Choices

Everyday I choose how I will spend my time.  Some of my time usage seems like it is chosen for me by other people...but really, even if I was in an isolation unit at a mental ward, I could choose how I spent my time there.  I'm choosing to write this blog post right now instead of countless other things vying for my love and attention.  It is important to me, and I think blogging has helped my mindfulness about a lot of things.  Everyone should blog, or journal, or something along those lines.  A pause during the day to assess your view of life is good for the soul.

A thought from my 4th and 5th grade Catechism Class last night at church:

If God tells us to love our enemy, and Jesus' enemy is Satan, does God love Satan?

I've never thought about it before.  Hmmm.

And some scattered prayer requests.  Prayer requests last week took so long that I only had 5 minutes left after we prayed to teach the lesson.  I vowed that last night would not be the same, but it was very close. 

Pray for my cousin's dog because he is sad.  This sparked enormous debate about whether or not dogs had emotions and if one could tell whether or not their pet was "sad."  After the debate was over, I said that I would not pray for the cousin's sad dog.  After the class, I regretted it.  What would it have hurt to pray for the dog?  Maybe I could have slipped in a prayer for the cousin who is so finely attuned to his/her dog's sensibility.

Pray for my aunt and uncle who are traveling.  They live in New Mexico...don't ask me why.  As if living in New Mexico was a clear indication of their lack of good sense.  Why would anyone want to live in New Mexico? 
The kicker, though, was another friend's response to her prayer request:
They live there because everything's cheaper down in Mejico.  I said, New Mexico, not Mexico, Jake.  It's a state, in the United States, to be exact.  He said, "Oh."  Haven't they learned the States of the Union by 5th grade?  Honestly.

And so we prayed for the 140 various people who will be traveling for Spring Break, or whose noses are running, or whose dogs are sad, or whose grammas are arthritic, or whose brothers are very annoying!  Everyone who wanted to prayed out loud, and most basically prayed for the prayer requests they themselves had mentioned.  Their self-focused prayers reminded me that we all, children and adults alike, live in our own internal world of big important stuff that may be important only to us, and it made me hope that their stuff would become more important to me too.  The body of Christ...thanks be to God.