How Can We Get Back To Releasing Guilt?

Today's guest post is written by Andrea Ward. She is a mother, wife, teacher, and much more. She wants to be an encourager and I think this post is a great step in that direction. Allow Andrea to encourage you today to release any burdens of guilt that may be weighing you down. Andrea writes at Jesus, You, and Me as well as tweets @citrus_sunshine.

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Guilt is a liar and a thief.Guilt tells me that I can’t feel anything and I must deny the pain of others orthat I must feel it all and be drowned in the sea of pain. Guilt takes mytime and my energy away from God’s adept usage and sinks it into a mire ofuseless wreckage.

We have one of two extremereactions to guilt: either we don’t want to feel guilty about anything or wefeel guilty about everything.

In the case of the former guilt means we didsomething wrong.  We mess upall the time and we need to realize it. This realization can be a healthy thingbecause it makes us care about that person who we hurt or underestimated oroverestimated or discouraged or whatever. That realization pushes us out of ourpersonal bubble and into someone else’s reality.  When we enter someone else’s reality, we mustcare about them. We must do something for them. If we do something for them,then we are making the world better. Guilt strips us of this opportunitybecause guilt is a thief. Guilt tells us this opportunity isn’t availablebecause guilt is a liar.

In the case of the latter, guiltcan haunt your actions and make your second guess your every choice. It canmake you give more than you have and more than you were called to give. I knowof which I speak because this guilt is my battle. My 3 year old plays with thewater instead of washing his hands and I feel guilty because there are kidsthat can’t play with water. Forget about the fact that I have given money tocompanies who help fix this and I have blogged about some of those saidcompanies, and I have created a project to help my students discover thesefacts and these companies. I am spreading the word about this and I’m doingwhat I can to fix it. Guilt says that isn’t enough and I gain something byworrying about my son enjoying the water in the sink. Guilt says I should domore because there is no one else to do it.

It holds me captive in a bubblewhere I only see myself and my mistakes and my missteps. Guilt holds me captivein the belief that I can not do enough good. So I need to stop fearing guiltand you need to stop fearing guilt. 

Guilt is a thief and a liar, butwe have Truth on our side. Guilt is not my master. Guilt is not the lens withwhich I view the world. God is bigger than me and ultimately He is in control,not me. I need to only do His will. When I have guilt under my feet and God outin front of me, I find that I am being led into a place of caring and loving.It is a warm and cozy place, so why don’t you come join me. 

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This post is apart of an ongoing series. If you would like to add your thoughts or possibly write a guest post on the topic of "how do we get back", email me at hssummers8@gmail.com. Thanks for reading and have a great day!

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How Do We Get To Being Compassionate?

This guest post is coming from the one and only Jared Hollier. His website,  Badly Drawn Bible,  is the best and only place where you can find all of his awesome doodles he draws in his notebook while he reads the Bible. He also tweets @JaredHollier.

Here's one of the doodles from his website I found, 

which is somewhat perfect for the post he wrote.

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How Do We Get Back To Doing?

Ricky Anderson is a man. He is also a guy who wrote the post below. He has a heart for accounting, one day becoming a movie star, and sheds (although I'm not sure how accurate any of what I just mentioned is exactly). He also doesn't mess around with over using characters, which I appreciate greatly. He writes at rickyanderson.net and tweets @arthur2sheds.

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How Do We Get Back to Caring?

I think a lot about what a perfect world would be like. I envision the Truman Show: beautiful houses, everyone is happy at all time, there is no worry or pain, we ride unicorns instead of driving cars. It's just a laid back lifestyle where we can all be carefree.

But that world doesn't exist.

God created a masterpiece when he made Earth and humans are in the process of destroying it. I know that sounds grim and unicorns sound so much more lovely, but in actually unicorns don't exist and pain does.

And for some reason we stopped caring about that pain of others. We have become so numb to evil that it doesn't effect us anymore.

