Tag Archives: Bible

Whirlwind.

24 Feb

Wow, things are busy. Today at work was just crazy, then after work, I ran to Target to buy ice cream sandwiches for care group, raced home to cook a box of pasta, drove to care group (which was relaxing), then hurried home to pack for leaving for our Salt Lake City trip tomorrow afternoon. I know that tomorrow will be another extremely busy day at work (albeit a short one since I’ll be leaving at 2:30) so I want to get to bed soon.

I am really looking forward to our little getaway trip. The forecast for Salt Lake City is rain/snow on Saturday and cloudy on Sunday but I’m not that bummed because I’m mostly just looking forward to some relaxation. Reading the Bible and books, doing crosswords, watching TV while cuddling, talking. I’m also excited to explore the city – but at a very relaxed, got-nowhere-to-be pace.

I’m not usually a very busy person. It’s not really my style. I can handle it well in work settings but in my personal life, I don’t handle it well at all. I had numerous emotional breakdowns in college from feeling overwhelmed and too busy. I need down time. I need alone time. I need time to read, write and think.

So when I do get busy in my personal life, I don’t really have anything in place to keep me from overdoing things. Take triathlon training last April/May/June. It consumed my life. I was dedicated to my training, which is good, but it was at the expense of other things, like spending time with my husband, relaxing, cooking, and enjoying life.

This week, busyness has eaten up my time with God. Completely. I think about it every morning but because I need to get to work by 8 (instead of moseying in around 8:15 or 8:30) to get my hours in, I have been sacrificing my quiet time. Now that I have a job with more flexibility, I will have more opportunity for getting time in the Word – but because the job will be so demanding and busy over the next several months, I will have to guard my time with God jealously.

That is something I am making an even more heartfelt commitment to as I enter into a new season with this new job: fellowship. I don’t want to “neglect meeting together, as is the habit of some.” I want to continue going to care group, to women’s group, to the women’s book group, to church as often as possible. I want to continue getting in the Word daily, listening to sermons, and pondering spiritual truths and how they apply to my life. I don’t want to let my spiritual life slide just because I no longer work at a ministry or because I no longer have a typical 9 to 5.

So that’s really what this whole post is about: not wanting to let the most important things slide due to busyness. It’s not worth it.

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One Month…

16 Feb

until I’ll be sitting on a beach in Mexico with a Kahlua Mudslide in my hand, the sun on my face, and the sand beneath my feet.

Since yesterday marks a month until our vacation, I thought I would give an update on my goals for 2009 and the deal Travis and I have to not eat sweets, except on Sundays.

First, I’ve been doing pretty good with my goals. I haven’t met them all every week (I have ended up missing a day in the Word here and there) but I have met almost all of them most weeks.

Spiritually, I have been memorizing one verse each week, listening to a sermon (besides the one in church on Sunday) every week, and studying my Bible every day.

Physically, I have been exercising 5-7 days a week, though I haven’t strictly adhered to the schedule of what I would do each day. As much as I try to coax my personality into being planned and predictable, it’s just not me. I fly by the seat of my pants, exercise included. So I have been mixing it up between step aerobics (after taking a 2-week hiatus because of the nice weather more given to running), running outside, elliptical intervals, and 30 Day Shred with Jillian Michaels (a killer workout if I do say so myself!)

My eating has been pretty good. I do really well during the week because I have the structure of work hours and I bring all my food to work so I can’t eat more food by just walking into the kitchen. As such, weekends are a little more sketchy. I tend to overeat carbs when I’m tired and lazy, which frequently happens on the weekends (cereal being the most frequent victim).

This past weekend, Valentine’s Day and then our V-Day dinner last night (which was delicious and wonderful, BTW!) should have made out for a huge calorie blowout but I actually planned out my meals, controlled my hunger and kept active. So it was a lot better than it could have been.

Though I have still been counting calories every day in preparation for Mexico, I really want to go back to Intuitive Eating after the vacation. I’m sick of worrying about the calories in every single bit of food and staying under a certain limit. But I will say that it has helped me get an understanding of how much food I need each day, what portion sizes look like, and how much easier it is to eat 500 calories than it is to burn it off through exercise (or even to just cut it out of your diet!).

