Kindness is a Smile Away!

Everyone wants to feel loved and accepted, but in our instant society are we making it harder and harder to really connect with each other in a lasting way? I pose this question because part of being happy in my life is feeling a sense of purpose and direction, and we need each other to do just this. While we spend our days taking care of ourselves, it helps to remember that everyone needs to be shown compassion! We can make our lives more difficult and painful when we fail to remember that everyone has pain, and no one is completely happy all the time. Can we return to a time where we genuinely care for each other's needs and I don't just mean helping someone financially, I mean caring for one another's emotional needs. Religion tries to meet this need in men and women, and we set up communities of faith, but if we are honest most of us don't live what we preach, (we just like to think we do!)

When we are mindful on how we live our lives, we should think about living our lives with more purpose. Not just so we can be happier, but that our world would be a more peaceful place for us and for those we love. The problem is that we are a "doing society." We like to get things done, and we have no time to enjoy the things we have accomplished or the beauty in life. We feel that if we aren't doing something then we are wasting our time, and we are wasting the time of others. But connecting with people on a real level helps me better connect with myself, and the more in touch I am with my wants and desires the more happier I'll be, and the better the chance I"ll have at making others happy and this world a better place.

The problem is that we have convinced ourselves that happiness is overrated and something resigned for our youth. Part of what gives this world security is when it's inhabitants live in peace or are happy. When we are stressed, we forget to take care of ourselves and we very easily slip into the "doing, the constant doing" that just makes us tired and puts our personal happiness further and further out of our reach. The bible uses the word "Blessed" for happiness and that is just what we all need. We need to take time out of our day to just relax and appreciate our lives (or the moment.) All that doing just makes us tired, and if we are accomplishing a lot and not taking time to thank ourselves for all we are doing, we will end up resenting our own lives, and that is a dangerous place to be. We need to appreciate the things we do for ourselves and the things we do for others, and recognizing people especially in mutual pain, through a smile, can help us feel wanted and that our suffering is not in vain. This is Mike.

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The Parable of the Ten Virgins.

Matthew 25:1-13 I have discovered a remarkable interpretation of this parable that I would like to share with you. The story in the Bible goes like this: “At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. 2 Five of them were foolish and five were wise. 3 The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them. 4 The wise ones, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps. 5 The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep. 6 “At midnight the cry rang out: ‘Here’s the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’ 7 “Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps. 8 The foolish ones said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.’ 9 “‘No,’ they replied, ‘there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy som...

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“Life in the Spirit” is an example that the Apostle Paul gives in the book of Romans starting in chapter 5 and going through to chapter 8. He begins by telling us we are justified by faith (5:1), and have gained access by faith into the grace of God (5:2). We have been delivered from God’s wrath (5:9) and we have been reconciled to God through the death of His Son (5:10). He goes on to explain that through Adam all die (5:12), and that the free Gift of God brings justification and righteousness to the believing sinner (5:15-17). Through our conversion we are baptized into Christ and into his death, which frees us from the law and makes us dead to sin (6:2-4). He explains that just as Christ was raised from the dead, we are given new life in Christ (6:4). Our old unregenerate self was crucified with Christ so that our body of sin might be done away with (6:5-6). Because we have died to sin, we now submit ourselves to God being that we are now under grace, not the law (6:8-1...

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