Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ.
Returning to childhood
Giving thanks for everyone in the name of Jesus.
It sounds like the lesson God, the Father, gave me as a young child, and one that lasted until I graduated from high school. If not longer.
You see this, Julia, it is all God. It is all me.
It was like being given a chance to work on the largest jigsaw puzzle in the universe.
So my childhood was spent not getting the pieces to fit.
The pairing that seemed right made no sense to my mind. So I got to do a lot of sitting and pondering about it all.
Why did one church drink wine as part of its worship service, and yet another church preached that drinking alcohol was a sin?
Made no sense.
And why did some guilty people see no justice applied, while some innocent people were punished?
Like Jesus. The perfect image of innocence.
Who was punished.
According to God’s plan.
And then there’s the whole matter of Judas.
If this was God’s plan that Judas set in motion, why is Judas guilty?
He’s a character, much like Cain, who did the wrong thing within a relationship with God.
Like Mary, who agreed to get pregnant before she was married.
Wrong paths.
Wrong actions.
God involvement.
Anyway.
My childhood was my constantly asking God, Are you sure you want to claim this as your own?
Let’s face it. It makes life a whole lot easier to understand if we separate God out from things we don’t like or fundamentally confuse us.
Black and white.
Good and evil.
And it’s all God.
All created by God.
And he claims it all as his own.
Even the Bible plays tricks with us.
Adam and Eve: first people
Cain and Able: first children
Cain marked by God so that all the “others” don’t harm him.
Others?
All me, says God. It’s all my doing.
And then he sticks his finger through time and spins my reality around so that I can begin to understand how miracles work.
Giving thanks for all things in the name of Christ has always been a challenge for someone like me.