Holiday Cheer

If the holiday stress is starting to get to you, here's a laugh compliments of The Pastor's good friend, Kurt.





Merry Christmas!

Retraction

OK, so after reading my post from yesterday and thinking about it a little more, I wonder if I wasn't just a tad bah-humbugish. Yes, it was a bad day. Yes, today wasn't so hot either (in any sense of the word), but it's possible I've lost perspective. I seem to be doing that a lot lately. I can probably blame it on holiday stress, but the truth is...I need to get a grip.

My son and I just finished watching "A Charlie Brown Christmas". I love Linus' speech about the meaning of Christmas. No matter how many times I see it, and despite the fact that it's a child's cartoon, I'm awestruck at the word of God every time I hear it. I love hearing the Christmas story in the old King James and I love that it was just told on prime time television on a major network. God is good!

If you're like me and feel slightly freaked out by the holiday madness (or by life in general); if you're pipes are frozen, your wallet is thin, or your to-do list is wildly long, take a moment to reflect on the Savior and the meaning of the season. Things just might come into perspective a little.

It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year -- Not

It's 9 degrees out with a wind chill of -6. I'm not sure I consider that to be the most wonderful time of the year. This morning my power went out just as I was about to step into the shower. I decided to pack up my stuff and head to our church, where I knew I could catch a hot shower. It wasn't until after I got to the church, got my stuff unpacked, and got ready to step in, that I realized there was no water. The pipes were frozen. I moved on to plan C and ended up at my in-laws house for a quick hair and makeup job (it was getting late by now). When I reached work, it was about 42 degrees below 0 in my office. I turned on my space heater and promptly blew the circuit breaker. I reset the breaker and tried again. Same result. Again. Same result. Apparently, neither being clean or warm were in the plan for me today. Most wonderful time of the year--yeah, whatever.

My Favorite Thanksgiving Conversation

Me (to 5 year old family member, wearing a Beatles shirt): Hey, what does your shirt say?

Him: It says The Beatles

Me: Who are the Beatles?

Him: Nobody

Me: Then what does your shirt mean?

Him: It means a whole bunch of Beetles.

Me: Oh. Well then, what's a Beatle?

Him (looking at me like I'm a complete idiot) A bug, duh.

Hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving and remembered to be especially grateful for the children in you come in contact with!

The Miraculous Recovery

Moose hunting appears to be the cure for the H1N1 flu. A week before this picture was taken, The Pastor was in the ER. After a lot of prayer, he looks completely well and happy on this day.

Now I'm the one feeling a little woozy, as he wants to hang that moose head in our living room.

Those Were The Days

The mind is a funny thing. Well, my mind is always a funny thing, but I mean in general terms. My son is playing basketball this year. I'm looking forward to the change from Baseball. Don't get me wrong, I love baseball. But usually, it's a summer sport...however, they make the younger kids play early in the season and in North Idaho, that makes for some FREEZING games.

Basketball is a welcome change. It's inside. It's warm. It's exciting. It's my sport. My friend warned me this morning that you just have to be careful you don't get "Bleacher Butt" from watching too many games. I guess I'm not familiar with that because I was always on the court and not in the bleachers (although occasionally on the bench!)

Yes, that's me below. Don't give me a hard time about the uniform, it was 1987. I was a proud Kamiakin Brave and loved the game.



So I took my son to evaluations last night, and while I watched the kids play, my mind began to play horrible tricks on me. I heard the thump of the ball on the wooden floor; I heard the squeak of the sneakers and the sound of the ball on the backboard and I was transported back. I lost complete sight of the fact that I'm a late-thirties woman and felt like I was 17 again. I felt like I could run out there and run and jump and shoot and steal the ball the way I did in high school. There's only one problem....I know I can't.

You see, I've had these feelings before. It was about 10 years ago (maybe more) and someone invited me to play in a 3 on 3 tournament. I was so excited to be hitting the court again....but the excitement was short lived. I soon learned. I was old and slow and out of shape and the team we played was not. No matter how much the memories tempted me, I would never play ball like I did before. They pounded us (me) to a pulp.

So now, I'm happy to be watching my son and I promise to ignore all impulses to run on the court, steal the ball and run for a lay-up. My only injury will be Bleacher Butt.

