my experiences

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I Didn’t Know What Would Happen Next

You just don’t know what will happen next. Fortunately, most of the time what happens is what we expect or what we could predict will happen. 

But sometimes what happens next is so unexpected, so unimaginable that it changes everything for the immediate future or forever. 

One week ago there was a shooting in the emergency room of the Kingston General Hospital. 

I was there. It happened out of the blue and it altered the lives of everyone in that ER, at least for a few hours, and maybe for years.

The whole thing unfolded before me like in a movie. 

I used to play a video game called “Uncharted”. There really isn’t another game like it. The game combines action sequences, where you use the joystick to make the main character perform actions like climbing and a host of other things, with video scenes to fill in the background storyline and dialogue between the main characters. 

When I was playing the game, and Lily would come into the room, I would always say, “Sit down; it’s like watching a movie – only I also get to participate.” 

And that’s exactly like what I witnessed in the hospital emergency room this last week.

I went in to visit a man from my congregation; his wife met me there. 

We sat with him in a curtained off bay with other patients on either side of us and across the way from us. 

During my visit I heard a noise like someone falling into something. Naturally, I looked out the opening of our curtain to see what was happening. 

What I saw was three men struggling with each other, coming toward me. Two of them tackled the third man right at the opening in our curtain. 

The two men doing the tackling were corrections officers. The third man was an inmate from a maximum security prison.

The officers were struggling to contain the inmate because he had somehow managed to grab one of the correction officer’s guns. 

As they wrestled on the floor of the ER, about 6-8 feet from me, the gun went off. 

It was one of the most helpless feelings one could experience. There was nowhere to go. The gun was facing towards our bay, towards us, and we couldn’t do anything to stop it or get out of the way. 

The fumes of the gunshot made me cough; I tasted a grittiness in my mouth. 

I wanted to get out of the way; I wanted to protect the ones I was visiting. I was moving from screening the patient’s wife from what was happening on the floor, to comforting the patient who reacted with a jolt when the shot was fired. 

We could do nothing but wait – wait for the officers to get the gun from the inmate or for another shot to be fired. 

Within about twenty seconds, another shot rang out. 

Shortly after that the gun was secured and the inmate subdued. 

An innocent person was hit by one of the shots. There was a bullet imbedded in the wall of the bay I was in. 

… And the lives of twenty to thirty people had changed in a flash. It was so unexpected. 

Here’s the thing: Life often flows like you think it will, or you predict it will. But the unexpected can happen at any time, and change your life for a moment, an hour or forever. You don’t know when a moment like that will happen to you. You can only mitigate an unexpected life change by being ready for anything. Be ready to face God. It could happen any time. Don’t wait, delay or even ponder it – place your faith now in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour. Then you’ll be ready for the unexpected.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: Are you ready to stand before God? Leave your comments below.

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Some Injuries Tempt You

When it comes to injuries, I’ve had my fair share … but I’m tempted to ignore some more than others.

I’ve had injuries where there was nothing I could do but wait until the injury was better before I resumed activity. 

I think of the many times I’ve hurt my left knee – I have a torn ACL (anterior cruciate ligament). Before I knew what that was, I had injured that knee many times. 

My surgeon went in and cut out a portion of my cartilage and decided that I could treat the ACL with a brace – not a cheap, off-the-shelf kind of brace, but one that was moulded to fit my knee exactly. It was pretty pricy and, over about 25 years, I’ve had two made.

When I injure that knee, I’m out of commission. I hobble around for a week or two, but know my knee won’t be stable again for another few weeks.  

There is no playing hockey, no exercise involving my legs at all. I can only sit around and get out of shape. 

But there are other kinds of injuries that tease you a little. You get hurt but think, “It’s not that bad; I can still keep going. I just won’t go as hard as normal.” 

… In theory that’s great, but in reality it doesn’t work out that way.

Recently, I pulled a groin muscle playing hockey. It didn’t seem that bad; it was more of a nagging kind of pain … you know, one that you can play through. 

“This injury isn’t going to sideline me,” I decided. I played hockey a few days later with the idea that I would take it easy and not skate too hard.

The problem was the game was fast. There were a lot of young guys on the other team so our team had to work to keep up.  

Without thinking, just keeping pace with the level of play, I found myself skating pretty hard at times. In fact, I could feel a little pain when I took off quickly or tried to out-skate a guy on my heels. 

