Today's topic, Makeup.  Now, I am finally getting to the core of my existence forget about anything else I say I believe in because makeup is really it. 

I love makeup.  In my family you had to be 12 years old to wear any kind of makeup.  12 is still young but that was the rule in our house.  You could play dress up and put on makeup but you wouldn't be wearing it in public.  Which takes me off topic slightly, to Toddler's in Tiaras or the horrific practice of sexualizing our children. I only see the promos for the show, I don't watch it, the promos are bad enough.  My sister in-law spoke to me about it and said that usually the moms were overweight and unattractive.  I feel that is partly true, one way or another the moms (or dads) are trying to feel good about themselves, get some validation, whatever through their children.  Excuse me, I have to go vomit.  OK, I am back.  Don't do this to your kids, honestly, it can't be healthy for them mentally or emotionally.

Now to more pleasant issues.  Makeup, I love it.  I love to wear it, I love to buy it, I love to look at it, I love to think about how I will put in on.  I always say if I were rich, I wouldn't have a big closet filled with clothes or lots of shoes, jewelry (although, I am not crazy, I would have some).  I would have a room dedicated to my makeup.  With great lighting, mirrors and enough room to put all the different kinds of makeup I want.

  I love eyeshadow, and lipstick the best.  Friends have been astounded at how many lipsticks I have for just work.  I have work lipstick and lipstick for home and abroad.  There is really no difference between them except work lipstick is kept in my work bag and home and abroad isn't, but they are interchangeable.  My eyeshadow collection is huge for one person. I have all kinds of shades some I never wear but can't make myself get rid of.  What if one day I needed that shade emergently, and then had to live with the knowledge of what could have been?

I find it ironic that as much as I love lipstick, I tend to buy the same shade a lot.  The shade is a mauve.  Sometimes a little darker or lighter but I am drawn to one in a store and say to myself you have this one in ten shades.  I usually do.  I like red and pink.  Occasionally, I will wear a coral shade but this is rare since I can't do oranges well.

When I was young I wore the ultra frosted eyeshadow they made in the 70s/80s.  You can still find it but why would you want to?  There is a difference in some shimmer and frosted, trust me!  I remember wearing  frosted peacock blue, and thinking I was HOT.  Remember, I said I love makeup, not that I have always been good with how I apply it.  I am better now at wearing colors to bring out the color of my eyes.  When I was young, my eyes were very blue.  They are still blue, but with more hazel now so I can my my eyes look bluer or greener depending on what shades I use.  Now that I am older I try to have more matte eyeshadow, I still have a bit of shimmer, but frosted eyeshadow makes you look older and I don't need that!

I will tell you the secrets to good makeup application.  Ready, here it is, right now for you.  No games, no tricks, no stalling....OK I was just being funny.  The first secret to good makeup is buy colors that work for your skin tone, in other words if you have a sallow skin tone don't go buying pink shades of foundation hoping to change things, you just wind up looking like your face is one color and the rest of you another which equals bad.  Second secret, blend, blend, blend.  Don't just slap the makeup on, blend it in so it flows from one thing to the next well.  Like your blush shouldn't stick out like to weird flags on your cheeks, it should just subtly be there and you shouldn't have a ring around your face delineating your foundation application.  Third, don't over do it.  Less is more.  OK, those who know me stop laughing,  I am talking about the people who come out looking like clowns.  Calm down, people, calm down.  Fourth,  and I can't stress this enough, please, under no circumstances should you over pluck your eyebrows.  You aren't making your eyes look bigger, you just look permanently surprised, or depending on your style, angry.  The fifth secret is to follow the brow line when shaping your brows.  If need be let things grow in and seek out professional help. Please!!

I was recently, on an elevator with some young women heading into work.  It had been raining and one was discussing with the other the accidents she had seen.  She had seen two.  I looked at her eyebrows and all I could think was, three.  That is right, I am going to hell, but at least my makeup will be on straight.  Or maybe my hell will be never wearing makeup again, or horrors, having to look at bad, bad makeup over and over again.  I need to repent!

Today's topic, Technology.   I am very grateful to live in such a technologically advanced era.  I can't imagine how I would do living before indoor plumbing, washing machines, and phones.  How truly blessed I feel to have the opportunity to use so many advances in my day to day life. 