The Moose Misfortune

The Pastor is supposed to be moose hunting this week. For those of you who don't know, Moose hunting is a once in a lifetime thing (at least in Idaho). He's tried to get his permit to hunt one for about 15 of our 19 married years and has never been chosen. But this year was different. This was his year. Monday was supposed to be his first day of hunting and Saturday night he started coming down with the flu.

Even though he and I have had some pretty heated "discussions" regarding if and where he could hang a ginormous moose head in our living room, I definitely didn't want him to miss his first big day of moose hunting. But he did. And he missed the second one too. The clock is ticking...he has 14 days to hunt his moose and right now he can barely get out of bed.

Please pray for The Pastor!! Pray for me, too. If he actually gets better and shoots one of these things, my living room decor has the potential to change dramatically!

Personal Growth

Today's my day off. I'm sitting in my overstuffed chair with a latte, my Bible, and my laptop (awesome combination) and I'm thinking of all the ways God has blessed me.

The Pastor and I are coming up on our 20th wedding anniversary in a couple months and, reflecting on where we've been and where we are now, I'm amazed at God's goodness to us in so many ways.

He has worked in our marriage in unimaginable ways, he's provided us with a family when we had no hope of having one, he's prospered us financially, he's grown me spiritually and personally....and the list goes on.

As I glance around the great room while I'm pondering this, I see:

Gloves on the floor
Magazines and Books that have been on the coffee table ALL week
Dishes on the counter
Clothes thrown over almost every chair in the living room
Laptops, glasses, throw blankets, shoes, remote controls
And MUCH more....

I have to laugh because there was a time not that long ago, where the perfectionism in me wouldn't have allowed for this. Granted, I'm still freaking out a little bit as a look around, but the point is that I was able to LET it get like this. That's some major personal growth for me!

My therapist would be so proud! My Mom would be appalled!

Happy Friday!

This Little Piggy Went To Market

This little piggy went to market. Enough said.

Wait, there might be one more thing to say... YUMMO!

Attitude Adjustment

I've been slightly convicted lately about my attitude in my last post. Struggling with pride is never fun or easy.

Yes, it's true that The Pastor and I have been sued unjustly, our vacation to Disneyland was thwarted, and our camping trip was cut short--REALLY SHORT--like just out of the driveway, but I have to ask myself...so what?

I'm reading the book Same Kind Of Different As Me, in which one of the characters is dying of cancer. It's a true story and just thinking about someone else's situation that is incomparably worse than mine, along with some promptings of the Holy Spirit, has given me a little perspective on life.

Despite some financial and recreational loss, God has taken care of my and The Pastor's every need and blessed us beyond what we could ever imagine. I've been reflecting on things like:

"From the fullness of his grace, I have received one blessing after another." (John 1:16)

"He has given me everything I need for life and Godliness." (II Peter 1:3)

"My God shall meet all my needs according to His glorious riches." (Phil 4:19)

and finally

"Shall not the Judge of all the Earth do right?" (Genesis 18:25)

God is the righteous judge and the provider of all that we need. If you need a little perspective in your own life, I highly recommend you take a look at this book. Spending some time with it and with God, just might give you the attitude adjustment you need.

The Yiddish Truth

"Mentsch tracht, Gott lacht." One of my co-workers has this sign by his desk and every time I look at it, I laugh (or sometimes cry) at the truth of it. It's a Yiddish proverb that means, "Man plans, God laughs".

In The Vacation Hokey-Pokey, I mentioned that we were having to switch to vacation plan B. In reality, it was vacation plan C. Our original vacation (Plan A) was a trip to Disneyland. Tonight instead of sitting in my parents living room, surrounded by moving boxes, we should have been at the Magic Kingdom riding Space Mountain and watching the fireworks show over Sleeping Beauty's castle. I had certainly made my vacation plan and Disneyland was it. Maybe God was laughing, because that's sure not the plan he had in mind for us.

Because of The Pastor and I being sued recently (and losing), we were forced to cancel our trip to Disneyland. We decided that even though we had an almost sure case to win an appeal, that in the name of good will and trying to make amends with our accusers, we would go ahead and pay the money.

I've got to admit, even though I thought I wanted to do the right thing, I've been wrestling all week with bitterness. Last week, The Pastor ran into the man who sued us. He told The Pastor how much it meant to him and his wife that we paid them and that all of their animosity towards us was gone. He also mentioned that they used the money we paid them as the rest of what they needed to buy his wife a Mercedes.