As far as our little n0-sweets deal, it has been going surprisingly well. There are those stressful days when we both long for chocolate (me) or a Mountain Dew pick-me-up (Travis). But I’d say we have stuck to the plan about 95%. Travis caved and had a pop a few weeks ago and then had some Girl Scout cookies today. I have had a few caramel lattes and frappucinos from Starbuck’s (though they were all skinny ones with no whip!)

In a way, I actually like having this deal going because then I have an excuse to say no when people offer me cookies and cake and candy at work. It’s a strange phenomenon that ladies on The Nest’s Health and Fitness board have observed: eating is a social thing. By turning down someone’s brownies, they somehow feel that you are turning them down as people. Like if you don’t want their chocolatey, gooey goodness, you don’t want to be their friend either.

I noticed this at my last job back in Minnesota. Every Monday, in order to encourage their employees to come to work on time (and let’s face it, come to work period), they would cater in donuts and bagels. Well, donuts pretty much have negative nutritional value and bagels are 300-400 calories of refined carbs that leave you hungry an hour later so needless to say, I always ate my breakfast at home.

Maybe it was their goodwill but I swear, because I was one of very few people who remained at their desk instead of racing to the door the minute the donuts were delivered, people went out of their way to make sure I knew the donuts had been delivered.

“Kathy, there are donuts in the kitchen.”

“Uh huh, thanks!”

“Kathy, did you know that the donuts are here?”

“Yep, thanks! I just don’t want one.”

“Kathy, did you get a donut? There aren’t many left in there!”

“No I didn’t get one but really, I’m O-K.”

Dare 2 Share is not immune to this…but then, I don’t know if any American corporate workplace is.

Anyway, I feel like because I have this deal with Travis, I finally have an acceptable excuse to not indulge every whim that comes along. Because wanting to be healthy and not each tons of extra empty calories is a silly thing for a girl like me to do, right?

Well, this post that was supposed to be short has turned into a post that is accidentally long. So I’m going to go to bed now!

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God’s love is so real

7 Feb

Have I told you that I love Saturday mornings? I love being able to spend as much time reading the Bible, listening to worship songs, and praying as I want, without having to worry about being late to work.

Today was even better than usual. This past week has been rough. If you read my blog regularly, you know that my job has been a frustrating situation. You also probably know that I have been wondering what I’m supposed to be doing with my life.

What you may not know is that I have also been struggling in my marriage.

Travis and I are very different people in more ways than one. This is not news. While we were dating, I would’ve said that I loved the fact that we were so different because it made life interesting.

Well, it certainly does add drama.

Travis is a very playful, fun-loving guy. He likes to make jokes, quote movies, sing silly songs, and slap my butt. He creates his own words. He plays with his way-too-long-right-now hair by combing it over to the side (so he looks like a computer nerd).

I can be playful too. But since getting married, I have not been. Instead, all the things listed above have driven me up the wall. Every time he sings a song, I ask him to stop. When he slaps my butt, I get angry. When he quotes movie lines, I roll my eyes. When he pulls his hair down in a peak over his forehead, I muss it up because I can’t stand looking at it.

My seemingly unending annoyance at Travis has been a source of inner turmoil. I don’t like that I feel that way about my husband. What happened to me loving his sense of humor and playful ways? What happened to make me turn into this stern, cold-hearted, serious biatch?

Things have admittedly gotten better over the year and 8 months that we’ve been married. I am little by little learning to love all of Travis. But for the past few weeks, I have been drowning in my failures. Feeling miserable. Wondering how our marriage ended up like this. Confused about how to change the situation. Feeling doubtful about being able to do so even if I did know how. Lacking hope that anything would ever get better. Wanting to give up.

Last night, a series of events happened that brought all of this to a head. I asked Travis to make part of dinner so I could shower after working out. As I walked by the kitchen, he tossed the bag of frozen vegetables to me (because he thinks that sort of thing is fun). I was annoyed (big surprise) and confused about why he would think such a thing is fun so I threw it back a little harder than I should have. That small situation was a big reminder of how different Travis and I are. I got into the shower silently shouting at God, “Why are we so different?!?!? How can I live like this?!?!?”

