who's at work here?

I just finished reading this wonderful book "Effigies in Ashes", by Robert Dagny. It was the conversion story of a man that had an incredible life filled with a ton of heartache, temptation, sin, and pain. He blamed the church for so many things that he felt went wrong in his life. Then something happened to him. He came back and realized that it was his own misconceptions the whole time. He had been judging the people who "represented the church" and not the church itself. He had attatched the two. He had to learn to separate them to forgive them. The message was forgiveness, moving on, letting go and loving unconditionally. Why is it that our human nature seems to be to hang on to things from long ago, and use them as a basis from which to form every opinion we have? Do we really ever let go and forgive, or do we forget? I'm not sure I believe that whole forgive and forget thing is possible. How does one selectively forget? It seems like there are too many people in my life who can't.

A family member of mine wants me to go to therapy with them for issues that I think are old, and they think are new. I am having hard time not believing that with enough prayer this person could just let go and realize that we are who we are, and that's okay. I have. In the 26 years that I have known them, they haven't changed their personality much. For a long time it angered me, even enraged me. Then I got to a place where I didn't need them to be different. Now, I'm even to a place where I appreciate them being the way they are because it's so different than who I am, I think it's good for my children to have a variety of personality types all around them and amongst family members. I don't know where I am going with this, other than to say that I think therapy has value...In certain situations. BUT when both have been through SO MUCH therapy, there comes a point when it would be more work to tell a therapist what's going on than to just deal with it and get over it. I love this person enough to do it, but I can't say that I'll have an extremely positive attitude with the therapist since I pretty much know everything they're going to say.

As I grow stronger in my personal faith and my family gets more solidly grounded in spirituality, my eyes are opening more and more. I am starting to see just how much influence the devil has all around us. I don't mean to sound like some religious fanatic...More a zealot I guess. At the end of this book, the man is talking to a priest and the priest said that in all of his years, he has noticed that it is the families trying the hardest to keep walking with the Lord that seem to have the most incidences of family members being pulled away by Satan. As the soul gets cleaner Satan tries harder. He doesn't really have to try that hard with the ones that are already tainted. For them, pain continues, and they don't really notice a shift towards it much. But for those walking in the light, pain and anguish is profound and noticeable, only being able to be resolved by more prayer to counteract it. Ups and downs vs. Climbs and plateaus.

On a much more shallow note, that friend that hadn't spoken to me in over a year is bringing her kids over for a playdate today! How cool! I am very excited about that. Then, Shepherd and I are going to head to Spokane so that I can go to an Adoption Awareness training seminar for counseling purposes. Should be nice getaway for us. I am even going to stay in a hotel! Woo hoo!