forgiveness, full and free

i am reading a book for Bible study: when sinners say i do by dave harvey. it has been great so far but very humbling, which i think is the point. this week the chapter is about forgiveness and i knew the basic ideas of the chapter, i even use ch. 18 in matthew to help me remember what real forgiveness should be. but often times i know it in my head and not in my heart. the following passage displays God's forgiveness of our debt and our poor realization of it in how we treat other sinners just like us. 

 ^23-25"The kingdom of God is like a king who decided to square accounts with his servants. As he got under way, one servant was brought before him who had run up a debt of a hundred thousand dollars. He couldn't pay up, so the king ordered the man, along with his wife, children, and goods, to be auctioned off at the slave market.

 ^26-27"The poor wretch threw himself at the king's feet and begged, 'Give me a chance and I'll pay it all back.' Touched by his plea, the king let him off, erasing the debt.

 ²⁸"The servant was no sooner out of the room when he came upon one of his fellow servants who owed him ten dollars. He seized him by the throat and demanded, 'Pay up. Now!'

 ^29-31"The poor wretch threw himself down and begged, 'Give me a chance and I'll pay it all back.' But he wouldn't do it. He had him arrested and put in jail until the debt was paid. When the other servants saw this going on, they were outraged and brought a detailed report to the king.

 ^32-35"The king summoned the man and said, 'You evil servant! I forgave your entire debt when you begged me for mercy. Shouldn't you be compelled to be merciful to your fellow servant who asked for mercy?' The king was furious and put the screws to the man until he paid back his entire debt. And that's exactly what my Father in heaven is going to do to each one of you who doesn't forgive unconditionally anyone who asks for mercy." - the message paraphrase

in my life i no longer want to act like a child of God who has been forgiven so much yet expects so much in return from others. i want to be forgiving in light of how much i have been forgiven. i hope this can encourage you today. i leave you with a quote from the chapter by ken sande, 

"forgiveness can be a costly activity. when you cancel debt, it does not just simply disappear. instead, you absorb a liability that someone else deserves to pay. similarly, forgiveness requires that you absorb certain effects of another person's sins and you release that person from liability to punishment. this is precisely what Christ accomplished on Calvary." 

think about that because forgiven sinners forgive sin. (also from the book)

update

on life: this weekend is a four day weekend for me unlike most teacher's three day president's day holiday. we had parent teacher conferences last week so we got friday off as well because wednesday and thursday were 12 hour days for us. see snippets for my favorite quotes from those days. 

we (the grandmas and i) went shopping this weekend for baby furniture. i bought a recliner/rocker and i think i found the crib/dresser set i like; they also bought some clothes that were on sale. i found two cute outfits and some shoes today at gymboree because they are having a good sale (10 things for 35 bucks, talk about good deals.) i have a hard time buying things for the baby because they are so expensive all the time, and there is not a little one actually here to use them yet. it is still fun and the grandmas really like it. 

pete is at avi 2 training all weekend - that is code for avalanche level 2 class to prepare him to be even safer in the backcountry. i like that he can do that now plus he will let me use his text books in my classroom later. the students don't really care, but i love learning weather type snow things. 

we are still reading through the Bible together this year,  finished exodus and almost through matthew. my favorite section so far was learning who was related and married and how they are somehow connected to Jesus. 

in other news, i am currently watching simpsons in hd and thinking about dinner. i think i need to eat more food in general on the weekends. my whole snack system gets thrown off when i am not at work. signing off until next time, amy

calling all moms (or dads)

i am looking for some opinions and personal stories. i am currently trying to decide if i should work part time next year or stay home with the baby full time. there are ups and downs for both options and both seem to be a great choice, i just have to choose one and that is difficult. i will not put all the details here. i merely want to read some of your experiences. did you work when you first had kids? did you stay home and if so, what did you do to visit with adult-type people? any other opinions you want me to know? also, if you have yet to have to make this decision, you can still tell me your opinion or stories of other people with kids. anyway, i am just "polling the audience" on this one to see what i get so leave a comment and let me know.