Then we went to see Australia starring Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman. As we were walking out of the theater, I mentioned to Travis that the movie was way too long for me (2.5 hours). “Well that’s pretty much how long every movie is these days,” he replied. “No, they’re more like 1.5 to 2 hours long,” I said. “Oh ok, 2 hours as compared to 2 and a half. Sorry,” he retorted.

Angry and annoyed at Travis, I stopped talking, except for a few short sentences repeating my sentiment that the movie was way too long. We were almost home before Travis emerged from zoning out (which he does often) and realized that I hadn’t been talking. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

How to answer that? There were so many thoughts racing through my head. I was overwhelmed by our differences and losing hope that we would ever be able to reconcile them. Were we doomed to this distance between us for the rest of our lives?

I asked Travis if he ever felt overwhelmed by how different we are. “Not really,” he said. “But I’m guessing that you do?”

I couldn’t answer with words. I just started crying. I couldn’t fix our marriage and yet it wasn’t at all what I wanted it to be like. What was I supposed to do about it?

I laid down on the couch when we got home and Travis kneeled beside me. I completely lost it. My body was racked with grief and Travis just simply pulled me to his chest. It was the absolute best feeling in the world, to be so utterly broken and sinful, yet so utterly loved at the same time. Crying made me feel better (as it always does), yet I went to bed still feeling helpless and hopeless, begging to God to do something to remedy the situation.

He did just that this morning. I’ve been studying Romans in my quiet times and I have been in Romans 5 this past week. The verses about suffering, endurance, character and hope really spoke to me, because I feel like I have been suffering for a long time, at my own hand.

Today I was focused on hope. What is hope? Hope is trusting God, banking on God, resting in God. David writes in Psalm 62, “For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him.” God is the source of our hope. And our hope is based on His love for us, demonstrated physically in Christ’s death on the cross and demonstrated spiritually every day in the provision of the Holy Spirit.

It is through suffering and trials that God forges our hope in Him.

And hoping in God is not a foolish thing. God and our relationship to and with Him is the ultimate reality of this universe. Whenever I find myself doubting the relevance of the gospel, I have to come back to this fact. The gospel is more real than anything else in this world. The gospel IS Reality.

God reminded me through Romans 5 that I still have hope, because I still have God.

As I prayed about that truth and confessed that I had sinfully given up hope, I realized that I had been trying to “fix” my life on my own. In my marriage, at work, with my life purpose. I was trying to make everything be the way I wanted it to be, the way I thought it should be. And when it continued to go the way I didn’t want it to go, I lost hope. Because while I had prayed for God’s help, I hadn’t actually sought it.

I see now that instead of making my life, marriage, and job be what I want it to be, I should be asking myself what God wants it to be. My marriage and its struggles aren’t arbitrary. God chose my husband and He is choosing our trials for a reason–my eternal good. Instead of accepting the way my marriage is and the way my job is, I have been bucking them, saying that they weren’t what I wanted. I wanted something different. I was bitter and resentful–toward Travis and Phil, I thought. Really, I was bitter and resentful toward God. He is the one determining my life and circumstances. He is the one who has placed me where I am at this time, with these specific problems and challenges. He has handpicked these trials for me to go through, so that He can forge my hope in Him.

Fully offering my life up to the Lord means accepting every little thing from His hand, even the annoying things. It means asking myself daily, moment by moment, “What does God want for me and from me?” instead of asking “What do I want for me?” It means dying to myself, my desires, my expectations, my feelings, and in turn, living for God’s.

I cried hard again this morning, humbled and awed by God’s faithfulness and love. That He would take me through the darkness so that He could bring me out into the light. Just as Travis held me last night while I was crying, God holds me close whenever my heart is broken. He hurts when I hurt. But He knew that to make me better, He had to allow me to be hurt first. 

My heart echoes David’s when he said, “This God–his way is perfect; the word of the LORD proves true; he is a shield for all those who take refuge in him. For who is God, but the LORD? And who is a rock, except our God?” (Psalm 18:30-31)

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Clarity and Hope

17 Jan

I’ve been wanting to blog for the past couple of days but I’ve been [shocker] busy at work and [bigger shocker] busy outside of work this week. So here I am on a nice little Saturday, taking time to read the Bible, pray, and blog.

