love this…

"Isn’t it wastefully extravagant for the Father to give his children so much freedom? Isn’t it wastefully extravagant for the Father to discard his dignity and run into the street toward a foolish and immature son who squandered their fortune? Isn’t it wastefully extravagant for the father to throw such a raging party for this kind of wayward son?
But, see, I love that kind of grace." - http://www.patheos.com/blogs/nadiabolzweber/2013/03/sermon-the-parable-of-the-prodigal-father/

to continue…

"Because it is here we see that your relationship to God is simply not defined by your really bad decisions or your squandering of resources. But also your relationship to God is not determined by your virtue. It is not determined by being nice, or being good or even, and I struggle with this, but it’s not even determined by how much you do at church. Your relationship to God is simply determined by the wastefully extravagant love of God. A God who takes no account of risk but runs toward you no matter what saying all that is mine is yours. Amen."

Spiritual Abuse Awareness Week

http://wineandmarble.com/paved-with-good-intentions/

 

I didn’t even know there was such a thing as this but I do know there is an abundance of spiritual abuse that happens in the Christian culture.  I have spoken with many people who have shared their stories with me.  It breaks my heart to hear that people who call themselves God’s people can do such awful things to others.  I just found this circle of blogs that are speaking about spiritual abuse and plan to go through and read the stories posted by the participants.  Here are a few tabs that I have opened so far:

1.  Paved with good intentions - http://wineandmarble.com/paved-with-good-intentions/

2.  http://wineandmarble.com/spiritual-abuse-awareness-week-march-18-22/

3.  How the Bible belt whooped us - http://bohemianbowmans.com/the-bible-belt/

4.  How spiritual abuse has affected me -- http://bohemianbowmans.com/how-spiritual-abuse-has-affected-me/