Forgiving Others

“Forgiveness doesn’t excuse their behavior. Forgiveness prevents their behavior from destroying your heart.”

Have you ever had a time in your life where forgiving someone was so hard and took so much out of you to forgive them? To forgive someone is to grant pardon to them. Many believe it is the act of telling someone that what they did was ok, but I don’t believe that is always true.

I believe that forgiveness is more the act of telling someone that what they did will eventually be forgotten and ignored. The person’s act can be something simple or complex, whatever it is, I believe it should be forgiven. Forgiven for many reasons; for them to feel better, for the forgiver to not be destroyed by it, and for God.

When you forgive someone it could mean so much to him or her. Their action of offence could have reasons behind it and many times its not because they were thinking through everything right at that moment. Their mind could be caught up in the moment. When someone gets caught up in situations they have the tendency to do stuff that isn’t normal. Other factors could effect how they acted, maybe through peer pressure, alcohol, or problems with family or friends.

When you are the one forgiving remember that it will help you too. When you are caught up in the fact that someone has hurt you, either physically or mentally, you began to fill your heart with hate. If you forgive, it relieves some of that hate. If you never forgive anyone, that hate will build up more and more and the probability that you will become a culprit in something more then many of the things done to you. When you relieve some of this tension and hate in yourself then life can go one as normal. I’m not saying that if you don’t forgive you will become a criminal. I’m just saying that forgiveness can go a long way inside your heart.

Forgiving others also goes on the spiritual level too. Forgiving others represents that you can move past the imperfections of them, even if you never talk to them. You can acknowledge that they are human just like you and they will make mistakes just like you. God wants us to forgive each other because if you have all that tension gone you can focus on the positives in life. Forgives allows you to grow in faith and as a person.

Lord You Are

“Lord you are more precious than silver. Lord you are more costly than gold. Lord you are more beautiful than diamonds. And nothing I desire compares to you. And the Lord said Child you are more precious than silver. Child you are more costly than gold. Child you are more beautiful than diamonds. And nothing I desire compares to you.”

“Lord You Are” is a song from Camp EWALU that I view in a couple different ways. First I believe it’s trying to say that the Lord sees us the way that we see him. I get this out of the song because at first we sing that the Lord is precious, costly and beautiful and then in the song He repeats the same message back to us. He sees us as we see him, we are His children so it makes sense that he would call us precious, costly, and beautiful.

            I also view the song as a really cool way to relate these three qualities to these three valuable commodities. Silver is definitely a precious metal that is used for higher end jewelry, tableware, and other fine collectables such as candlesticks.  Silver objects are usually valued by their owners and in many cases hold special meaning hence they are precious.  Gold is a rare commodity and therefore is costly. Diamonds are beautiful. They are used in fine jewelry and they are the ultimate gems used to make a statement.  Diamonds are considered one of the most valued and beautiful gems in the world.

            This song makes me feel like I am valuable and I am one of the Lords children. The way we sing it at camp is very soothing and is many times used as the closing song of worship and used as a song to really think about connecting yourself to the Lord. Whenever I sing the song I normally close my eyes aor look at the fire or a cross because I want to make that time a time between Him and me.

            Precious silver, costly gold, and beautiful diamonds all represent value. The Lord is valuable to us and we are valuable to him in so many different ways; remember you are valuable.

Grandparent

“Blessed are those who SPOIL and SNUGGLE hug and hope PRAY and pamper For they shall be CALLED GRANDPARENTS”

Grandparents are those who do so much for their grandchildren. They will spoil, snuggle, hug, hope, pray and pamper their grandkids. All grandkids have to do is put on a good face and ask politely for something and most of the time they will get it from there grandparents. Grandparents spoil there grandkids by getting them stuff or allowing them to do activities that parents wouldn’t let them, like stay up a little later. Grandparents snuggle with their grandkids and hang out with them. Grandparents love hugging their grandkids and vise versa. It is an amazing feeling. Grandparents always hope for the best in their grandchildren, they want them to become the best that they can be. Grandkids and grandparents pray together and for each other through bad times and through good. Grandparents will always pamper their grandkids with cookies and kisses. This is what makes grandparents awesome.