That's good news, right? That's what we wanted--as much as it depends on us to live at peace with one another. Perfect. Just what we wanted...a new Mercedes for Mrs. Plaintiff, a cancelled Disneyland trip for me. Hmmm, I might have to do some praying about this attitude of mine.

So anyway, we made plan B for our vacation and tried to have a good attitude. "Camping will be fun" we told ourselves. "Disneyland is overrated anyway."

Then the truck died and we couldn't do that either. Okay, on to plan C. When everything else fails what do you do? You go home to Mom and Dad. We packed the car headed to my parents house...the only catch is that my parents just sold their house and we showed up just in time to help them pack and move.

That brings me full circle to sitting in their living room surrounded by boxes and chaos. The cable company also accidentally disconnected the TV service early and with nothing to do, we decided to squish together on the couch and watch an episode of Monk on my laptop. Like salt in a wound, every so often a commercial from the sponsor would come on to show us how good life could be if we had their product...only in this case it wasn't a product, it was a destination. The sponsor...Disney.

I guess a little (or a lot) more prayer is in order from me. But for now, I better get to bed, the moving truck is coming early...

Low Estrogen

I've been after The Pastor to let me get a puppy and I've been pretty clear that I want it to be a girl. He thinks it's because I'm having a mid-life crisis and it's some sort of warped replacement for having another child. That's not true, and in fact, he has no idea that it's really because our house is becoming more and more estrogen devoid. I can't take all the Tim Taylor style grunting, burping, and obsession with bodily noises. To top it off, now that it's hunting season, it looks like our house has had a camo explosion in the living room.






Although I think my guys are pretty cute, I want all my friends out there who have a housefull of boys to know that I'm beginning to feel your pain and I'm praying for you!

The Vacation Hokey-Pokey

"You put the trailer stuff in,

You take the trailer stuff out;

You put the suitcase stuff in,

And you shake it all about...."

When The Pastor and I first got married, we tent camped. I've got to say, it was never my favorite thing. I can recall countless fights that stemmed from me forgetting to pack essential pieces of camping gear. I distinctly remember the words "Honey, where are the matches?" causing the panic to rise in the pit of my stomach.

After several years of this not-so-fun camping, I begged The Pastor to buy us a small travel trailer. I figured if we had a trailer, I could put the camping essentials in and they would always be there. It seemed like a relatively expensive, but effective way to solve a recurring argument. (Besides, I grew up camping in a camper and I don't care how nice your tent is, that "roughing it" thing is definitely for the birds) Little did I know how much stuff you still need to pack every time you go.

Over the years, our trailer has evolved and we no longer camp, but we RV. There's a huge difference and I laughed out loud as I loaded my espresso machine into our trailer yesterday for our vacation. The Pastor, who used to chide me for not being willing enough to "rough-it" told me that we better pack both TV's for the trailer (in case we needed them). Boy, how times have changed.

We spent a day and a half loading all the necessities of life into the trailer. We packed it all...bikes, games, popcorn, ice cream, clothes, books, firewood, etc... You name it, we had put it in.

Finally ready to hit the road, we pulled out at 1pm. As we turned out of the driveway, the truck died. We coasted past our mailbox and, about 200 yards from our house, came to a dead stop. At 2pm, we had towed the dead truck and the travel trailer back to the house, fielded questions from our neighbors as to what in the world we were doing, and began to unpack it all.

In case you're wondering...yes, I'm blogging this from the easy chair in my living room and tomorrow we are switching to vacation plan B, which does not include repacking the trailer. The espresso machine is too heavy to carry out there again.

Charging My Batteries

I left my house in a hurry last Friday afternoon. I was headed home to visit my parents (well, my Mom...I forgot that Dad was on a hunting trip and was bummed that I didn't get to see him). Anyway, I returned from an appointment around mid-day on Friday, picked up my son from school, ran home to pack for the weekend, and off we went.

When we were just far enough from home that we couldn't turn back, I realized that I left my Blackberry charger at the house. Bummer. I was going to have to watch my usage like a hawk, especially since roaming kills your battery.

