Beautifully Poor

I don't know about you, but I grew up reading Berenstain Bears books and watching the cartoon. My son has a few of the books now so naturally I was drawn to this book. There are 12 stories included in this book and we literally love them all. The lessons in each story are easy for smaller kids to understand (my oldest is 6) and that is very important for these sorts of lessons in my opinion. The topics range from God's love, forgiving, courage, among others. The stories bring out typical situations in a child's life between family and friends so it is easy for a child to grasp the concepts trying to be relayed. Written by the famous Stan and Jan Berenstain, these family classics are a great addition to any families book shelf. Learning how to be a faithful friend, forgiving others, and realizing God's love for each of us are important things to learn. This book has all of those in one beautiful, hard covered volume. It is bigger than I expected, measuring at 10.8 x...

People seem to want to believe that forgiveness is an overnight or immediate feeling. Like you decide to forgive and then those bad feelings about the person go away completely. Just like the puzzle pictured above, forgiveness is about putting the pieces back together. It takes time and a lot of effort. It's about re-claiming YOU from the person who tried to take part of you. Forgiveness is a choice one must make to move on with their lives. It is a process one must work through to finally get to the end of that long, dark tunnel. For everyone who has been hurt, which I am assuming we all have been, the decision to actually forgive is a big one. Holding onto the hurt, anger and possibly even hate seems so much easier than actually letting it go. The thing is, holding onto the resentment and feelings of anger only turn into bitterness which in turn starts seeping into daily life and into our reactions to family members and people in general. The anger, hurt and pain can be see...

I am sure the majority of my readers have heard the scripture I am referring to in the title. This verse is found at Ephesians 4:26 and reads: " In your anger do not sin. Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry." NIV Clarification! It does not tell us to not get angry. We all get angry. In fact, I used to be a very angry person. Just ask some of the people who knew me in my early 20's. I probably wasn't even pleasant to be around because I carried wounds and didn't let them go. It made me an extremely angry and bitter person. When I self reflect I can see how I have changed that and how far I have come. See, when Jesus tells us to forgive others, it is not even necessarily for their good, but for ours. The reason we hold onto anger is because it makes us feel more in control of the situation. Also, there are instances in which we feel they do not even deserve forgiveness so we withhold it. In my circumstance, I stayed angry to keep myself s...