Ripe Mango Chronicles

Can our sins be used for good? Romans 8:28 says, “In all things God works for the good of those who love him.” In John 20 Jesus says, “If you forgive someone’s sins, they’re gone for good. If you don’t forgive sins, what are you going to do with them?” I’m sitting here thinking about this, thinking about the wording of that. “If you don’t forgive sins, what are you going to do with them?” We need to DO SOMETHING with our sin. I’m a visual person, so let me paint a picture for you: picture a garbage dump, it’s smelly, it’s gross, it’s massive, the pile just keeps getting bigger and no one knows what to do with all that useless garbage stinking up the neighborhood. Then some genius comes along with this brilliant idea: Recycling! Who would have thought we could convert waste into a reusable material. But that’s not all this genius came up with. Not only are we going to recycle, but we’re also going to reduce our waste and reuse what we can. Stay with me here and you’ll see where I’m goin...

I recently read the book Blue Like Jazz. The book itself was very scattered and I found it hard to follow, but there were random quotes and thoughts throughout the book that really got me thinking. The writer talks about living in the woods with a group of hippies for a short period of time. Through that experience he was changed: he didn’t make a conscious choice to change, he just did. He was still the same person but he was different. He had seen the world through the eyes of someone completely different from him, he had learned to appreciate the thoughts and views of a group of people he had never before cared to associate with. In the short time he had spent in the woods he had started to absorb the culture, the attitudes, the passions of those around him. For a few months after he left the woods he becomes this in-between guy, this part hippie part yuppy guy. After a while he goes back to hanging out with his yuppy friends, and absorbs their culture, attitude and passions again t...

God has been speaking to me over the past few weeks. It's always a wonderful thing when God speaks to you, although sometimes it's painful. No one likes to be told they're doing something wrong. As much as we try to pretend, no one truly enjoys being criticized. Yet, the Bible says we are the clay and God is the potter. We need to be pliable and allow God to form us and mold us into the person He wants us to be. Which means sometimes God needs to let us know when we start down a path He hasn’t laid out for us. I am so accustomed to my way of doing things, to my way of thinking. I am set in my ways and to be completely honest I don't want to change. Change is hard. Change takes effort. Change takes energy. Change hurts. Change is humbling. Change means I have to be willing to say, "I need to do something different, because what I'm doing isn't working." I like to think I have it all together. I like to think, "I have arrived." I like to think...

It's been a strange week for me. I've been sick with a very bizarre illness. I usually like to keep my illnesses quiet for my mother's sake. I don't like to make her worry, but I am better now and this story is just too interesting to keep to myself. It all started with a little tiny dot on my side. It must have been itchy, but I don't really remember. I'm often scratching so it didn't really stand out, except for the fact that it kept growing. It took about 4 or 5 days before it really went wild, but on that last day it went from a couple inches wide to a small dinner plate sized, red, itchy, swollen, hard area of weirdness. I went to Grant and Sandy's to see what Grant thought (he's an Advanced Care Paramedic and quite handy to have around!) He told me it looked like some sort of bite that I was having an allergic reaction to. He told me to load up on Benedryl for the night and recommended I get down to the clinic first thing in the morning. Thankf...