be-musings

You may have noticed that my blogging has decreased over the last couple of months. It's difficult to keep up sometimes, as I don't use it as a daily journal. I try to write mini-sermons, with jokes inbetween in order to lighten it up. I write out of the joys and pain of my life as well as others around me. Seems like a simple and honest formula. It has worked for me until lately. I'm going through stuff that I don't want to put out to the public, which means I don't write alot. It's sad, because the writing has been an enjoyable thing. It's just that some things are best not to air publicly, and so sometimes I balance that by pulling back and showing only one side of who I am. Okay, I think you're getting by now that this post will be an honest one.
Life brings us to places that we don't anticipate. When we're young we are passionate, and we don't see the obstacles or detours that older people may see. It protects us from losing our visions and dreams. As we age we encounter the obstacles and detours and either forge through or change direction. We experience great success in some areas and great disappointment in others. All our aggregate experiences and our responses to them forge us into the individuals that we currently are. Many times people say "If I had to do it all over again I would have made different choices." Maybe, but those choices wouldn't necessarily have been better. Certainly had different choices been made you and I would probably have turned out differently. Some days you might think that a good thing. I don't know about that.
We all come to crossroads in our life, and we all handle them differently. I can't speak into your life what you should do at certain points unless I have all the facts and history in order to make a qualified recommendation. To do any less would do an injustice to you and your situation. And to be honest, most of the time it's none of my business to make a recommendation to you unless there is permission of relationship or expressed permission. My job as a friend and Christian is to love you, pray for you, offer you help. To be there when the moment is right with words of what I perceive is wisdom (through my own set of filters), then to back away and let you make your choices.
I need people like this in my life. There are a few but I need more. There are those who find it difficult to not take a side or have an opinion in the happenings in people's lives, including my own. There are those who don't feel it inappropriate to discuss my personal life or that of anyone else to others. The Bible refers to that as gossip and according to God's hierarchy of categorizing "sin" is no different than murder, stealing, etc. In fact, it appears that gossip is the great sin in the Christian church. After all, the other sins are preached against too much to get away unnoticed if performed.
Church should be a refuge for those, like me, who are hurting. It should be a place where judgment is not meted out and safety is not removed. It shouldn't be a place where people have their agendas and other individuals must join with each one or agree with each one or suffer looks, snubbing, being postulated at or about. If I don't look like I'm hurting don't think you know my heart. You have no idea what happens inside it while I'm smiling on the outside. You don't know the tears I've shed. You don't know why I've made the choices I have. And you don't need to know. You need to live Christ's life to me. Is that too bold? We all fail, sure. I can't ask you to live by any standard that I too am not committed to living with you. I need to examine my own heart as well. I hope we all get honest answers when we do.