[Side note/Update: My resolutions for this year are going well. I did create a little reward system for meeting my goals each week and so far, I’ve been doing really well. The hardest thing has been to exercise 6 days a week (my body isn’t used to it) but other than that, I have been consistent in getting in the Word and praying daily as well as memorizing one verse a week. We won’t talk about eating… 🙂 I’m not expecting complete consistency there.]

Saturdays are my favorite day of the week. That’s why I would love to be a writer by vocation: every day could be a Saturday (except Sunday because I’d still have to go to church in the morning). But I love being able to get up early (today I got up at 7:30…I’ve been trying to get up relatively close to when I get up for work so that I don’t mess up my sleep cycle on the weekends) and eat breakfast, read the Bible, pray…just be very relaxed. It reminds me a lot of college. Every day was like this…I loved it back then too.

Anywho…can you tell I’m more upbeat today than I have been in some of my recent posts? (I was being a total Debbie Downer…but I was also being honest.) The reason for my mood/outlook change is that God has been faithful in giving me insight into the past few months.

I was living in my failures and sinfulness. Even though I “knew” I was forgiven, I was still carrying them around as my personal burden. Especially in my marriage. I saw my sin affecting Travis and I was terrified that I was going to ruin our marriage, drive him away–that’d we’d wake up one day in 15 years and realize we no longer knew each other at all…and that we’d be able to trace it back to something I did or said that set the ball in motion.

I was also hating myself. For sinning again and again. For (from my perspective) never learning or advancing. For being a coward and a hypocrite.

But this past week, I remembered that there are many stories in the Bible that depict God using sin or using people in spite of their sin to accomplish His purposes. That means I can’t thwart God’s will or purposes by my sin. That means He can make our marriage thrive even despite my constant threats to kill it. I was making my sin and failures all about me…when nothing is all about me. It’s all about Him. And HE is so much BIGGER than my sin. Who am I to think that my failures will deter Him from His will?

I also realized that I have been holding myself back from God. I felt like a failure and a pathetic sinner who would never learn. When reminded of God’s love,  a tiny voice inside me said, “Yeah but, I’m still doing X and struggling with Y. God’s love is great but first I want to stop doing all these things that I hate.” Silly girl, it’s God’s love that enables you stop doing all those things you hate.

BarlowGirl’s song “I Need You to Love Me” sums up my realizations well:

Why? Why are you still here with me?
Didn’t you see what I’ve done?
In my shame I want to run,
And hide myself.
Yeah, but it’s here I see the truth,
I don’t deserve you.

But I need you to love me,
And I, I won’t keep my heart from you this time.
And I’ll stop this pretending that I can,
Somehow deserve what I already have
I need you to love me

I, I have wasted so much time
Pushing you away from me.
I just never saw how you
Could cherish me.
Cause you’re a God who has all things,
And still you want me.

Your love makes me forget what I have been.
Your love makes me see who I really am.
Your love makes me forget what I have been.

My favorite line of that song is “Cause you’re a God who has all things, and still you want me.” Me, a sinner. Me, a girl trapped in self-pity. Me, an unremarkable person. You want me. You want me. You want me. How powerful each of those 3 little words is.

I have also been reading “God Has a Dream for Your Life” by Sheila Walsh. It’s a good book. Very easy reading. There are 2 passages that stand out to me regarding the whole questioning-life-and-purpose thing I’ve been going through for the past 6 months or so.

On discovering who I am and what God’s will for me is:

“So what are we to make of this God-given promise that if we delight ourselves in him, he will give us the desires of our heart? I love what C.S. Lewis says in Mere Christianity: ‘Your real self will not come as long as we are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for Him.’

“My own journey has taken me away from trying so hard to find the will of God for my life. It has taken me to the place of brokenness and letting go of everything I thought I needed. I found peace and purpose as I lay exhausted at the feet of the Lion of Judah. It took me many years to understand that God wanted my heart, not my schedule.”

God wants my heart, not my fine-tuned plans for aiding His kingdom. He wants me to be who I really am in Christ, not try to be someone I’m not.

