I lost myself

The last couple days I've been thinking a lot about the question: "What do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul?"

My world is a flood

I took another trip upstate this weekend.  This time, to my cousin's house in Albany.  It seems that every time I go visit her, it rains or snows either on my way up there or coming back down.  I remember a few years ago hitting torrential rain, to the point where I couldn't see, all the way from about New Baltimore to home.

The thing I find most amazing in amazing grace is the chance to give it out

It occurred to me today that one of the most tragic things about my brother is that he has no room for grace in his life.  He is the type of person who gives people no chance to atone for their wrongs.  He holds a grudge for years on end.  And by "wrongs", I mean things that he deems wrong.  They don't necessarily have to be wrong.  They just have to be wrong in his eyes.  This makes him a very bitter person.

He might show more grace to those who can do things for him, especially if those things are monetary in nature.  And that makes it all the more tragic.  He's living for money and making himself a sadder and sadder person in the process.

If people treated him that way, he'd be alone.  If God treated him that way he wouldn't be on this planet anymore.  If God treated us all that way, the human race would have ended with Adam and Eve.  We are the recipients of so much grace, and it's tragic when we don't see this and pay it forward to the next people.  And I pray to God I never turn into someone who has no grace to give away.

I used to write letters, I used to sign my name

I remember when I was a kid, when something bothered me, when someone bothered me, I would write to them.  At first I'd actually send them the letters.  This was back before email, before blogs, when the only thing you could do quickly and easily is take out a piece of paper and write it out.  And I would.