July 8, 2006

I spent some time today at a family birthday party, and it gave me a tremendous amount of time to reflect on how things are going, and how they should be going, and which direction I should be taking my life.

As I was sitting and spending time with the family, I realized that all these years, there has been, for me, a certain amount of resentment towards members of my extended family. I don't mean that I hate them, I just mean that in some cases, I like to spend as little time around them as possible.

This opinion, of course, doesn't really fit where I should be in my life as a follower of Christ.

However, when I was there today, I started to realize that these feelings have started to fade, and I'm starting to see the human beings beneath the personality traits. They're really decent human beings down there.

Part of my problem, particulary in my time in a Christian, is how bothered I am by the personality traits of some people. I find myself judging the personalities as how good of a person they are. In the case of Christians, this sometimes applies to a greater extent.

I have been praying alot about that lately, that I'll be able to love freely, more than I already do, and hoping that God will fix that problem within me.

By the end of the party though, I was noticing things and seeing cheer in family members I hadn't seen in a long time, and it was very encouringing to me. I took that realization home with me and decided to put it into practice.