I could do it. It was the kind of injury that wasn’t going to hold me back. 

But I paid for it the next day. It was sore to walk without a limp. Even getting in and out of the car required some delicate manoeuvring. And when I slipped on an icy patch of sidewalk, I thought I tore the muscle more. 

This injury that wasn’t too bad, and had tempting me to keep going, had just gotten worse. Now I was looking at having this nagging injury for a very long time – maybe all season. 

So, I’ve made the decision that I’m going to stop skating until this thing gets better. 

I might miss a week of hockey, but it’s better than playing with that nagging pain every time I move a certain way. 

Here’s the thing: There are some things in your life about which you think, “I can keep doing this; it’s not that bad; it doesn’t hurt me, or my witness; it doesn’t cause pain to anyone else.” You may think you have it all under control, but the reality is you need to stop it. That thing will just nag at you and will, at some point, become a problem that forces you to stop. Listen to the Lord’s voice quietly telling you to stop now before it gets worse.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What might you be doing that’s not that bad, but you really need to stop doing? Leave your comments below.

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Don’t Miss The Window Of Opportunity

The other day we missed the window of opportunity and it created a whole new scenario for us for the next five hours.

We actually had two chances to make it through a winter window before our travel plans were severely hindered … but we got caught in a winter storm and it wasn’t even winter yet. 

The middle of November is not usually snow weather, but we can get some weak, wet flurries that might stick to the grass but not usually to the roads. 

This time it did.

My wife, Lily, and I were leaving the Muskokas after a conference. Though there was snow on the ground, the roads were clear and it hadn’t snowed up north in several days. 

As we drove south to Toronto, and the landscape changed from white to green, I thought how nice it was to have the grass in view again. 

But I was too hasty. 

We stopped at an outlet mall to buy me a pair of shoes, which proved to take longer than we had originally thought. 

That was where we missed our first window. If we had just driven straight home, I think we would have beaten the snow storm all together.

But sometimes you don’t have the foresight you need for the situation.

I remember listening to a pastor talk about visiting an elderly woman in his church, way back in the 50’s.  

He said she had fed him coffee and a piece of pie. Unfortunately the pie was rancid and there was no way he could force that pie down his throat. 

He looked around for a way to dispose of the pie without the woman noticing. He was sitting by a window that was open at the time, and he thought it would be the perfect solution.

The pastor waited for the woman to go back into the kitchen and, as soon as she did, he threw the pie out the window. 

Unfortunately, he hadn’t noticed that there was a screen in the window. 

You could say he missed the window on that occasion! … and I would have loved to have heard his explanation. 

The first thing you want to do is make sure there is an open window. 

In our case, we never checked to see if we needed to take the window of opportunity and get out of Dodge to dodge the storm. Instead we decided to meet our daughter for dinner. 

That was the second window we missed. 

If we had have gone straight home after the outlet mall, we might have been mildly delayed by the storm. But when we committed to having dinner with Karlie, there didn’t seem to be any reason not to stay a little longer in Toronto.

Well, we missed the second window and as dinner went on I kept looking outside at the snow that had started falling and thinking, “We really blew it. We should have taken those windows.” 

As a result of missing them, it was one long, slow and treacherous three plus hours drive home.

Here’s the thing: There are many windows in life that we can either take or miss. Three important windows not to miss are: taking Christ up on His gift of salvation – none of us knows when that window for us will close; taking the way out when temptation urges us to sin; and forgiving quickly because it just gets harder to do it later. 

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What window of opportunity do you need to act on right now? Leave your comments below.

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I’ve Been On A Wild Ride

It was a wild ride and I hadn’t gotten out of bed yet. 

When I turned my head and opened my eyes, my bedroom seemed to be moving. I knew it wasn’t, so I turned over and closed my eyes to see if I could make the ride stop. 

Sometimes that’s all you can do. 

I remember when I was a kid, my brother, another kid, and I went to the EX (CNE – Canadian National Exhibition). 

This is one of Toronto’s historical end-of-summer traditions. We would even get a ticket to kids’ day at the Ex with our end-of-year report cards. 

It was near the end of the night; we were going to go on one last ride. We decided on the Toronado, a roller coaster-type ride. 

But we accidentally got in the wrong ticket line and bought a ticket for the Zipper instead. The Zipper was more like a merry-go-round type ride … only with a sinister twist.