Rape is just another thing that happens, child abduction is a sad reality for some, and murder is on the news daily. Anytime I turn on the television I can hear of one or all of those things. It's so ingrained in our world that it's nothing new.

I realize that many of us genuinely feel bad for people that encounter these things, but not enough to help or maybe we just do not know how to help.

I want to help. I want my heart to break for the oppressed and lost. I want to cry my eyes out and feel sick to my stomach when I hear about someone being touched unwillingly or told they have no value. I want my heart to break for what breaks his.

I want us all to be this way and to stand up for people that have been silenced along the way.

Evil will still exist, but we can help the ones that have been put through these horrendous events.

I know the feeling of being alone and scared after being objectified to the evils of the world. All of a sudden the worth once known is vanished and the word valuable is no longer seen as touchable.

But we can help restore value to the ones that feel valueless. We can speak truth and life into those that feel hopeless.

I think one major thing we can do towards restoration is to listen. Listen to the people around you. Show them that you care about what they have gone through or are going through. Each one of us is broken in some way. We all want someone to listen and care for our well being. Be that person to someone.

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We Are Meant For More

The world is slipping to a pointwhere love is not in it. The point where opening up a newspaper seemsterrifying because I know what I read will haunt me to my core (That goes for news on television as well, you haven't seen anything until you've watched the 10 o'clock news in Orlando). The world hasslipped into an evil state of decay. This has been a long time coming, sincethe fall of Adam and Eve many years ago. The decaying state is furthering dailyto where homelessness is accepted and starving children are over looked. Wepass by people on the streets without acknowledgement and don't thank peoplefor the generosity they have given us. 

In the modern society of America we have a plan laid out before us called the American dream. It's clean cut, and to me kind of boring, but humor me for a moment as I take you through what it looks like (because I'm sure you have never heard of such a phrase as the "American dream" before so you obviously need it defined for you). It looks a little something like this: We are to graduate high school and pick a career (or if we are not slackers, we pick our career before middle school). Then we are to go to college where we learn all we can about said career for the next four years of our lives (or six in my case). Once we have graduated magna-cum-whatever we are to jump into the career field where we work most of our adulthood until we retire and move to the sandy white beaches of Florida where we sip coffee on our front porch while playing chess (which I already tend to do on a regular basis). Oh yes, I almost forgot, during the point in time between finishing college and retiring we must get married, pop out a couple kids, and stuff our faces every other year on a Caribbean cruise.

That right there is a lifetime dream, in a nutshell, for every American. And there truly is nothing wrong with that life. But I also believe that we can have so much more to live for than a white picket fence and a goldenretriever named, Stix (or in my case I’d rather have a teacup pig named,Hamlet, but that’s beside the point).

It turns out that the world is bigger than the American dream. (Who knew?) The American dream has created this tone for how we live, and as individuals we have fed this idea. It allows us to live righteously and filled with bitterness towards others who have the dream we want or are behind us in the dream. But we can change this. We don’t have to be completely satisfied by living for ourselves and for making ourselves wealthier and more powerful. Yes, a minivan filled with sweaty kids that just won the soccer tournament is awesome and there is nothing wrong with that, but God has more for us than just the dream of luxury and self-fulfillment. He did not create us to simply live without showing others love. He birthed us so he could love us and that we could love each other. We are created in his image whether we choose to accept that or not. Therefore, since he designed us in his image he designed us to love, be loved, create, help, heal, give, listen, wait, guide and the list can go on for miles upon miles. 

He longs for our hearts to be aligned with his; for us to be a part of his soft beating heart. We, as Christians, are just as much to blame for the state of the world as anyone else. He called us to be set apart, to be different. If we live like the man on the street corner asking for a dollar or the child that is black and blue from his alcoholic father don't exist then we are just as much a part of the world as anyone else. 

But being a part of this world does not fulfill me. When I go to bed at night I am disgusted with how I lived in the hours previous because I could have done more. I could have listened to the cashier that sounded down. I could have given my time to someone in need. I could have simply smiled at someone and told them they are loved. 

