Monday, October 31, 2011

Reading, thinking, and not crafting.

It's Halloween, and although I don't have any catchy phrases or cute pictures of fall treats I do have a little to share.

Jason and I pick a book to read from the bible (slightly by random), and we read a little every night until we finish that book.  Then, we pick another book and repeat.  We don't go in order... maybe because we are both ADD, but for whatever reason we are reading in 1 Corinthians for the time being.  1 Corinthians has always been my favorite book in the bible.  When I was in my young teenage years it was most likely due to the fact that I was obsessed with "A Walk to Remember", and the pastor read 1 Corinthians 13:4 at the marriage of the sickly cancer ridden Mandy Moore and the ever so beautiful Shane West.  : )  Wrong reason... I know.  But hey, whatever gets you reading the bible right?  Anyway... Corinthians is still my favorite book, but for slightly different reasons now.  Last night, Jason and I read in 1 Corinthians 6.  I guess I won't go too into detail.. because after all, this is a Martha Stewart blog; not a biblical blog.

Here goes.  In 1 Corinthians, Paul is writing a letter to Corinth.  He's basically hitting every major issue that the church is having, and strangely it still relates to today.  He talks about marriage, divorce, sex, and even lawsuits.  I mean... COME ON!  What's more entertaining than that!  Something about 1 Cor 6 really got me thinking last night.  So, hopefully I can strike up some questions within you.  Here goes.. "Why not rather be wronged?  Why not rather be cheated?  Instead, you yourselves cheat and do wrong, and you do this to your brothers."  Sounds slightly like a Beatles song, huh? I'm starting to think Paul is a hippie.  Anyway, please don't get me wrong... I have not been struggling with the issue of cheating.. or even doing wrong to others.  lol!  But for some reason it kind of hit me last night... what's so wrong with getting hurt?  Lately, I've noticed that because of fear of being hurt I keep myself for opportunities, friendships, and even family.

My older brother is currently facing many years in jail because of drug use.  We've struggled with this for years now, and for a while it was easy to say things like... "He did it to himself" and "I'm done with getting my hopes up".  I find that those words are having a hard time coming out of my mouth these days.  Yes, it sucks to see him in black and white attire, with a hardcore face on, and bruises that he refuses to tell my sister and I about to keep us from worrying, but not seeing him at all sucks more.  So, in an effort to relate the verse back to reality... The hurting I go through by seeing Seth in jail is nothing compared to the hurt that he's going through seeing us disappointed in him.  I'm not sure when this revelation happened... maybe during the time I was writing this.  Why are we so concerned with people hurting us and letting us down?  What aren't we more concerned about not hurting others?  I mean seriously.. this is real life we're talking about here.  You're going to get hurt, you're going to cry, you're going to face adversity.  The key is how you react to it.  As Christians, I think we should work more towards not hurting others than worry so much about the pain that people have caused in our lives.  After all, we have God to lay those troubles on.

P.S.
Happy Halloween!