  Some of the things we may think of as pretty new were actually around a long time before being common place.  There is an old movie, called Made for Each Other with Jimmy Stewart and Carol Lombard and in this film they show a fancy new technology, a fax being sent and received is shown.  The movie was made in 1939.  Some form of fax technology has been around since the mid to late 1900th century.  Ma and Pa Kettle had a series of movies and in one of them they win the house of the future complete with a microwave, this movie was released in 1950.  The microwave ovens have been around since the late 1940s.  I bring this up because at least to me, neither of these were really heard of until much later.  I think I first heard of microwaves in the late 1970s and even baby sat for a family who had one I tried to use it, epic fail.  Fax's, I don't think I was aware of until the mid to late 1980s.

 I remember when HBO was launched the first paid for movie channel.  We didn't have cable, let alone HBO.  The joke was some kid would ask if you had HBO if you said yes then they would say "Ha, you have Hideous Body Odor!"  Thank goodness I was able to answer no so often!  Now there are tons of movie channels to choose from.  I am still to cheap to pay for any that don't come with regular cable. With Netflix, Hulu and Youtube, honestly, who needs movie channels?

One of my favorite things is watching movies that use technology. Sometimes the technology if far advanced from anything we know, so powerful and stunning we are in awe.  But, my favorite is a disaster movie when all the advanced technology is out, destroyed, unusable etc. The only way to save the day is some archaic form of technology like a land line, type writer, or regular TV.   There is always someone who just happens to know how to use the strange device that just happens to be where all the good guys have congregated.  Amazing!   And by using this they are able to out wit the bad guys or overcome what ever obstacle was preventing them from saving the day.

So, Yay!, for such great advances.  Now, to the down side.  When I was young we went on many car trips sometimes with several cars all following along.  If one of the cars needed to stop for any reason they just flashed their brights or if in the lead, pulled off.  Simple, right?  Now we all have cell phones and call back and forth to decide where to pull over, where to eat or use the restroom.  The conversations can be so lengthy, trying to decide.  Just make a decision already!  Don't fight over where we will eat for an hour while everyone gets hungrier and angrier.  That is a recipe for disaster.  Been there and done that as it were.

I still get a little weirded out when I am in public and hear someone seemingly talking to themselves. For a few moments I can't tell if they have blue tooth or are crazy.  I eaves drop slightly on the conversation just until I know.  That way if they are crazy I have time to get out of their I might kill you if the voices tell me to way.

It also cracks me up how dependant we are on the cell phone, I include myself in this category.  I managed to stumble through 30 odd years of life with out a cell phone and now for the last 10-15 years it is a necessity.  I have done a lot of driving by myself all over the country.  My mom will say something like "Keep your cell phone out on the seat just in case."  Like it can stop a bomb, or bullet or prevent a wreck.  Or any one of us children is leaving the house for any reason she finds concerning "Oh, you have your cell phone with you" again like it can deflect bullets or the mugger will run from the phone in your hand.
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 I am making fun of some of the marvels we have available but I so grateful for things like air conditioning, washers and dryers, in door plumbing, LCD TV, DVR, CDs cars, planes, electricity etc the list is almost endless.  Because of the incredible things we can do, I just expect some things to work, in my opinion, better.  I get frustrated when things don't work like they should and when I talk to people who work with the particular piece of technology I am irritated with I tend to say things like "If we can do surgery in utero, put men on the moon, use lasers to improve our vision surely we can do X"  They rarely see it my way.  Just wait until we actually have time machines I will make sure my quirks are accounted for!


ast but for sure not least let me not forget modern dentistry.  I would be almost toothless without all the fillings and caps I have acquired over the years.  My two front teeth would be gone, long gone.  But thanks to modern science I can flash a quasi winning smile at will. 

Today's topic Dreams. Dream fascinate me, I try to remember my own but they are so elusive. I remember snatches of my dreams, for a while at least. I love to interpret dreams, sometimes I get it right.

I told you I remember snatches of dreams and that is true but there are two dreams I had as a child that I still recall pretty well. In one dream I am sitting on my parents bed, getting dressed. In my mind I can see the room, the bed, the bedspread so clearly. The the nylon white ankle socks I am supposed to put on fall off the bed and start rolling away. I try to catch them, but, they roll behind the curtains and when I pull back the curtains to find them they are big. They keep getting bigger and bigger until they are much bigger than me. Then they start rolling toward me chasing me all over the room. That is right, I was being stalked and terrorized by socks. I realize why I had that dream, the reason actually was pretty simple. I hated wearing socks. In Wilmington, NC on a hot summers day nylon socks coupled with shoes would make my feet so hot I could barely think or function. I remember asking my mom if I could wear the shoes without socks but she wouldn't let me. To this day if my feet are too hot I want to jump out of my skin. I think that dream came around the time I had to wear shoes, real shoes not thin sneakers or sandals. but school shoes. The play ground at my elementary school was sand, hot blazing sand. So, that dream was me coping with how big it was to suddenly go from a barefoot, free little girl to a shoe wearing little girl trying to play on a play ground filled with hot blazing sand. I am not sure how the dream ended but I think it ended with the socks shrinking back down and me putting them on.

