kind of a deep post

This morning we headed to McKinney (an hour away) to go to church with my cousins, and have lunch with them. I had been to their church a few times, but Zac never had. We have had a hard time finding a church that we like because we both prefer a traditional service (choir, organ, hymnals) as compared to a praise style, but we want an open-minded congregation and pastor. We were both raised Methodist, but all the Methodist churches we've tried close to home are either a praise style service or the congregation is filled with all old people and we didn't quite fit in. Anyways, I've loved Ellen and Amy's church the times I've gone, so I wanted Zac to go. It was a great service today. I enjoyed what he preached about while I was there, but the more it marinates within me, the more I like it. He was talking about Jesus' 40 days in the wilderness and being constantly tempted by Satan. (This was also a pep talk for me about resisting temptation, since I gave up Dr. Pepper for Lent and have been miserable and having headaches and wanting to give in, but I haven't.) Anyways, at one point in the scripture the devil quotes the bible. The preacher said "there are many 'bible quoting devils' today, who take scripture and twist it how they want to, and pray on the most vulnerable groups." I think that is so true and it was so cool to hear a minister say so. Living in an extremely conservative town, it is hard to hear people say "I'm a republican because I'm a Christian." What are you trying to say about me...that I'm not a good Christian because I don't consider myself a Republican? It's frustrating to me. You can be a Christian and still have different political opinions. The main thing that bothers me I think, is that people use being a Christian as an excuse for being close-minded. I think the whole point of Christianity is to LOVE your neighbor, even if the neighbor is not exactly like you, and even if they make different choices, and even if they choose a different lifestyle or religion. It is not our job to judge and it's not our job to try to use the bible to condemn a certain group, just because we don't agree with them. This is getting kind of heavy, and I meant to just talk about how much I loved their church. We really wish it was not an hour away, or we would join for sure! We are still going to try to visit as often as possible though. Anyhow, after lunch we all went to eat at Jason's Deli...yum! It was so good to see my family and chat about work and life and the kids and sports and everything else we always blab about. :) When we got home from McKinney we took a long nap and then took Molly to a local park since it was such a gorgeous day. We'd never been to this one, and ended up walking around for abut an hour and a half. Molser loved it.