"A little bird told me..."

(You turn your back for a minute...and she's off adventuring!)

November has come crashing in and I can't remember where the last two months have gone. With changes at work, new things to learn, family to love and life to live it's a miracle the animals are still alive and the house isn't totally trashed. Each day just keeps reminding me that every minute needs to be cherished. It all changes so fast.

I was at IHOP the other day...by myself... eating pancakes... and bacon. I don't like IHOP. I actually think it's pretty gross. But it's a place my kids really liked, and I was missing them and being sentimental. Having "grown up kids" is kind of lame sometimes. They have things like college and jobs and their own families which makes them less available to me. What's up with that?

(Bumble Bee B-B!)

Anyways...sitting at IHOP, eating my pancakes gave me a great opportunity to be random and let my mind wander. I heard a sermon that prompted to read Ecclesiastes 10. Great text, really cheerful and encouraging. It says things like "As dead flies give perfume a bad smell so a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor."
 Or even more fun: "Even as fools walk along the road, they lack sense and show everyone how stupid they are."

Some of my favorite passages are in Ecclesiastes simply because of how sarcastic it can be. Let's really take it out of context for a minute. Look what verse 19 says and run with it:
 "A feast is made for laughter,
    wine makes life merry,
    and money is the answer for everything."

Woohoo! Did the Bible just tell me to eat everything I want, drink like a sailor and all I have to do is have lots of money to be happy? YESSS.(No, it did NOT say that.)

Like I said, great lunchtime reading for you. In reality and read in CONTEXT, those chapters just kept bringing back the fact that- I have been a "fool" more times than I would like to remember. 
We all have I would say. 
I have made unwise choices (verses 2-3), I've said things I wanted to take back because of "foolish lips" (verse 12), and I have hurt people with those fool hardy choices. In verse 13 it says that our foolish words:
"At the beginning (are folly); at the end they are wicked madness..."

(Who knew Willie from Duck Dynasty would come visit Brielle for Halloween? She wasn't a fan of him. ;)

How tragic when I think about what "wicked madness" my foolishness has caused. Steve and I often say we spent the first half of our lives being ridiculous, we wonder what we will do with the second half. Terrifying thought.

The great thing about that lonely lunch date at IHOP was that after I got done laughing and crying over the sarcasm and my guilty conscious...it also reminded me that God never leaves us on the "down note" for long. It put into my day the grace God has for all of us. How good is He that he lets us feel the weight of our foolishness, so that it would move us to make live better. To seek and find wisdom through Him. To make amends and to say "I'm sorry". It challenges us to do something- to try, to learn, to grow, to make peace. 
  
Random wanderings...Ecclesiastes made me sorry for the people I have hurt with my foolishness, and sorry for the fact that being "sorry" sometimes isn't good enough. There are some relationships that just won't be fixed. Yet, Romans 12:18 straight up tells us that we are to:
"If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone."

(Love these faces!)

How do we live at peace, when we sin and hurt each other? The grief comes in when I see the foolish deeds I have done, and I can't find a way to make it right.
But even then, God provides a way to heal our hearts in the same verse that pushes us to be peacemakers. God finds a way to be gracious to us. He says "if it is possible, as far as it depends on you..."
That leads to the assumption that He knew there would be times that in spite of your best efforts to reconcile, they just aren't gonna have it. And that's ok.
One pastor explained it like this:
"That means there are times where you're going to have to own your part and the reciprocity won't be there."
And it doesn't really matter. How other respond, how it all turns out...doesn't matter as long as you tried "as far as it depends on you."

So random, but it was nice to have time to just be. To eat a pancake and think about whatever God brought to mind and how it all ties together in this crazy thing called life.

Thank you, Lord, that all we can do is our best. Thank you for your humor, and for telling it like it is. Forgive us for being foolish so often, and help us have soft hearts towards you. Show us if we have wronged someone and need to apologize, or if it's time we forgave that other person who hurt us. Turn us from silly fools into a people who are wise beyond our years because we have hidden your word in our hearts.

"Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will." Romans 12:1-2