Inspiring!

This morning I went to church for the first time in a few months. I am not going to make excuses why I haven't gone lately, but it's been awhile. I feel like I got a lot of out today's sermon. Basically what I walked away with today was that God doesn't expect us to be perfect. He knows we will make mistakes, but He expects that we will be the best person we can. He wants us to follow the golden rule... do unto others as we would like done to ourselves, help those less fortunate, pray for those that have hurt us, etc. Sometimes it is very hard to do these things, but it's obviously important.

At the end of Mass today, someone that helps run the church's Pantry Shelf spoke. (The Pantry Shelf gives out food to 1200-1400 less fortunate families every month). He was talking about some large contributions that were made recently. It made me think about how lucky our family is... we really don't want for anything. We have food to put on the table, clothes to wear, a warm house to live in, and many other luxuries that some families don't have. Sometimes we get caught up in what we think we need. It's very easy to forget that there are others out there that don't even have the basic necessities that we take for granted.

Unfortunately, being a landlord has made me a little calloused towards those less fortunate. There are a lot of people out there that will take advantage of other people. When you are a landlord, you see this often. You get to the point that you don't believe any excuse they give you, even if it might be the truth (i.e. pay your rent, or get evicted!). How do you find the balance between helping others and not letting yourself get taken advantage of? I don't know the answer to this...

I was thinking a lot about this after church as I was cruising through the grocery store. After I loaded my groceries in my truck, I headed home. It wasn't until I got home that I realized I had left my purse in the shopping cart (in the parking lot)! I was freaking out.... nothing good comes to mind in this situation! I hopped in the truck and headed back to the store. On my way there, I called Christina (I had seen her car in the store parking lot) to see if she was still there. Thank goodness she was! She found a store manager about the time I was arriving back at the store. We asked several store cashiers if they had seen it. One of them had my purse! A very nice customer had turned it in... all contents in place!

Besides feeling relieved, I was very thankful that an honest person had returned my purse. It seems like the message I received at church this morning went along very nicely with my experience an hour later! I am pretty sure that the person that returned my purse won't read this, but I want to thank them anyway. Thanks for following the golden rule!