Ignorance is.... STUPID!

You know that old saying ignorance is bliss? Well, I only agree when referring to "initial" ignorance. (Huh?!) I mean... when you initially find out that you know NOTHING about something... understandable. It is! But unless you are a child (when it's obviously okay to continue on about your business without a care in the world), then take it upon yourself to grow!

(Okay - this doesn't make sense... but in all fairness, I warned you about the confusion and lack of direction in my brain!)

But I think that a trap we easily fall into is comfort or complacency. Sometimes we say things like "I'd rather not know" or "I'm better off not knowing!" But are we really? Or is it an excuse to not feel guilty about something? Obviously, I'm not talking about joking around with friends, or something like that, but think about it...

As Christians, we get caught up in this cookie-cutter-idea of a world that because God loves us, he wants us to be happy and enjoy life and things will be easy and issues will be resolved by God and just resolve themselves. But that's SO missing the point!!! God gave you a BRAIN and the ability to fill it with knowledge and sound judgement. He also gave you a command to love your neighbor, not to avoid them until a problem goes away. When the bible talks about relationships we like to think about how people are supposed to treat us, but we TOTALLY miss or ignore the whole point that it's telling US how to treat OTHERS and NOT the other way around! God tells us to love other no matter WHAT they say or do to us, no matter how they treat us, no matter WHAT they say about us or our friends... we are to love them as HE loves us!!!

And how does he love us? Unconditionally. We screw up... he loves us. We screw up again? He loves us. The same thing over and over? He loves us and forgives us for it - and here's the kicker: He doesn't hold it against us!! So how can we EVER justify a decision where we do just that to another person? Whether they are a Christian or not doesn't matter. God didn't tell us to love the church... he tells us to LOVE. Period. Not conditions. No questions. No circumstances. He just tells us to love.

So what are we doing about it? Lord knows I'm failing MISERABLY! But we have GOT to wake up and start trying harder. It will take work, but it can happen. Just don't forget to love. If we do all these nice things, and help people, but we don't have love, we might as well have just thrown around a bunch of metal trash cans and called it a day, because it's just useless noise and empty motions. Do some homework. Read through 1 Corinthians Ch. 13 in The Message translation, and tell me what you think - what do we need to change, what are we doing wrong?


ALRIGHT!!
Enough seriousness for one day. Now on to the fun stuff!

A BIG shout-out to my Big sister... She's reached AND surpassed her goal of a 10% weight loss!! WOOP WOOP!!

And also - it's almost Mother's Day!! What are we planning? Not a clue... still working on it, actually. BUT I do know it will involve a lunch with Mom at the restaurant of her choosing, and that won't be decided until she says "I don't know! Why don't you guys just pick something!" and we all mull around until someone says "Olive Garden. It's done. Let's go - I'm STARVING!" So... after all that, we'll probably be at Olive Garden eating lunch on Mother's day, and I'm sure there will be SOME gifts involved! *tee hee hee* (insert additional innocent childish laughter here). More on Mother's Day plans to follow.

And on that note ... a BIG Shout-out to the almost-mothers out there!! Brittany is expecting her first little on and will actually find out if it'll be a girl or boy JUST before her first Mother's Day (isn't that cute?!), AND Kelly already knows she's having a girl, but it's still her first Mother's Day as well. And Finally, Terri is going to actually be able to HOLD her wonderful baby boy, Bennet, on her first Mother's Day! CONGRATULATIONS, LADIES!!!!!

Peace out! :-P