The first clue was the seats you rode in. You were in a cab that seated four people. But it was a cage, because you were completely enclosed. There was a big wheel in the middle of the cage, coming up from the floor that could turn. 

The cage we were in started to go around in a circle, but then it also started to flip around. It was like the earth that goes around the sun but also spins as it goes. 

Let me tell you that on a much smaller scale than the earth sun scenario, this was a wicked ride.

We were thrown back against the cage and the only way to avoid the centrifugal force was to hang on to that big wheel in the center. 

We all took turns. You could spin the wheel to make the cage go faster, but we just tried to slow it down. 

Half way through the ride we all gave up. Plastered to the outer walls of the cage, we closed our eyes and hung on till the end. 

Our heads were spinning; we were dizzy to the point of nausea. Thankfully no one threw up – that would have been ugly! 

I never wanted to go on that ride again and I never did.

That is what you call self-imposed vertigo. 

I’m not sure if what I had this morning was vertigo, but it sure reminded me of that ride … only it wasn’t self-imposed.

The first time I got up, I stumbled to the bathroom like a drunken sailor. I went back to bed after that and closed my eyes to wait out the ride. 

My wife, Lily, told me there was some infection going around that causes vertigo symptoms and there were a number of people that had it. 

I sure don’t want to be one of them! … I’m thinking that maybe I was a little tired after a very long, busy day yesterday. 

I think a good game of pickup hockey will fix me. Maybe the vertigo will help me deke past other players today.

Here’s the thing: Life can get so busy, it leaves you spinning. When you get to that stage you need to slow things down. You need something that will intervene in all the crazy busyness. Two things can help: Break away; get somewhere different, somewhere quiet and calming. The right scenery helps – something peaceful. The second thing is connecting to the God of all peace. If you will spend time with Him, and listen to Him, God will help you see straight so the way ahead is clear. 

That’s Life,

Paul

Question: What has you spinning around in circles right now? Leave your comments below.

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We’ve Reached Our Limit

I think we may have reached the limit of what we can put in our house.

Have you ever tried to stuff one more thing into a box but then couldn’t close the lid? You move the things around in the box to get a better fit but, in the end, there’s still one too many things in the box.

We do that every year when we fill our Samaritan’s Purse Christmas Shoe boxes. 

I know we’re not the only ones because I see lots of boxes coming back with elastic bands around them to keep the lids closed.

We all must have some urge in us to stuff those boxes beyond full. 

We know that water has a saturation point. You can put salt in water and it will dissolve, but if you add in too much salt, you will reach the saturation point and see salt at the bottom of the pot. 

I wonder if we can do that with a house?

Is it possible to put one too many things in a house so that it reaches its maximum capacity and there is no more room? 

We know hoarders do that. I once saw a show on TV where they took a camera crew through the house of a hoarder. There was stuff piled almost to the ceiling with only paths through the house from one room to another.

But long before we get to that stage, I think it’s possible to have one too many things that you just can’t fit into your house without it lying out in the open … with no real place for it to belong, with nowhere for you to tuck it away.

My fear is we have reached that place in our home. We were billeting a few teens this past week, and naturally we wanted to clean things up. 

We are also making some changes to our exercise room, which means we need to find some new places to put things. 

As I was surveying the collateral piles of stuff that needed to be put away somewhere, I thought, “I don’t think we have a place to put everything.” 

We have more than one thing too many for our house. When I think about it, we have a lot of stuff. 

I’ve thrown out the things I don’t want, and the paper that should have been disposed of years ago. But I don’t know where to put some things that I want to keep more for sentimental reasons than to be used. 

Among the things that I want to keep is a VCR. We don’t use it any more but I have some video tapes that I would like to convert to digital some day. So how can I get rid of it? 

The problem is we seem to have reached the saturation point in our house and we have no more closet space, crawl space, storage areas, or drawers to put things in.

One thing is for sure – we have to get a lid on all this stuff … today!

Here’s the thing: We try to keep a lid on emotions, our thoughts and, yes, our sins. We stuff them into places that we don’t really notice at first and refuse to look at later when they get more visible. Just like a box, or even a home, you can get to the place where you can’t put the lid on anymore. Your stuff is going to spill out. Way before you get to that place, do something about it: give it to God; seek a friend to help you; sort out your inner junk. Deal with it now rather than later.

That’s Life! 

Paul

Question: What is cluttering your inner self right now? Leave your comments below.