This world is not going to be fixed if we don't show love to every part of it. We cannot just show love to our family and friends. Jesus showed us how to love others. He is the perfect example of love. He talked to strangers. He listened to them. He got to know them. He helped them.

Jesus did not tell us to sit in our comfy bubble of family and friends. He told us to go out and make disciples of all the nations. And the first step towards doing so is going out and giving our time, friendship, knowledge, and most of all love.

So I leave you with five words -a question. You can answer it, act upon it or ignore it, but the question remains. 

How do we get back?

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The Time I tried to Help The Drag Queen

The other day I was given the chance to save a life. A life that is filled with love, hate, spite, sin, mistakes, fun, laughter, dreams, and heart ache. You know what, actually I do not know what the life of the person that was in need of saving was filled with because I did not speak more than a handful of words to this young person.

I was riding with my sister down a less than crowded street the other night when I saw in the distance a woman* struggling to escape from the grasp a cowardly man. As our car crept closer I saw the man straggling her and beating her with everything he had, and with everything she had she was trying to fight back.

I began to panic. I started questioning my sister, "What do we do? We have to do something!!! If we just call 911 she will be dead by then!"

We were just two woman with kids in the back seat. I dialed 911 as we were passing by the lady that was soon going to be on the ground lifeless. As I looked back at her I noticed she was on the ground no longer fighting. I jumped out of the car (as my sister yelled at me that I was going to get hurt..I guess that's what older sisters are there for: to try to keep you from doing crazy things). As I was running towards the lady I was also on the phone with 911, trying to explain what was going on. My sister then pulled over the car and waved down some men to help. Once, the man saw me and the other men he jumped in his car and left the lady lying on the ground. She was still conscious and was able to get up and actually walk away with just some cuts and bruises, but the effects from that day will last forever.

As I was contemplating writing this post, I saw so many avenues I could go down. I thought of what kind of message I could get across to my readers. I could talk about the burdens of life, redemption, helping others, the severity that abuse has on our lives, and so on, but nothing seemed suitable.


I don't think any kind of spin I could put on this post works and nothing makes me feel like I actually accomplished any good that night. We weren't able to stop the man before it began. We weren't able to talk to the victim about the worth she has in Christ. We weren't able to thank the men that stopped to help my sister and me.I wasn't able to do anything besides call 911 and jump out of a moving vehicle like a crazy person with no plan of action and quickly tweeting about my sub-par heroic act because I am the least humble person I know. 


So, I guess the point of this post is that, we can't go back to fix what we never did. We have to live as if we have one chance, because a lot of times we do not get a second chance. We have to speak goodness into people's lives, love the helpless, give of our time endlessly, and wake up wanting to do it; because we are loved. We are redeemed. And we are fully capable of outpouring love because we are filled with the ultimate source of love.




*As we approached the lady to tell her the police were coming to help her, we soon found out she was not a she, but she was a he. As I was telling someone this story, they told me, "Well that was nice of you to help even though he was a drag queen." This hurts me to think that the value of life can be lowered because someone is living a life style that you don't desire for them to live. We are called to love the lost, the powerless, the sinners, the widows, the poor, the fatherless. I see no where in the Bible where we are to hold a group of people on a lower level than others. We are to love endlessly, that's the bottom line.

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Why Teachers Should Get Paid More... (Guest Post by the one and only Knox McCoy

Today's Post is from the legendary, Knox Mccoy. Some have said he's a genius. Others have said he's an average Joe. I just say, he's a guy whose name rhymes with fox and takes long walks on the beach. If you want to contact this man of men you can tweet him at @KnoxMcCoy and read all his wonderful writings that make 3 year olds everywhere envious of literate people, at KnoxMcCoy.com.

Take it away, McCoy.






Do you know why Teachers should be paid 2x what they currently earn?

I give you four multiple choice guesses:

A) Because they hold the fragile development of our nation's youth in their teachery hands.

B) Because the expectations they face are immeasurably higher than any other profession.