The second dream was also scary, to me. I think it was a dream about how I could avoid danger or feel strong in my own little world. For those of you who don't know I love the water. My mom tells me she used to throw my in the water at 10 months of age and I would swim back to her (No cracks about my mom throwing me in the water). Sometimes when my sister was in school mom and I would go to the pool together and mom would tread water in the deep end while I jumped from the diving board. She would always be there to pull me out of the water. I remember a little less of second dream. I am at the pool at the apartment complex we lived in. I am standing on the diving board getting ready to jump into the water. Then there is a monster, it was kind of a mix between a what used to be called a brontosaurus, and an octopus it had the head and partial body of a brontosaurus but with tentacle like arms of an octopus. The monster kept grabbing people from the pool area, people I knew and dipping them in the water, head first. I don't think I understood death at that age so it was terrifying to me to see the people being dipped in the water head first. They were scared and screaming. There I stood on the diving board exposed and yet the monster didn't see me. It kept grabbing people and dipping them and I was so scared it would notice me on the diving board and yet it didn't. I was some how safe from the hideous monster. I remember feeling relieved at not being noticed. It is vague but maybe at one point the monster did see me but didn't do anything, I am no sure. I don't remember how it ended but I still remember what the monster looked like and can still see in my minds eye the monster dipping people in the water.

I love to interpret dreams, some times it is very easy to see what someones dreams are about. Both of my younger sisters have had dreams with babies that were very advanced and could do things that a baby shouldn't be able to do. Some negative person always is mean to the baby is some way. I realized that each of them had a new idea for work that people weren't on board for. The "baby" is the idea that they feel is good idea and will work well but there is always someone to be negative about trying something new.

Another one recently was from some who was worried she was too concerned with her looks, particularly her hair. The dream broke down to her being an a plane that was going down and while everyone else is getting ready for a crash, she is packing her suitcase, worrying about where to place her blow dryer. Friends had teased her that she was to into her hair. But, I asked if there was something coming up that she wasn't ready for, a decision unmade or something like that, I can't remember exactly. However, sure enough she had two choices about where she would go next, both were good ,but the time was short, and she couldn't decide. So, there she was in her dream with time running out on a plane about to go down and she is packing. I couldn't help her make a decision but at least I helped her to know she wasn't that vain.

Some of my favorites dreams are my George Clooney dreams. Don't get excited people they aren't dirty dreams. I think I just like his sense of humor and he represents something light and fun in my dreams. My George Clooney dream just always are happy. I wake up in a good mood after them. I think they are just me thinking about enjoying life. Dreams are fantastic. They mean we are working on life’s issues in our sleep.

I once read a book where the author wrote something that for me was profound. Whether it was her original idea or something she read or something famous, I am not sure.  Basicly, the protagonist in the book is warned against trusting dreamers, because they see the world as they would have it not as it really is.  So, let's keep on dreaming , learning about our selves and our world, but keep ourselves grounded and realize that dreams can help us cope but not change the world.   To change the world takes action not dreams. We can dream of a better tomorrow but have to make a plan to make it happen.

Today's topic Food.  Since I wrote the blog post on junk food I thought I would open up and let you know about all my food issues.  I like food, I like healthy food and I like junk food.  I enjoy cooking and I enjoy eating.  Now that we have that out of the way I can get to the nitty gritty of my personal eating issues.

OK, here is the thing. I have quirks with food. NO SWEET on my regular food.  If it is something that is supposed to be sweet like sweet potatoes, sure, but don't do something crazy like put bacon on them.  Don't put honey, or a glaze on my meat, no sugar on my meat, in my vegetables, in my salad dressing. I have come to realize I am in a minority. To put sweet and savory together is very, very popular. It makes me want to hurl.  I have to be very careful at restaurants "tangy" is code for sweet and sour. If you ask the wait staff if something is sweet, they don't think so, but more than half the time it is. So, it can take me a minute to get through a menu and find something I will eat.  I don't eat ribs because they are sweet, I don't eat fruit in my regular salad, because it is sweet etc. I hate sweet pickles, I remember as a young child a relish tray at some holiday or family party. I was looking at what I thought were tiny dill pickles only to find out they were Baby Gherkins, yucky pooh.  Most people you ask will say that General Tso's Chicken is spicy. I think it taste sweet and so I don't eat it.  I am constantly looking for food with the least sugar content when I shop, particularly pasta sauce and soup.