As I drove, I thought I might listen to my iPod, but when I pulled it out of my purse, the battery was just about dead and I had to resort to doing things the old fashioned way and actually put a CD in the player.

The reason I was going home was to attend a baby shower for my cousin's third baby, who was born a couple months ago. Even in my rush to leave home, I remembered to toss in my digital camera, but again, as I was driving, realized I hadn't charged the battery in awhile and began to pray that it would hold out until I got home (where I had left the charger). As it turned out, in my stupidity, I left the camera in my suitcase at Mom's house anyway and didn't get one picture all weekend.

Hmmm, although I was unwilling to admit it was my fault, I was definitely noticing a pattern here.

This morning at 5:30 I sat in my home office staring at my open Bible in my lap. I felt spiritually tired and like most of my technology gadgets, I realized I had not charged my batteries in awhile. In the same way that I had remembered to bring my devices, but not the chargers, I was paying some attention to God, but I certainly hadn't allowed myself enough quality time with him to let him recharge my soul. In the 30 minutes that followed, I put my heart on the "charger" and God graciously refreshed me.

If your batteries are feeling drained these days, remember to spend some time letting God refresh you. He's in the battery charging business, if we'll just plug in and give him the opportunity.

Technology Test

Occasionally, we geek-type people need to do a short technology test.

Unfortunately, this post is one of those times. Sorry for the false alarm.

A Father / Son Baptism

I'm not really sure what to say about this post other than I couldn't be more proud of my son. (With the exception of when he told me, "Mom! I need to pray right now and ask Jesus into my heart!"). I think he was nervous because he didn't take his eyes off his Dad, and when it was all said and done, there wasn't a dry eye in the house.

Blessings,

Curveballs

As little girls, we all dream of growing up and marrying prince charming. (see Exhibit A) We dream of living in freshly painted houses with a manicured lawn and stone paved driveway.


Exhibit A - Prince Charming


God has a way of teaching us things by throwing us curveballs in life. It doesn't always turn out like we plan. God has his own plan for us and part of growing is realizing we're not in control.


I saw my husband, The Pastor, come out of the garage the other day and I was quickly reminded that life doesn't always turn out exactly the way I have planned it. Most days I consider The Pastor to be my prince charming, but that day was not necessarily one of them. (see Exhibit B)


Exhibit B - Farmer Pig Pants

Some days those lessons are hard to learn.....

Blondie - Part 2

Woohoo! I got him!

(Okay, so not my most spiritual post ever, but hey, we all live in the real world, right?)

Blondie

When my eyes flitted open this morning, one of the first thoughts I had was, Boy, I need to blog! I get going in several directions, time slips by, and I realize it's been a week or two. As much as I hope not do disappoint my readers, the biggest part of why I blog is for me. It's my purest form of joy in my writing. I do it completely for fun and when too much time goes by, I start to miss it.

I got up on time and stumbled down the hallway to the kitchen to get a cup o' joe (Definitely can't blog without coffee) and I heard my little dog, Bogey, crunching on his dog food. No problems there except Bogey was sitting at my feet. Just then I saw the mouse dart behind the china cabinet. What is it with me and mice??!! I've just got to get me a cat!

I remembered that there's a mouse trap under the kitchen sink, but it's the "old" style and not those new ones that you just squeeze together like a big clamp. I decided I better push past my freak out point, get that trap, and set it. (My OCD gets really unhappy when I have to touch things like mouse traps with my actual hands. How gross!) Then, by good fortune, I found another trap and managed to get it set as well.

By now, I'm getting a little cranky because not only have I not got to the coffee pot, but I've spent the first 15 minutes of my precious blogging time setting (and touching) mouse traps. As I lined the traps along the pathway between where the mouse is hiding and Bogey's dog food, a song comes to mind.

"One way, or another...I'm gunna get ya, get ya, I'll get ya, get ya get ya, get ya,....

The Food Chain

Every now and then I delude myself into thinking that I actually have some sort of knack for growing things. Last year, I had this beautiful pot of petunias that had me on my high horse for awhile. Read this previous post and you'll see that I got bucked off that horse pretty quickly.

Following that, I managed to grow a few tomatoes and they even tasted remarkably good. Although in thinking that through a bit, my Dad was visiting on the weekend I was planting, and technically, he was the one who actually planted the tomato plant. Hmmm, not such a great track record.