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It Was A Powerful Experience

There are a lot of powerful things in nature, and this past year we’ve seen more than our share of nature’s power on this earth.

Though there have always been reports and news stories of hurricanes, tornados, floods, tsunamis, and earthquakes, this year we have felt the power of nature a little closer to home. 

Canada gets its fair share of cold, ice and snow, but for the most part we’re spared many of the devastating natural disasters. 

This year, however, we’ve had run-ins with fire, wind and water on a greater scale. Yet, in spite of all that, where I live we experienced the best summer weather in about four years.

You can’t really appreciate the power of nature by watching it on TV. It’s only in person that you can feel the immense force of nature. 

… Like when you stand on the edge of a rock, overlooking the surge of water dropping to the next level – that’s when you really get how powerful water can be. 

… Or when you drive through a city that was hit by a tornado the night before and see metal twisted around trees, and roofs ripped off of homes, then you realize the power of wind. 

Yesterday we were closing up our cottage for the year and during the day the wind got progressively more intense. 

The trees seemed to all move to the music of the wind … and it must have been more like rave music than a slow waltz because the trees were dancing wildly!

There were warnings of extreme winds, but from the comfort of our cottage, the only indication of the weather was the sound it provided. 

Just after sundown, Lily and I went for a walk down to the beach. We could see the dark clouds racing across the sky. 

As we got closer to the beach, the noise of the wind increased. We also felt the wind more, especially when there was nothing in the way to block it.

I’ve watched television news reporters standing outside, giving their weather reports, hours before a hurricane would be full throttle on that city. Sometimes you could tell they were struggling not to be blown away. 

I have often thought that those reporters had tiny toothpicks for legs … I don’t any more.

We stood just onto the beach. The forecast was for wind gusts up to 80kph, and though I didn’t fear that I was going to get blown over, I had to brace myself to take pictures and video. See one of the pictures I took above. 

When we walked against the wind, we had to do so with a serious forward lean to fight the push back of the wind. 

… And that wasn’t even close to the power of the wind in a hurricane! 

Both Lily and I marvelled at the power of the wind and the waves as we surveyed Lake Huron from the beach.

Powerful.

Here’s the thing: As powerful as the wind might be, as hungry as a fire is, as devastating as water can be, God’s power is over all these and more. There is nothing – no power of earth – that is as powerful as God. So when you see first hand the power of water, fire or wind, comprehend its force, but know that there is someone more powerful. There is One who can control and command the power of each and every element we have on earth: God. May you be in awe of the Lord every time you see the power in nature. 

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What powerful force have you experienced lately?  Leave your comments below.

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Losing Is Not An Option

I don’t like losing things. Maybe that’s why I keep my things close to me. 

I’m not the kind of person who puts my keys down on a table. I don’t pull my wallet out of my pocket unless I’m paying for something … and now that I use my watch for many transactions, I don’t even have to pull the wallet out that much.

I know where my things are so I don’t have to look for them. 

But there are times when things get misplaced, or you do something you don’t normally do and forget where you put that thing.  

Fortunately, in those circumstance, I’m pretty good at remembering my last steps. Usually within a minute or two of tracing my steps I can find what I’ve lost. 

I know people who are always putting their keys or wallet down and, as a result, are regularly looking for them.

Some people are not good at remembering where they put things, or they’re not very observant and don’t see things right in front of them. 

I remember when my sister was young, I could ask her to get something that was in the middle of a room and she would come back empty-handed. She’d say she couldn’t find it, and then I’d go into the room and locate it right away.

The other day, however, I was biking and lost my bike computer. I was surprised because this watch-sized computer locks very securely onto my bike. 

The biggest hindrance to finding it was that I didn’t know exactly where I’d lost it. I hadn’t noticed it was gone right away and when I did, well, let’s just say I’d covered more than several kilometres of trail.

And that’s the other thing … it’s not like it was on a road, or a clear surface. I ride on trails that are uneven, hard-packed dirt, covered with leaves, twigs and the like. It would have been easy for the computer to even bounce off the trail and be covered by foliage. 

I remembered hitting the end of my handlebar hard against a rock cliff outcropping that gave me a good jolt. Maybe it was there that the computer came off. 

I spent an hour going back very slowly over the trail but didn’t find it. 

A few years ago, I had lost a fitbit off my shorts while biking and never found it either. I figured that this computer would be the same, that I’d never see it again. 