C) Because though the school day is a set amount of time through a portion of the year, they're never really off the clock when it comes to preparing, worrying, planning.

D) Because of the elementary school smell.

The answer is at the bottom (SPOILER ALERT: It's totally D).

I had forgotten about the elementary school smell until I had to deliver some shirts recently. I opened the door to enter the fine institution of scholarly advancement and it smacked me in the face like a two-by-four with burning human hair on it. I don't know what it is, but I don't like it. It's like crayons, synthetic pizza, and pre-adolescent body odor congealed to form this gassy mass of unholy nose pollution.

And nothing can be done about it. Some people think Febreze may stand a chance. Silly people. The school smell gives Febreze a wedgie and then just adds that smell to it's cornucopia of odor-apocalypse.

Please don't get me wrong. I work at a screen printing shop where inks and chemicals burn the olfactory cells with one sniff. We literally had a delivery person sprint out of our shop a few days ago yelling about how the smell hurt his head. Now I suppose it's possible that the gentlemen had dainty nasal sensibilities, but I'd be lying if I said that his display wasn't an unnerving referendum on the smell of our environment.

ANYWAYS, I say that to prove that I'm not some scent snob working amongst the fragrant wonderments of donuts and bacon. I concede that my place of employment isn't a bed of flowers.

All I'm saying is that either something should be done about the smell. Or teachers should be doubly compensated. That is all.





(Answer: No seriously. It really was D.)

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Dear Smoky Moutains

Dear Smoky Mountains,

Hey man, how you doin? It's been a day since I've seen you and boy do I miss you bunches. We had a rip-roarin' of a good time, didn't we? We did it real big 'cause you have real big mountain so that's how you always do things. Hanging with you is like being on a really big hill with Michael Phelps and Lindsay Lohan, 'cause you are smoky and filled with mountains and those two love mountains.

We did a lot of fun stuff last week, didn't we? I climbed you a lot, which sounds weird, but it's not 'cause you're a group of mountains and that's what people do with mountains. Remember that one time, a few days ago, when I sang you the diddy of all diddies (not to be confused with P-Diddy 'cause blogging just isn't his thing)? It was good, wasn't it? I thought you liked it.

You have trees and hills and usually your hills have trees, which I think is dandy. So hiking with you is cool to do since I'm the adventurous type. You gave me a few bruises, but I forgive you. I know you didn't mean to because you aren't Chris Brown or Bobbi Brown. I guess if your last name was Brown you'd be into that kinda thing, but it's Mountain, so you aren't.

I married a Native American guy last week too. (You were there, so you know that, but the good people that are eaves dropping on this letter don't, but now they do). It was a nice ceremony filled with dancing and that's about it. It was pretty fun for the 3 minutes before I got it annulled. You see, he wanted to share me with the whole tribe and I'm not into that kinda thing.

Our wedding.
He is the nicest Indian I have ever married.

Remember when we fed the bears? They were real cuddly. I bet you cuddle up with bears all the time. Bears don't like me much, so I don't do much bear cuddling. I'm more of a bear wrestler, at least that's what I told my nephew when he asked if they were going to bite us.

Do you miss me? I bet you do, 'cause I'm fun and smell real nice, like an autumn night in winter. That didn't make sense? Probably only because you are a mountain and mountains aren't real smart like people.

You know, you have a lot of waterfalls. I made it my mission whilst I was with you to venture to as many waterfalls as I could. I made it to six if you weren't keeping track. When I visit you again in July I'll probably hike to a few more of your magnificent waterfalls.

I was missing you so much yesterday that I found a trail on the lake by my house and hiked it. It was nothing like hiking one of your trails. Probably because it was filled with mosquitoes and old people and those are two things you never find on one of your trails.

I hope you don't miss me too badly while I am away. It should only be a few months until I see you again. Be safe and stay fly, Smoky.


Your BFF,
Heather

P.S. Maybe you could come visit me sometime. I live in FL. It's kinda nice like a stranger you haven't actually talked to yet.

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