 As stated in my previous post I am a junk food junkie.  However, I like healthy food too.  I love vegetables.  I don't eat okra as followers of my blog know (see post regarding near death experiences).  I don't like Brussel sprouts, but will eat them if I have to.  I don't really eat rutabaga.  I don't like broccoli cooked soft, yuck.  Other than that I am pretty open with vegetables. I like lettuce, salad is so good.  But, I don't like cheese on my salad.  So, when I go out to eat I have to ask for no cheese.  I know I am crazy but I will eat a Cobb salad or taco salad which both come with cheese but that is how they are supposed to be served.  When I was growing up, in my early teens maybe, to put cheese in your salad became very popular and I liked it the first few hundred times I had it and now I just can't stand it. 

I don't like ketchup on my cheeseburger, or heavy sauce on my pizza, it grosses me out.  When I was in school the cafeteria would serve us cheese burgers, with ketchup.  Now, the "meat" was some kind of grossness of hamburger mixed with soy or something which gave it a gross flavor which was made grosser, in my opinion, by the ketchup.  I would ask them to put no ketchup but the worker would insist that we had to have it on the burger.  Because of this, to this day I hate ketchup on my cheeseburger.  And, frankly, ketchup is pretty sweet, so I eat it sparingly.  I usually eat fries with no ketchup, no ketchup on hot dogs etc. 

 We were poor, Thousand Island dressing is a mix of three things we kept in the house all the time, ketchup, Miracle Whip and sweet relish.  Easy to make for a cheap salad dressing. I hate Miracle Whip and sweet relish.  You can imagine how much I like TID.  My mom would make it and put it on my salad even if I said no. Thanks, Mom, for the scars.  Because, of Miracle Whip, I spent so much time trying to get the sandwiches at home to taste as good as the ones we ate out.  I finally, after years of searching and experimenting with sandwich ingredients I realized the difference was mayo. I have never looked back. 

I love fruit.  I don't eat papaya.  I didn't know I didn't like papaya until I went to a Mexican restaurant and got papaya water to drink.  I saw the person taking my order get a look on her face when I asked for it.  I knew why after I tasted it, that stuff was gross!  I wandered if  they were playing a trick on the gringa by giving her dishwater.  I told my sister how gross the papaya water was and she told me that is what papaya taste like (dishwater, in my opinion).  She served a mission in Brazil and a common prank on Americans was to give them papaya.  Apparently, it is an acquired taste.  I think I will be OK not acquiring one.  Other than that fruit is so good.  Some of my favorites are the worst for you in terms of glycemic index. Bananas, watermelon and pineapple, I am not a diabetic, so I eat them, but not as guilt free as I used to.  

I don't like vanilla ice cream.  When I tell people they say things like, French vanilla?  Old fashion vanilla? homemade vanilla?  Like that will make me say yeah, I like that kind.  Or try to make me see how wonderful vanilla is, when I know it isn't.  I will eat vanilla if there is something on it to kill the taste, like chocolate, strawberries, caramel etc.  I had yet another traumatic experience in my youth that directly caused my dislike of vanilla.  Long and short, my teacher was truly being kind, she bought the two kids that didn't have an ice cream treat after recess a Dixie cup of, you guessed it, vanilla.  When she told us she was going to treat us, I started thinking about the delicious chocolate ice cream, yummy!  Only to have her give me vanilla.  What a let down.  I was taught to be grateful and polite so I ate the vanilla, but from that moment on I didn't ever like it again.  
   
You will note that most of my food issues stem from my youth.  But, I think most of all of our food issues do.  I am grateful that mine are so few.  I get sad when people won't try new foods or don't like fruit and vegetables.  I am sure people get sad when I tell them how much I hate sweet on my regular food.  When I eat at someones home and they have sweet on regular food, I just eat it, I don't like it but I eat it because it isn't their job to worry about my weirdness.  I am gracious about it and just keep my mouth shut except when I put in food.