Then, three days later someone posted on the bike club’s facebook page that he found it. 

Like finding a needle in a haystack, somehow this guy found my bike computer. Obviously he had greater observation powers than my sister.

I still don’t like losing things, but now I have a second chance with this little gizmo.

Here’s the thing: Sometimes we can lose our way, get off track, and not know how to get back. We are lost. Never forget that no matter how lost you feel, how far from God you have become separated, He doesn’t stop coming after us. God never loses sight of us and if you will stop where you are and look, you will be found by Him. What has caused you to lose your way? Give it up; confess it. He will pick you up and you will find your way.

That’s Life,

Paul

Question: Is there something that’s gotten you off track? Leave your comments below.

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The Perfect Match Is A Myth

I think it’s a myth that two people can be a perfect match. I don’t think two people can ever be perfect together. 

Do you remember the old fairy tale of Goldilocks and the three bears? In that story, Goldilocks stumbled into the bears’ house and tested out several things in the house: three bowls of porridge, three chairs and three beds. 

Each time she discovered that the little bowl, chair and bed was “just right”. 

This story is so far from reality, no wonder it’s a fairy tale! … Forget the three talking bears, and the fact that they lived in a house, made and ate porridge, sat in chairs and slept in beds. That wasn’t the wild fantasy. 

The real fantasy was that some of that stuff was “just right” to Goldilocks! 

That doesn’t happen in real life. There is never a perfect fit. 

We can get close, but it will never be perfect. 

I’ve been married for 33 years now and you would think that my wife and I would become more and more of a perfect match over the years. 

Not so. 

Recently there have been two glaring examples how we are not a perfect fit. 

The first example is with clothing. You would think that by now if Lily asked me to comment on her outfit that I would be able to tell her what I thought and it would help.

It doesn’t. 

I don’t know how to comment on her outfits. If I say it looks really nice, I may have said it too quickly or without looking at her long enough to make an informed decision. Maybe my facial expression wasn’t quite congruent with the comment I was making. 

At any rate, whatever I say it is not “just right”. 

There is no perfect fit here. 

And then yesterday, Lily and I were walking across a parking lot to enter a store and she exclaimed, “I can never figure out how we can walk together.” 

She was walking fast and trying to adjust to my slower pace. Sometimes, however, she has a hard time keeping up with me. 

Lily just wants us to be able to walk together at the same pace, but it’s never “just right”.

I’m not trying to move out of step with her; my stride just changes with where I’m walking to, and the purpose of our walk.

For instance, yesterday we were walking into a store. I can’t tell you how unexcited I was about doing that. Thinking about shopping makes me tired, so I’m not walking too fast into that. 

On the other hand, earlier in the day we were going for a walk in a park and Lily was having a hard time keeping up.  

For the record, at the time, I didn’t know she was working hard to keep up with me.

In that instance I was looking forward to getting out of the heat, so my mind was set on getting through it with few delays.

You see, we are not a “perfect” fit. It’s never “just right”. … but we’re really good together!

Here’s the thing: When you are evaluating your church, or your small group, or maybe the ministry you serve in, don’t evaluate it for a perfect fit. It’ll never be “just right”. Don’t wait for God to make it perfect or bring something perfect along. Trust Him to make you good together. 

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: With whom have you found you are good together? Leave your comments below.

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We Celebrated Yet Again

The other night my wife, Lily, and I celebrated our wedding anniversary – our 33rd.

It’s pretty normal to mark special occasions with a celebration of some kind. Some celebrations include many people, some just a special place. 

Lil and I have celebrated in different ways over the years. There were some that are more memorable than others. 

There was the time on our tenth anniversary that we stayed a night in the Fantasyland Hotel at West Edmonton Mall. We had a choice between choosing the Trucker Room, where the bed was actually in the back of a pickup truck, or the Polynesian Room with a canopy bed, a large fountain jacuzzi tub, and greenery that gave the feeling of being in a garden. 

Lil picked the Polynesian Room over the Trucker Room which was okay because I wasn’t really drawn to sleeping in the back of a pickup truck anyway. 

Many of our anniversary celebrations have involved just the two of us going out for a nice dinner to a unique or special restaurant. 

But there have been times when the celebration got bigger and extended – like for our 25th anniversary. That was kind of a whole year celebration. 

