Ramblings

Have you ever wondered what people think about as they're falling asleep. This is what I was thinking about last night (besides the fact that I was thinking about what I was thinking about).
I love irony, (I'm an English major, my life is full of irony). What I like best about irony is the various ways it pops up in everyday life. Here's one ironic thing in my life: I've worked my rear off to get a good education, so that I can get a decent job, that pays well, that I like. And, I'm sort of stuck in a job that I don't care for. The ironic thing: my cousin never graduated from highschool, slacks off and shows up late to every job she's ever had, and is currently holding a great job with great benefits and great hours. That's irony! Another irony: I have two very carnivorous parents. They love meat, especially red meat. AND, they were given five biological children - four girls who dislike red meat (to varying degrees) and one son who doesn't eat meat at all. My mom decided that God had a sense of humor, since we can never agree on what to have for dinner.
So, I was thinking about irony as I fell asleep last night, what were you thinking about?

What the?

My condolences to my friends who are Seahawk fans...you lost to the referees, not the Steelers. Get 'em next year!

Do the "Reformed" truly understand Grace?

I've been struggling a lot lately with some personal issues. Things I feel I never quite "conquer." And then, tonight I was sitting on my cousin's front porch as she blew smoke into my face and she told me she was finally going to quit smoking, a habit she has been going to quit for 10 years now. My cousin has lived a life that, quite frankly, I would be ashamed of. And yet, while she will admit that she was wrong, shame never seems to enter the picture. That's what caused me to wonder if we truly understand Grace. Most of my friends from high school and college who have some past indiscretion they are struggling to overcome seem to be in the same place as my cousin. Admittedly, there are things in my life where I feel I am in that place too. There is no shame for what I have done. My cousin is always telling me how God's grace is so important. How she is glad that we have a gracious God who forgives all our sin. But, she is continuously falling back into the same sin, over and over. This is a hard thing, because while I think that we will always struggle with sin, and often we will continuously struggle with the same sin, I think the general idea is that we overcome it. Not that we aren't tempted by it, but that we remember the past and we resist temptation - through God's grace. This is where I think shame actually becomes important. If I feel no shame over a past sin, then what is going to motivate me to remember God's grace and resist temptation the next time? Since we live in a society, especially among believers, where the maxim "It's better to ask forgiveness than permission" runs rampant, we simply decide that we can go on continuing to fail because God is gracious and he forgives us. You know the verses in Romans where Paul says, "Should I keep on sinning? By no means." In my mind that has always meant that I'm not going to go out and do something ridiculously, irrationally sinful just because God will forgive me. But I think I'm deciding that it is more appropriately directed at the idea that I do not continue to commit the same sin, but that since I have been forgiven I resist temptation through God's grace.
Now, I'm done with the soapbox. Honestly I needed to get some thoughts down and, since they are all a muddle, I could use some help making sense of them.