

Christians take a lot of heat for all kinds of crap: being hypocrites, being sinners, looking down on non-believers, trying to push our point of view on others, etc., etc, etc.  Yep, we do all of these things because we are all human and all full of sin.

Being hypocrites and looking down on others are not justified in any way shape or form.  Christians who judge others need to take a little look in the mirror and realize that all sin is equal in the eyes of the Lord.  We shouldn’t be casting any stones.

When a Christian takes the time to tell you about the saving grace of Jesus Christ, they are doing it because they love you and they want you to find salvation.  It is our responsibility as Christians to inform non-believers of the joy of Christ… and that is where our responsibility ends.  From that point forward, God is in control.  If you want to chastise Christians for their evangelism, go ahead.  We can take it.  We want as many of our friends, family, neighbors, and even that nice guy who works down at the Loaf n’ Jug, to spend eternity with us in the glory of God’s love.  We aren’t trying to convert you to gain points with God.  Nothing we do, and I mean NOTHING, can save a soul other than the sacrifice of the Blood of the Lamb.  You don’t want us to “push” our beliefs on you… and we don’t want to see you spend an eternity in hell.

And, yes, we do disregard other religions.  Ours is not a faith that says it’s okay to let others believe what they will and we should all just get along.  “Live and let live” is not our creed.  This being said, a true Christian does not hate a Muslim, because a Muslim is also a child of God.  A true Christian does not hate a Buddhist.  A true Christian does not hate a doctor who performs abortions.  A true Christian loves all of these people, and a true Christian sees it as his or her responsibility to spread the Word of God to even those whose beliefs are different from our own.

I hope each and every one of you are close to ones you love today and are finding a day filled with peace and joy.  Well, I gotta go… apparently I have to mash the stinking potatoes.

40… a partially positive reflection :)

Yeah, after the pity party of my last post, I thought I should list some of the things that I have going in a positive direction in my life.  After all, if all I do is gripe, God may see fit to throw a little Job-action my way to wake me up… and I ain’t ready for that 🙂

God is good.  He sent his only begotten Son to die for my sins, and that’s pretty cool.

I have a wife whom I love and who loves me.  Yeah, believe it or not, she loves me!

I have two sons that I would die for… when I’m not wanting to strangle them because almost all they do is fight with each other with the sole intention of driving their mother and me insane.  I have to remind myself that they are gifts from God and I need to cherish them… which I do.  I’d also cherish a little brotherly love from them from time to time 🙂

I have (finally) a decent house.  I wish we wouldn’t have had to waited this long to get a decent place, but patience is a virtue that God is trying to teach me (of which I am, I believe, a horrible student.)

I have a job that doesn’t suck (finally.)  I like what I do, I feel like I make a difference in the course of our business, my boss is easy to get along with and my coworkers (although the most eccentric group of coworkers I have ever worked with) are all good people that I, for the most part, get along with.

I like snow.  It is cold and pretty and it covers up the imperfections of the dead earth created by fall.  I really like snow and am thankful for it.

Nebraska isn’t really that bad.  Ok… yeah, it’s pretty bad, but things could be worse; I could live in Texas.

I have good friends with good senses of humor (have to have a good sense of humor to be my friend or I’ll drive you completely stinking insane!)

I love my dog, Buffy.  She is AWESOME!  Beagles rock… even 10-year old ones that shed like there’s no tomorrow.

Life is, for the most part, pretty good.  Now that I got the sentimental crap out og the way, I can get back to the griping.

My Header!

Wow.  This will be my first post to the category “HAPPY JOY!!!” which was meant to be the place I stick stuff that in no way stinks.  As you probably know, there are few things in life that do not stink.

Some of you (the two people who read my blog regularly) may have noticed that the Header on my blog (as well as the entire layout) changed a few weeks ago.  Well, a coworker of mine has been trying to come up with a unique header for my blog since I started writing it.  I use WordPress for my blog and have searched until I found a basic design that would allow me to customize the header.   I finally found one and my coworker came up with a pretty cool header design: )  She did this free of charge and with no expectations for any kind of repayment… which is pretty cool:)

In way of thanks, I thought I would add her to my blog-roll… you see, she is a poet and her poetry doesn’t suck (although I’m not a huge fan of poetry in general).  Her website and poetry can be found here.

She is listed in my blog-roll as “Tainted Butterfly”.  Aren’t we really all just slightly tainted butterflies… capable of becoming things of immense beauty and elegance but tainted to the point that our beauty is drowned by the filth that taints life.  OK… I need to leave the poetry and deep thinking to the poets:)