This year, I've been shamed once again. Here is a picture of The Pastor's garden. (OK, that's not actually his, but it's a good representation of it. The only difference is that his has an eight foot fence around it. Yes, I said EIGHT. I'll have to write about the Taj Mahal of garden fences at another time).



Here are a couple pictures of the grand sum total of what I've grown this year. In case you can't recognize it, the first one is spinach. I know it looks like a strawberry plant springing up (in September), but trust me....it's Spinach. Well, it's supposed to be spinach. It didn't really grow and instead the left over strawberry plant from last year popped up last week. (I'm no plant expert, but I think the other green things are weeds.)

Here is my tomato plant this year--the one I grew without my Daddy's help. Look hard...that little green thing, Yes, I do believe that's a tomato. Good thing I don't rely on the work of my hand to feed myself!

Praise the Lord for farmer's markets and grocery stores!

Justice

It's a fact of life that things aren't always as they seem. Last week when The Pastor and I went to court, the outcome was absolutely nothing that we imagined it would be. You might have noticed from my last post that I was a little skeptical of going to court in the first place. Unfortunately, just about every one of my preconceived notions came true. It wasn't a pleasant experience in any way, shape, or form.

First, because the summons was very vague, we only knew in generalities what it was we were defending. It's tough to be prepared to argue your point when you don't know exactly what you're arguing.

Second, the other party involved got very nasty and mean. We're not really sure why, but they came out with guns-a-blazin'. Not fun. At any rate, we lost the case and came home not really knowing what hit us.

It's hard not to be angry when things like this happen, but I still stick to the verses I quoted before and also with the rhetorical question, "Shall not the Lord of all the earth do right?"

If you happen to be struggling with something that is or feels like injustice, then be comforted by this...

Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written, "It is mine to avenge; I will repay" says the LORD. On the contrary,

If your enemy is hungry, feed him;

If he is thirsty, give him something to drink.

In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Blessings in the midst of the storm,

The People's Court

Duh-dun, Duh-dun. "The litigants are entering the courtroom..." Duh-dun, Duh-dun...

These words (and unfortunately...music) have been running through my head for the past couple weeks. I remember seeing the original People's Court when I was a kid and thinking how scary Judge Wapner looked. I always thought he was unduly harsh on the plaintiffs and defendants. As I got older and took a good look at most of the plaintiffs and defendants, I understood why he was harsh. Why were these people wasting their time and probably money to hash out petty disputes? (Not to mention the question of why they'd choose to do it on public television.) Why couldn't they just work it out rather than drag it to a courtroom?

Now, I understand. At least for some of them, it's not their choice. Someone summoned and they must appear. Tomorrow morning, I'll find myself in that exact position. I suddenly have more compassion...at least for the defendants. I don't view myself as the kind of person who "goes to court", but at 9:30 tomorrow morning, I will be. I have no choice. The Pastor and I are being accused in a small claims, civil matter and now we must go and defend ourselves. Not my idea of a fun day, but when I get overwhelmed with the possible outcomes, I remind myself...

"Let the Lord judge the peoples.

Judge me, Oh Lord, according to my righteousness,

according to my integrity, O Most High God.

O righteous God,

who searches minds and hearts,

bring to an end the violence of the wicked,

and make the righteous secure."

Psalm 7:8-9

Someone Must Love Me

One of the most fun things about blogging is discovering that someone enjoys reading something that I've written. It's not an ego thing (usually), but actually more humbling to know that I could possibly write anything that would bless or encourage someone else.

Each morning, my Blackberry automatically turns itself on and then makes various tweedle noises as emails are downloaded to it. Mixed with the rest of the emails I get from work and friends, are auto emails that I receive every time someone posts a comment on my blog. On a morning after I've posted something, I usually get a couple of these emails from friends.

The morning after I posted Farmer Pig Pastor, my Blackberry turned on and went crazy with emails. I picked it up to see what was going on. They just kept coming and coming and they were ALL comment emails from my blog. To cap it off it wasn't even one of my friends, but someone I didn't even know. There were 170 in all and I started to get a little excited. Wow, that post must have been better than I thought. Then I noticed that the comments were from lots (almost all) of my posts. Awesome, I thought. They must have liked my post so well that they went through and read everything I wrote. My pride began to swell. Then I noticed it....