We started out at the beginning of the year going a cruise with our children, marking likely our last family vacation. Then a few months later, we spent 14 days on a tour of Israel. We finished off our “year of jubilee” with purchasing a park model trailer at our vacation spot at Sauble Beach. 

It was an expensive anniversary celebration, but one year we won’t forget. 

Celebrations are necessary; they highlight something that is special. They cause us to reminisce about the past and recall the good things, accomplishments, and milestones of life. 

They cause us to remember why the thing we are celebrating matters. 

We celebrate birthdays, achievements, goals, successes, victories, and even sometimes we celebrate for the sake of celebration. 

The thing about celebrations is that they pertain only to those on the inside of the celebration. 

The other night Lily and I had dinner at a restaurant on the St. Lawrence River, overlooking the water from a screened in porch. As the sun went down and the moon came up, the light glimmered across the water. The boats below us gently rocked back and forth tied to their docks. 

It was special, but the people who were seated at tables around us had no idea we were celebrating anything. They weren’t party to our celebration. 

It was a private celebration in public.

A celebration can include many, but the many will only celebrate if they are connected in some way to the special occasion. Otherwise they are completely oblivious to it all. It makes no impression, no remembrance, no reminder. 

Only the celebrants experience the richness of the occasion. But for them, even when it is quiet, it’s a true celebration … Happy anniversary, Lil.

Here’s the thing: There will be a celebration when Christ returns. When Christ returns, this world will be made right. There will be peace; there will be joy; there will be a celebration. But that celebration, like any celebration, will be for those who are connected to Christ. It will be the greatest celebration this world has ever known, but it will be anything but a celebration for those who have no tie to Jesus. No one will want to miss being part of this celebration, so make sure you have a personal relationship with the One who is being celebrated. 

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What do you have to celebrate today? Leave your comments below.

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You May Not Be As Strange As I Think

 

The other day I came to realize I’m as strange as other people.

I think most of us think we are normal and everyone else is a little weird … or, at the very least, that other people have odd quirks about them that we don’t.

That’s not correct. I see now that we all have our little bits of oddness; we are all odd.

… Which reminds me of a club in my city – it’s called the Odd Fellows. Now there is a group that has embraced the fact that they are not like most people. They are okay with being strange, a little off-centre, even weird. And they have banded together to accept one another. 

I guess that’s what we should all do. 

I came to my realization of being odd during a conversation about the strange eating habits of other people. Granted it was almost dinner time, the BBQ smelt delicious and I was hungry. 

I mentioned that I knew a guy who didn’t like his food to touch and who ate his food one item at a time. 

My friend jumped in at that point and said, “What’s wrong with that? I don’t like my food to tough either and I always eat my food in an order.”

My first thought was, “Wow! There are two of them out there.” 

But that was really nothing compared to this guy I know. When he would eat pizza, he would separate all the parts. That’s right, the toppings (eg. pepperoni) would each go in separate piles, the cheese in another pile, leaving the crust bare. Then he would systematically eat each pile until that pizza all came back together in his belly. 

They say that when you eat, your food gets all mushed together, but when you eat like this guy I think your food actually reforms to its original prepared state!

That description even made my friend, who identified with this guy, exclaim, “Wow”, as in, “That guy really is weird.” 

But this is where it started getting spooky for me. I kept thinking and talking about how I eat some foods. 

For instance, when I have corn-on-the-cob with my meal, I always eat it first. Before I eat or taste anything else, I finish off my corn. But if the corn is already off the cob as kernels on my plate, then I eat them with everything else.

When I eat Chinese food, I always eat my egg roll first. I never leave it to the last, or eat part of it and save some for the middle of my meal. I down that thing first.

When I eat at Swiss Chalet, the first thing I do when I get my meal is butter that bun and eat it. I don’t touch the fries or the chicken until that bun hits the bottom of my stomach.

And It was right about then that I realized, “I’m as weird as the guy who eats pizza like it’s a  three course meal!” 

I don’t think I can handle the idea of me being weird so it must be that we are all a little odd … which actually makes us all the same.

Here’s the thing: We are all in need of the same saviour because, though our sins may be different, and some sin may SEEM worse than others, the fact is we are all the same in that we all sin. Never excuse your sin as being normal. We’re all in need of a Saviour – Jesus Christ – and His forgiveness.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What sin have you excused yourself of because you view it as normal? Leave your comments below.