Things I learned over Christmas Break:<\/p>\n
For the week that I was sick over break, I was pretty much confined to the couch and my bed.\u00a0 My only human contact was with my boyfriend Daniel and his parents and the occasional people who visited their home.\u00a0 Now, being an introvert by nature, I could survive with little or no human relations for a good while.\u00a0 But the people that I was surrounded by over break simply refreshed my soul and taught me.<\/p>\n
My boyfriend\u2019s father is a pastor of a local church, the church I attend, and I often get to hear how God is actively working in the church when I spend time with him. \u00a0He deals with a lot of people who have sin in their lives (because let\u2019s face it, Christians still sin from time to time) and it affects his life and causes him pain.<\/p>\n
Often I think to myself, \u201cHow do you still love people when they sin and still treat them like they have not hurt you?\u201d\u00a0 I have always known that Jesus taught to forgive others and to love them, but sometimes when it gets down to the nitty gritty it\u2019s hard to live it out practically.\u00a0 There are so many times that people sin in a way that affects my life, and I want to love them in a Christ-like way but my hurt is too great.\u00a0 From all the stories I heard from Daniel\u2019s dad, I have learned (or maybe even simply reiterated) that everyone has a past and that everyone has sinned and so we must love them and live life with them regardless.\u00a0 This has been pounded in me from my experiences with people and learned in classes at CBU.<\/p>\n
In order to make disciples and live life in harmony with other believers, we must look past our hurts and purposefully invest in people, even if they do us wrong.\u00a0 The justice-seeking part of me always says, \u201dBut they just sinned last week and hurt me in the process! How can I know that they are truly repenting?\u201d But Daniel\u2019s mom taught me something that was so wise.\u00a0 She said that when Jesus talked to the woman at the well, He did not say \u201cWhen was the last time you sinned?\u201d\u00a0 He said, \u201cFrom this point on, go and sin no more.\u201d\u00a0 Whether people hurt us last week or the last minute, we must forgive them and love them past their sin.<\/p>\n
It seems like I am constantly learning and relearning these lessons, and God keeps putting wise people like these in my life to teach me.\u00a0 I am thankful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Things I learned over Christmas Break: Homemade tamales are the BOMB! I should be an honorary Mexican for my tamale-making skills. Being sick on Christmas Day is no fun. Chinese food still tastes good for at least a week.\u00a0 Trust me. I am addicted to food.\u00a0 You would be, too, if you were not allowed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-audrey-hanson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.calbaptist.edu\/lancerdiaries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.calbaptist.edu\/lancerdiaries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.calbaptist.edu\/lancerdiaries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.calbaptist.edu\/lancerdiaries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.calbaptist.edu\/lancerdiaries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.calbaptist.edu\/lancerdiaries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.calbaptist.edu\/lancerdiaries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.calbaptist.edu\/lancerdiaries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.calbaptist.edu\/lancerdiaries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}