Jan. 18 - Mandy's journal

Jan. 18

I don’t know if this belongs in my journal but I am just going to write it here and see what happens. First I want to apologize. I regret and am so sorry for not taking each day and moment with people to talk about what really matters – eternity. When I was home in Michigan I enjoyed normal life and let time fly by. I don’t want to live that way! Normal life just isn’t worth it to me. Often I feel like people just want me to be normal, to fit in, have fun, and be quiet about God stuff. While I can’t. I don’t care if I am weird. There is only one thing that matters most to me and it is God’s love for me and for you. I say all this because. What I see when I go home (here too) is a lot of fake people. Most people are trying to have a comfortable, good life. They want to look and act happy. The truth is most people are hurting, angry, or lost. We aren’t telling or living the truth. You act happy and I will too and we would have to deal with all the garbage. Everyone is fine and I am too. Just keep living and don’t talk about the pain. We are addicted to materialism, lust, alcohol, sports, TV… or whatever to cover up and forget about the troubles. The sad thing is I am talking about Christians, the church, our friends, our families. We all do it. Why aren’t we being real with each other? Why are we doing small talk, getting together, entertaining…doing everything but helping each other? Okay maybe I am over the edge on some things. I am not saying that we can’t have fun and that we have to only talk about spiritual issues. My point is when I was home I know there were things that people were struggling with and I chose to ignore it and just enjoy life. I didn’t pray with them or anything. I saw that they were “acting” fine and decided to believe it and leave it at that. We are all doing this. As Christian, brothers and sisters, we have to be asking each other the hard questions. We need to be encouraging each other to keep going, do better, spend time with God, love your wife, be pure, serve, give… We need to pray with each other, for each other. Don’t take fine as an answer. Don’t believe the act. People are dying inside and no one outside knows. Give them love for their pain, help for their struggles, peace for their anger… Let’s not waste time and talk about what really matters, our spiritual well being. Our relationships with Christ are what matters most. Life here will end. Eternity is coming. Do you care more about acting like you have a good life here or do you care more about a great life there? I only have so much time on earth and I want to be real. I want to make a difference for eternity.