            I love my grandparents so much. They spoil me in many ways because they love getting me different things. I love snuggling with my grandparents. When I was younger I always used to go into my grandparents bedroom in the morning to wake them up and lay with them until we had to get ready for the day. My grandparent and I have many traditions with each other. With my grandma on my dad’s side we always hold our hands together and measure them and so we could watch our hands grow. With my grandpa on my mom’s side we play checkers and chess. With all my grandparents we play so many card games and other games – its really fun. I love every moment I get to spend with my grandparents. I believe grandparents should spoil their grandkids because every moment spent with my grandparents’ are treasured forever.

Hippo Song

“In the beginning God made the seas, and the forest filled with trees. God made the mountains up so high, above it all God  made the sky. God’s fingerprints are everywhere just to show how much he cares. In the middle God had some fun, he made a hippo that weights a ton. Hip- hip- hippopotamus, hip-hip- hooray, God made all of us. Hip- hip- hippopotamus, hip-hip- hooray, God made all of us.” – Hippo Song

The hippo song is a fun song at Camp Ewalu. It is usually considered a fast song. It is sung with lots of actions and is sung over and over making it faster each time until it hits lightning speed. The whole song takes about The Creation and how God does all this amazing hard stuff that has been done but at the same time he puts fun into the job at hand.

The song mentions the seas, forest, mountains, and sky. This part is significant to the world because it’s were everything lives and it is Gods creation that is more of the landscape and not the life (besides the trees in the forest because those are living). God had to make these things first to house all the living creations. Not everyone thinks about the sky and the mountains being Gods creation. When most people hear Gods creation they just think the Earth and all the animals and plants that live on but they don’t focus on these things that are none living.

God’s fingerprints are everywhere. This is so true. Even though God physically doesn’t have a fingerprint for us to see, we can tell that he has been a part of everything because of the fact that He created everything. Every atom ever to exist was created by him. We are made up of billions upon billions of billions of atoms which are God’s own little fingerprints. If you think about it maybe the atoms are God’s fingerprints just they are all different because He isn’t a human he is God.

            Hippopotamus! They are very funny animals because whenever you see them they just sit around in the water or on land and just sit there. They really don’t have too much purpose to the ecosystem because they only really eat plants and lots of things eat plants so the population of those would be ok and everything else would adapt to life without them. Not many hippos are eaten because they are no big and not many animals what to mess with them. God had fun with making hippos because they really don’t have a purpose but people love them and they are pretty neat.

            I love this song for many reasons. The first is because I love seeing kids sing it because it’s a fun song and many kids can actually memorize it and sing it because it’s easy to both teach and sing. Another reason for loving it is that the song has a wonderful meaning of to it.

            God created many things during the creation of the Earth and he loved doing it. He had fun creating every little thing even with things like the hippo that aren’t really important in the scheme of things.

There is a bright side to everything

“It’s snowing still,” said Eeyore gloomily. “And freezing.” “However,” he said, brightening up a little, “we haven’t had an earthquake lately.”

            There is always going to be a negative and positive side of every situation. It is our job to look on the bright, positive side to make us happy. When your mind thinks negatively it messes with you and gets in the way of life. Everything has a bright side so remember that even in the darkest moments there are always the stars to make it bright.

Eeyore’s example of snow and the cold is very negative. Not everyone loves the cold and many would rather not be out in the snow. In the winter when the sun rises at 6:30am and sets at 5:00pm there is minimal daylight, which puts people in a more negative mood due to light deprivation.  When we think about the winter in a negative way then we will always perceive it that way. But when we see the positive things about winter then it makes it less of a negative situation and more tolerable in our minds. When I try to think of the positives of winter I think about hot chocolate after being outside and how I can feel the warm liquid go down my throat. I think of Christmas; how it means spending time down in Missouri with both sides of my family playing games and eating tasty holiday foods. I also think this time of year about how we end and start a new year and how this can mean new resolutions. When I think about these positives it makes the negatives like the cold go away. 

Involving yourself in different activities might help keep you awake in the winter. Activities like sledding, going to ice hockey games or going bowling are three ways that I keep positive in the winter. Whenever something is negative you could always find different activities to make a negative situation seem more positive.

            Remember we need the winter snow to have the spring flowers. So whenever something is making you have a negative thought remember there is always a positive side to everything. It might take time to find one but the search for that bright star in the darkness will pay off because positivity is the brightest star in the sky.