On my desire to write but feeling it’s prideful to want to do so:

“Don’t turn your light down just because it seems to burn brighter than the one who stands beside you. Let it shine and hold it high. The liberating truth is that none of this is about you anyway–it is all about God. If God has given you a voice to sing, then sing out for him. If God has given you the gift of mercy, then pour out that mercy in Jesus’ name whether anyone gets it or not. If God has given you a heart to serve, then serve with your whole heart even if no one stops to say thank you. If God has given you the ability to teach, then teach with vision and passion.

“Whatever God has placed in you, use it.”

I’m planning on starting my weekly writing retreats (to Panera, Starbuck’s, or a cute local coffee shop if I find one) this week on Tuesday. I have a lot of books on writing to read, old journals to review, and a long way to go. But it’s my dream and I’m going to pursue until God slams the door in my face. At least I’ll know that I have been faithful in using the gifts God has given me.

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Powerful beyond measure

12 Jan

Let me just say how much I love the Bible, especially when I am going through hard times. There are times when I read a verse and it resonates so closely to my own recent experiences that I am literally left breathless. And I know that my “stumbling across” that verse was no mere accident or coincidence…it was God speaking to me.

As you can see from my last post, I have been having some “issues.” Really questioning my life: what it means to me, what it means to others, what it means to God. Little by little, I have felt the inkling that I am called to write. I absolutely love writing. When I was growing up, I was always writing stories. I wrote one about a porcupine, I started a few novels. I remember going to a football game at the Metrodome when I was 9 or 10 (my oldest brother was in high school).  When we left, I pulled my notebook back out and continued writing.

I also devoured books the minute I brought them home from the library. I loved reading. I still love reading. I am awed by authors like C.S. Lewis and Jane Austen who can create characters and stories that are so fascinating yet so realistic.

I want to be a writer. I really do. But I feel like saying so–as well as saying that I believe God has given me a talent for writing–seems too boastful, too self-absorbed. “Who am I to write? What makes my thoughts or words better than anyone else’s? What makes me think I am a good writer? Who am I to have such high aspirations, such big dreams?” are the thoughts that keep me from pursuing this dream of mine.

But today, Romans 12: 6 caught my eye and left me breathless. Paul writes, “Having gifts that differ according to the grace given us, let us use them…” Let us use them. Let us not leave them on a shelf collecting dust because we’re too falsely humble to use them for the mutual encouragement of the body of Christ. Let us not neglect the developing of them and the pursuit of them because we don’t deem ourselves worthy of such an honor. Let us use them.

We had an intern this past summer at D2S named Emma. She was a great girl and a wonderful help. One day, she gave me (and the other people in my department) a piece of cardstock, decorated with a striped border, with a poem on it written by Marianne Williamson. The poem called to a deep yearning in my heart and I have read it numerous times since that day. I think that it echoes Paul’s sentiments in Romans well and it is a brilliant response to my fears and doubts about writing.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?

You are a child of God.

Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.

We are meant to shine as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.

It’s not just in us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

I am beginning to see just how very true Marianne’s words are.

May they be true in your life as well.

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Let’s try this again…

3 Jan

Several months ago, I created a daily plan for the spiritual and physical disciplines. It was great for a little while but ultimately, it fizzled out.

This is one of my biggest personal tug-of-wars: I would love to be disciplined. I envy those who are. I try to be disciplined. I create schedules and plans and task lists. But my personality just isn’t disciplined. I don’t naturally lean toward rules, structure, plans. What usually ends up happening is that my spontaneity and “what I want to do” in that moment trumps whatever I had “planned on doing.”

But doggoneit, I’m going to try it again, as one of my New Year’s Goals is to strengthen my relationship with the Lord. This time around, I’m going to be more realistic than ambitious. I won’t bore you with the minute details but this is the summary of my spiritual plan:

  • Read the Bible and journal my thoughts/observations everyday (I am going to go through all of the epistles, starting with Romans).
  • Pray everyday.
  • Memorize one verse a week (and recite them on Sunday morning).
  • Listen to one sermon a week (not including church on Sunday).

I think that that plan is doable. And let’s be honest, I find plenty of time to watch TV and read magazines…so why can’t I find time to do these things? There is no reason why I can’t.