CASH ONLINE GET EASY CASH AT YOUR DOORSTEP

...at the bottom of each comment. They didn't like me at all. They didn't read what I had written. My blog had been spammed. Bummer. So thanks to all my friends who send a comment or two on my blog posts. I've learned I'd rather have one real reader than 170 fake comments. Too bad I learned it the hard way.

Farmer Pig Pastor

When The Pastor and I were building our house, we had several arguments about how things should be. (If you're married and you've ever built a house, you know exactly what I'm talking about). It got to the point where I felt some serious negotiation was necessary. I wanted things like certain lighting and windows and he wanted provision for farm animals and a huge shop. When I couldn't take it anymore, I wrote an ultimatum. It looked something like this:

Vaulted Ceilings = Shop
Recessed Lighting = Horse
Sconces in the Master Bedroom = Pigs

...and the list went on. I thought it was pretty clever because while it was obviously a compromise, I would get my things first and chances of us getting pigs and horses were, ahem...slim.

I'm not sure exactly what happened but The Pastor recently decided it was time for me to fulfill my side of the bargain and came home with five pigs. Dang.

I've named them "Went to Market", "Stayed Home", "Had Roast Beef", "Had None", and my personal favorite, "Wee, Wee, Wee". The Pastor is not amused.

When my friend's son was about two years old, he would put on his overalls and tell everyone they were his "Farmer Pig Pants". I never thought it would actually happen, but every day the Pastor puts on his Farmer Pig Pants and goes down to slop the hogs. Though they are just Levi's, it's still makes me laugh.

Of course, I have to laugh to keep from crying. What has my life come to? I'm not just married to The Pastor...I'm married to The Pig Farmer.

Home Alone

Recently, I was home alone. Strange things happen when you're in a big house (or a not so big house, that feels bigger than it is) by yourself. Some of these things really startled me, so I thought I'd share my experiences with you, so you can take comfort if you're home alone anytime soon.

First of all, you hear strange things. For example, when it was very quiet in the house, I could hear myself think. When I turned on the stereo, I could hear the music without having to listen to it over the sound of the TV or a radio in a different room. And, when I did turn the stereo off and the TV on, I could hear it even when it was on an extremely low volume setting. Odd.

Secondly, when you're home alone, your normal routine can be disrupted. I noticed that when I would usually be cooking dinner, I was sitting on the deck sipping iced-tea instead. I was also keenly aware that the 7 loads of laundry I expected to do, turned into only one small load. Additionally, when I picked up the house and went to bed, everything was exactly where I left it the next morning. Strange.

Lastly, when you're home alone, your sleep is often affected. The first night alone is always the hardest. It took me half the night to realize I could move from the very edge of the bed towards the middle without bumping into a seven year old that had climbed in without my knowledge. Although the bedroom is often not the correct temperature or darkness for my liking, somehow that night, and every night after, it was exactly perfect. Weird.

If you find yourself home alone, don't be frightened by the odd events....you might just find out you even like them.

My Delusional Life

How many calories per day do you eat? I was looking at a women's health website and the question was on the computer screen in front of me. Hmmm, let me see... I gave it some thought. Gee I must eat about 1500 calories a day. Yes, that sounds about right. I entered it in. Later that day I was reconsidering the question and decided I'd think about all the things I'd eaten over the past couple days and try to make sure my guess was correct. I'll spare you
the gory details, but let's just say that 1500 calories barely got me to lunch time, forget about dinner (and the dessert I had afterward).

After that, I started thinking of all the questions in my life that I have misconceived answers to. How often do you floss your teeth? (I'm sure it's most days of the week.) How many times a week do you vacuum? (Virtually everyday I told the salesman at Sears.) How much do you spend per month on lattes and hair care products? (Not more than a couple bucks...honest.)

I quickly realized I live a completely delusional life. I consider myself "good" in a lot of areas until I take a closer look. Same holds true for my spiritual life. I compare with others and tell myself that I'm not that bad, but when I measure my actions and thoughts against the holiness of God, I realize just how delusional I am. He asks me to take a good look at him and get a proper perspective. Yikes.

So next time someone asks you how many Reese's Peanut Butter Cups you eat in a week. Think long and hard about your answer. And next time you're tempted to judge your own goodness based on those around you, think long and hard about the goodness of God.