Conformed or Transformed?

It's been a while since my last post. It seems life has been pretty crazy. Olivia was in the hospital for a few days with a kidney infection. Brian was out of town and some friends of ours were out of town and we were watching their 3 girls. I wasn't sure how I was going to take her in to the hospital at 9pm and manage to get kids off to school and such in the morning. I am so blessed to have good neighbors. Andrew was ok to spend the night here and "hold the fort down" and my neighbor took the girls and my brother was able to take the big kids to the highschool. A big hearty THANK YOU to all who helped make things easier. I couldn't have done it without you. Olivia has been on antibiotics since the visit and is doing well. It took us a week to get back in the groove of things, but praise God she is back on her feet! How quickly we can take our physical health for granted. I have a friend who has to go to the hospital all the time for her three children...

Last night I finally took that sliver out of my foot. Because it was so small, I had to dig a bit to get it out and now today, my foot really hurts. It hurts worse than when I had the sliver in there. Every step I feel the cut. I thought about that for a bit, as it pertains to my post from yesterday. When we confess our sin and finally get it out of our lives, the pain of the consequences of our sin linger. Sometimes the consequences of our sin are worse than the pain of having the sin in our life. The good news is...that pain may feel worse at first, but it goes away and you become stronger and wiser for having gone through that process. Key for today: Cut out the slivers in your life and rejoice in God's grace and healing power in your life.

Somehow when I was in the basement yesterday, I got a sliver from the floor in my foot. I didn't notice it much, but every once in a while I got a little poke in the bottom of my foot that kinda bothered me. It wasn't that big of a deal, so I left it. I figured it would work its way out since it was such a small sliver. It wasn't worth all the digging and cutting. Last night every time I took a step it really kinda bothered me, but today, it's almost as if I've gotten used to the occassional little pick I get. It's not like I am running a marathon that I need to keep my feet in good condition. So...the sliver is still there. In Hebrews 12:1 it says "Therefore, since we surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us." The phrase that stands out to me is "sin that so easily entangles". Why and how d...