Today's topic Junk food.  Or as I like to think of it, heaven.  There is a movement, granted small, but there to call sugar a toxic substance.  I think it may be, clearly, too much has rotted the brains of those claiming it is bad.  Just kidding.  I think it is relevant to look at what sugar does to us.  Not all junk food is sugar based, let us not leave out chips, dips, other crunchy delights and one of my favorites fat. Ummm, fat. When you mix the fat and sugar together, ahhh.

What does junk food do to us?  We get fat, we get hyper, we get diabetes, we loose our teeth, we have heart attacks.  These can have serious and dangerous effects on our lives.  Junk food can make you do some crazy things, see the above.  However, junk food also isn't like so many things that are bad for us.  We don't go on shooting rampages, steal or beat each other up because we are hyped up on sugar or want money to buy more sugar or loose our sense of right and wrong because we are strung out on sugar.  "Man, you will not believe, I had some pure cane sugar last night, wow, I can't remember what I did after the second slice of cake!"  See, you never hear that.

I admit to being a junk food junkie.  I am amazed at some of the inventive new junk foo (sorry, had to get some Cheetos, all this talk about junk food made me hungry) d creations.  I will admit to trying some things.  Way before they ever created Double Stuffed Oreos, I was taking two and putting the cream parts together.  Until this year, though, I have never had a fluffenutter (marshmellow fluff and peanut butter) sandwich.  But once I had one, I then created the fluff, Nutella, peanut butter and banana sandwich.  It was very good. I have had a couple of them.

There is a way to moderate our sugar or junk food intake, we just have to choose to do so.  Now, those of you who know me know I am not giving a lecture but rather stating fact. How we do is the tricky thing.  Some people allow themselves a little something, a cookie, a piece of candy a day.  Some, allow themselves something once a week and you get the picture.  Allow is the operative word, they constrain and allow themselves a reward. They think about their calorie intake and output and what is worth putting in their mouth.

 Some people eat whatever they want and don't put on an ounce and are as healthy as a horse.  These are the ones we all hate, and not even secretly, we are out there and serious.  I have known people like that I didn't hate, but was in envy of them.  I once worked with a guy who ate junk food all the time.  I heard that he and some others calculated his caloric intake at about 5,000 a day.  And there he was, his ol' average weight self, telling the story and eating gummy bears or something.

I haven't really got the knack of self denial very well.  I go through spurts of really good self control.  These spurts can last as long as an hour.  Then I am back on the sugar, fat, crunchy road to an early death.  And as I walk down that ooey, gooey, tasty road I usually have a smile on my face.

Today's topic Mom's. The media has had quite a bit of coverage of mom's lately. I am not writing this in defense of Anne Romney but am interested in how we treat stay at home mom's. Her situation has just brought my thoughts on the subject to the front of my mind.

So, first what has the women's movement really done for us. Stop, before you get all freaked out, I have deep and abiding feelings of gratitude toward all those women who suffered for suffrage. Those who stood up and gave us a voice. My thanks are innumerable. Knowing that I can be a single woman, live in my own house, drive my own car and travel on my own is owed to them. What I take for granted in my life wasn't possible for so many of those great women who had to have a man oversee their lives. I get it and am so grateful.

I feel that the pendulum has swung a little too far. We were promised we could have "it all". I don't see that much. What I see most is women are now expected, I said expected, to work, keep the house, cook and see to the children. The women's movement has taken a toll on us as women, particularly mother's. Suddenly, we are fighting each other. Some have called it a "faux war". I don't think there is anything false about it. There is an underlying disdain for stay at home moms. It has been stated that they don't know what it is like in the real world because they don't work outside the home. The role as mother is somehow less than CEO, lawyer, doctor, waitress, teacher, secretary, bank teller etc. It is assumed that you know less because of what you do. Right, because all you do is sit around and do nothing all day. You don't run a home, have a budget, manage time, have friends, carry out charitable acts or leave your house. You stay at home all day waiting for your husband to come home and tell you what to do next.

Some mom's don't have a choice but to work, if there is going to be food on the table and a roof over head they have to provide for it. They have to work. Some mom's choose to work because they want to. That is fine with me. However, I have had more friends, acquaintances complain that their husbands won't let them quit work than won't let them go to work. Some families would be fine with one of the parents staying home, you will note that I don't say it has to be mom. You may just have less, less of a house, less of a car, less of a vacation etc. I don't mean that you can't have nice or decent just maybe not as fancy.

