Real Life Reflections

HOW ABOUT BOTH? The knock, knock, knock came every year, and every year, my mom would ask, "what was that?" We'd all heard it as the eight of us sat around the kitchen table eating lasagna - an interesting choice for a German family's traditional Christmas Eve dinner, but then, as my dad always said, Germans make the best lasagna (and the best spaghetti and the best chow mien and the best tacos and the best . .  . ). Of course, we knew the noise we'd just heard had to be Santa. We were all in the kitchen, so who else could have made that noise? He came on Christmas Eve at our house (our last name began with "B," and Santa had to start somewhere, right? Oh those poor schmucks whose last name began with "T" or, God-forbid, "Z!" After dinner, with the dishes cleared, we formed a train and sang Jingle Bells as we marched down the steps to find what treasures Santa had left for us. I was always so impressed by Santa - not only did the ...

"Don't run from suffering; embrace it. Follow Me and I'll show you how. " Luke 9:24 The Message I can recall three times in the past thirty five years when I had the thought that life was going along swimmingly. Three. That's less than once every ten years, and within a week or less of each of those three thoughts, the tide changed. Sometimes I think I spend 90% of my energy in attempts to make my life easier, to get away from whatever causes me pain at the moment. In short, I run from suffering - even if that "suffering" is, in actuality, a mere inconvenience. The passage above from Luke 9 is a familiar one. In most versions, it says something like, "if you try to gain your life, you lose it; but if you lose your life for My sake, you'll gain it." Of course, Jesus is talking about martyrs here, right? Or bringing it a little closer to home, He's talking about giving of yourself and your time to help others when you'd rather ...