As for the physical discipline, I am more consistent but I still haven’t really followed a schedule. But here’s my new weekly rundown:

Sunday: REST

Monday: Pilates or Yoga

Tuesday: 30-45 min cardio

Wednesday: aerobics class (at 5:30 AM!)

Thursday: 30-45 min cardio or REST

Friday: aerobics class (at 5:30 AM)

Saturday: Pilates or Yoga

This schedule may change if/when I decide to start training for a race (once it starts getting nice again outside…which should be happening in about February 🙂 ).

Of course, this exercise schedule is a complement to eating healthy. I’m shooting for 50% carbs, 25% fat, 25% protein. I’ve been tracking my food for about a month and I’m surprisingly close to that everyday. I’m hoping that soon, I can stop tracking…it’s kind of a nuisance. I keep telling myself that it’s about being healthy and treating my body with respect because it is a temple of the Holy Spirit–that means not feeding it high-cal, high-fat foods or feeding it too much/too little food. If I fuel my body correctly, it will run correctly and I will live a long, happy life (God willing).

So this is my attempt at being disciplined. Maybe I should set up a reward system…like a bulletin board that I get to put stars on for every week that I achieve my goals 🙂

That was actually supposed to be a joke, but now I’m seriously thinking about it. That could be a good motivator… 

Just want to wish everyone good luck with any New Year’s Resolutions Goals that they’re making! I’ll continue to update with my victories and losses–let me know yours too!

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Divine Courage

17 Nov

When I got home from work today, I made dinner and then watched 2 episodes of The Simpsons, all the while dreading what I had told myself and God I would do today: go talk to my neighbor Patty about what she believed.

I toyed with the idea of just putting it off until tomorrow or not doing it at all. As I was watching commercials of people who were happy and enjoying their life, I felt bitterness in my heart toward God. “Why can’t I just be content in my own little, comfortable bubble? Why do I feel the need to go out there and take risks? Why can’t I just be concerned with myself?”

I had almost decided to not do it but the feeling of laziness and my desire to not spend the whole night on the couch doing absolutely nothing but watch TV made me get up. In an almost robotic motion, I brushed my teeth, grabbed the jelly jar to return to Patty, and walked next door.

God answered my prayers.

I talked to Patty about random things for a little while: her teeth, fish tanks, jelly canning. Then I asked her what I had planned to ask her: “Travis and I were wondering if you and Fern [her mom] would want to come to church with us this Sunday?”

Patty replied that they weren’t really churchgoing people, that church made her uncomfortable, that she had her own beliefs. I asked, “Would you be willing to talk about what you believe?” And she was. I was over at her house for about an hour talking to her about God and Jesus and praying and religion. I was pumped that I had actually done it; but I was also sad when I heard Patty say what she believed. Most of her beliefs she formed herself, through picking and choosing from other religions. Most of it isn’t biblical. But she’s open to talking more about her beliefs! And I have these little pamphlet thingys I got from Campus Outreach that explain things like “Is truth relative?” “Is the Bible reliable?” “Is God fair?” etc. that I think I will utilize the next time I go over to talk to her.

But I’m just pumped that I shared my faith (and explained the gospel at least twice)!! I actually did it! And I know that it was God who enabled me to go over there. I stumbled when trying to explain a few things and was starkly reminded of my lack of memorized Bible verses. But I did it. I was faithful to God’s leading. I am amazed at myself and even more, I am amazed at God. That He would be willing to work with such a coward as me is humbling.

That is the one thing that Patty felt the strongest against: that I shouldn’t feel like I don’t deserve to go to heaven, because (in her words) I do deserve it. She was surprised that Travis felt the same way. I tried to explain to her that knowing I am a sinner saved only by grace and not by anything I have or will do is the thought that gives me hope. I tried to explain that it was a good thing, that it humbled me and made me appreciate what Christ did on the cross all that much more. But she didn’t understand it. It’s one of those things that is music to the believer’s ears but a stumbling block to those who don’t believe.

Just a few reminders to close:

“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” Ephesians 2:8-9

“He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.” 1 Peter 2:24

“But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” Hebrews 9:26

“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” Romans 3: 23-24

“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together in Christ…” Ephesians 2:4-5

I wouldn’t want it any other way. Praise be to our Lord Jesus Christ!

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