I had the opportunity as a young woman to be a nanny for about 2 years. I truly loved the children I cared for. I took good care of them and was conscientious of the parent's wishes for their little ones. Being a nanny believe it or not is what made realize that I would be a stay at home mom. Those kids loved me, I saw first steps, new words, wonder with the world. I loved being part of that. But, I also recognized, clearly, that I didn't want someone else there for my children's first. That is why I have always said that when or if I married and had a family I was staying at home, and if we ate dirt every day then so be it. After 20 years of fulfilling work knowing how rewarding it has been and what I have been able to personally do for others I would give it all up now if I had a family. I won't lie and say with no regrets, I have loved the work, but I feel that the greatest work is in the home.

I think we get confused about what is important. I had a friend once who told me her husband said she was too smart to stay at home. I was a little surprised, too smart to stay at home. I didn't care if she worked but took exception to "too smart to stay at home". I think this is a crazy way to think. Again, work if you want to work. But don't fool yourself that it is because you are too smart. We had a very polite exchange, but I couldn't help but ask if she didn't want someone smart raising her children.

With a few exceptions, child care is at best high school graduates, maybe with some higher education worked in some of the workers, working in a daycare center or even in their or your home. These people aren't invested in your family, they are invested in a paycheck. That doesn't mean they wouldn't have true liking or even love for your child/ren but it isn't the same.

The disdain for stay at home mom's continues to stun me.  Particularly when it is strongly hinted that they don't contribute to society. What? What are you saying you crazy loons? The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world. There is a reason for that old chestnut. Raising or at least trying to raise up strong, smart children ready to take on the world is the best use of our time and resources. Children really are the future. Give me something that trumps that. There is no award, degree, or discovery that outweighs loving attention to the next generation.

Today's topic thoughts of Christ. Again, I am not trying to proselyte, have no fear, but this is my blog so I get to write about things I want to write about. This is Easter, a time we celebrate our Savior's triumph over sin and death. I think of all it, where did we come from, why are we here and were do we go when it is all over. Those are big questions. I am so grateful to have been given big answers.

My thoughts are so many when it comes to this topic. First, briefly, evolution vs creationism. Those who believe in the evolutionary theory seem to think that we believers of creationism don't understand science, how it works etc. I don't claim to know all there is to know about science but I know that God, the Creator, used science to create the earth and all else. He understands and uses science perfectly. He created it. We are the ones who cannot grasp his perfect ability to do all so, some claim it cannot be. I truly believe with God nothing is impossible.

Secondly, agency or free will. One argument against belief in God is why would He allow such atrocities, famine, war, murder, horrible, unspeakable things to his precious little ones. I would remind you that He loves us, respects us, understands the importance of freely choosing to obey and knows perfectly what it means to take someones free will. Even Satan, the father of all lies, understands the importance of obedience to God's commands. If God commands Satan to leave he must leave, feel free to read the scriptures for yourself, (again not proselyting, just inviting you to get your own information).

Lastly, we come to why we need a Savior, why Jesus Christ is the way and means we can enter into our Father's presence. When we leave this mortal coil we go to be with our Heavenly Father, if we are repentant. Repentance is more than saying you are sorry to God. Repentance means you recognize sin, feel truly sorry, forsake the sin and make restitution to those harmed. That is why the Atonement (Webster's “the reconciliation of God and human kind through the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ.”) is so amazing. God cannot look at sin with the least bit of acceptance, so how can we become clean of the stains our sins cause? Our Savior, Jesus Christ suffered for our sins in the Garden of Gethsemane, he then gave up his life on the cross and took his life up again on the third day. He was resurrected and brought eternal life to us all. He suffered for our sins so that we can follow the steps of repentance and be forgiven. Without Him, we wouldn't have the option to use the repentance process. He makes it possible for us to become clean, He has set a perfect example for us to follow.

I recently heard a religious based talk where the speaker quoted a bumper sticker he saw. It read "Don't judge me because I sin differently than you." How absolutely true that is! We all get up tight over each others sins and decide we are somehow better. Don't get me wrong, we still need to understand the difference between right and wrong, recognizing sin isn't a problem how we treat the sinner can be if we treat them in an unChrist like manner.

That takes me back to my original thoughts of Jesus Christ, he is the literal son of God, he is the Savior of the world, the only way and means to return to our Heavenly Father. He set a perfect example and has given us a pattern to follow. If only I were a good follower, I seem to let myself wander away from the straight and narrow path, I let my self get distracted over things of the world and worry too much over things I cannot change. How grateful I am that even though I choose to disobey, even though I am so flawed, my Savior loves me perfectly and if it had been just me to pay such a high price for He would have. Just as He would if it were only you.