The sins are wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and gluttony.  Often times, they are separated into two groups: Venial (less serious) and Mortal.   According to Wikipedia (and they are always right, right? I mean…I read it on the internet…), a mortal sin “Theologically, a mortal sin is believed to destroy the life of grace within the person and thus creates the threat of eternal damnation.”

Lately, I’ve started wondering about the 7 Deadly sins.  Why not 10?  I mean, why not 10 deadly sins to match up with the 10 Commandments?  Why 7?

It was interesting to me that the Deadly Sins, and the number thereof, has changed over time and considering who you ask.  It was Pope Gregory the Great   who adopted this latest list that we are familiar with now.   The Bible however does make mention of a its own list, though doesn’t refer to them as “Deadly” just things that the Lord hateth, from Proverbs:

16 There are six things the LORD hates,
seven that are detestable to him:

17 haughty eyes,
a lying tongue,
hands that shed innocent blood,

18 a heart that devises wicked schemes,
feet that are quick to rush into evil,

19 a false witness who pours out lies
and a man who stirs up dissension among brothers.

Those seem to be a mixture between the 10 Commandments and the 7 Deadly sins which we are all familiar with now.  It seems, from my reading of a few websites, that it was termed 7 Deadly sins as an educational tool originally.  It was easier to list them like that easily so that people may remember them.  It doesn’t mean however that God will not forgive them. Many people confuse this today, it seems.  All sin is forgiven by Jesus, its why he went to the Cross.

I think that the term “Deadly” just means that could potentially lead to a “spiritual death”.   If committed once, it may be easier to commit again. And then with each time, with each sin,if not confessed, slowly separates you from the Lord. And I believe that is what Hell is, literally.  I read once somewhere, I can’t remember where, that God never sends anyone to Hell. They send themselves.  Hell is just separation from God.  And people do this by themselves.  Every time they reject God, push him aside, many times for the things on the list above, giving up eternal things for earthly temporary things. People do it often enough, long enough, without ever changing, they can’t even begin to go to Heaven because they don’t ever consider it or consider God. They just consider themselves.  I know this one some level.  When I considered myself an Atheist or even an agnostic, I felt so closed off, so separated from even the possibility of God.   If I continued like that, I would have gone to Hell.  It was only by the grace of God that I was saved from that.

Just because I commit a deadly sin doesn’t mean God doesn’t love me or want me.  God pursues us, he wants to save all of us, not just the virtuous. Heaven would be a lonely place if it only house those with the virtuous. And God’s grace can cover anything, even the ugliest sin.

While reading Wikipedia, fun fact, I just learned…there are 7 Holy Virtues are  humility, charity, kindness, patience, chastity, temperance, and diligence.  Why isn’t there a movie about them?  Or spoken of when people speak of the 7 deadly sins?  Not sexy or interesting enough probably? Maybe I’ll write a book with the 7 Holy Virtues as its theme.

This is to mean that the rule in the Old Testament of forgiving someone three times is insufficient, and even more than twice that, is insufficient.  By Jesus saying seventy-seven times, He is pretty much saying, there is no number, just keep doing it.

But that brings up another point.  That forgiveness is not a one time deal.  It’s a process.   Why is that?  Why not just forgive once and move on?   I think because they recognize that for some things, that wouldn’t work.  Some things, no matter if forgave them last week, something may come up where a twinge of pain will be brought up to the surface.  Once it surfaces, the pain happens all over again, fresh and new.  Then you have to forgive again.  Make a concious decision to forgive again.  It just doesn’t happen.  It’s not a reflex.  It’s a conscious decision to forgive and move on.

The person brought up to my mind was my mother. Joe Lay, our Pastor, said that forgiveness means to “relinquish the right to hurt someone for hurting you”.    I don’t want my mother any pain or wish her any ill will.  I wish her happiness and peace, if she can find it.  But sometimes, that twinge of pain still surfaces.  The pain of the childhood that I feel was robbed from me, or the relationship with my mother that I fear I’ll never have.

I don’t think forgiveness means to restore the relationship completely, to start off where you were before, to risk getting hurt again.  It just means that you forgive them.  That you release that pain and can move on in some relationship  with the other person.  I don’t think I will ever have a “normal” or healthy relationship with my parents, because they don’t recognize that there was anything ever wrong with our childhood.  They don’t recognize the pain that they caused to myself and my siblings.  How can I build on that?  How can I even bring up the subject without completely ruining whatever “friendship” I have with them?  We are like polite aquaintances.  I don’t really know my parents much.  I don’t know what they like (except the Godfather and Gone with the Wind for movies).  I don’t know what they like to eat or where, or what they think on topics.  I know more about the residents I work with than about my parents.  But how do I begin to bridge that gap?  Would they need to acknowledge the past for us to move on and have a real relationship?  Is that needed?  I am not sure.  I am not sure if I can do all that.  If there ever was a relationship to start with, maybe I could repair that if it broke.  But there’s nothing to start to build on.

Joe Lay said that, which I’ve heard before, that I never have to forgive anyone more than God forgave me.  It pains me to think of Jesus dying for my sin.  So the least I can do is to take this topic of forgiveness seriously and really consider it in my life.

I just don’t know how to clean myself of these feelings that surface sometimes when I see or hear of people speak of their childhoods.  Of course, I know that memories, either good or bad, are exaggerated.  The families with a wonderful childhood put a spotlight on the good things and people like me with a difficult childhood seem to put a spotlight on all the negative things. So I know enough not to trust my memories completely.

I thought that with forgiveness, the pain would go away too.  But it doesn’t really happen like that, does it?   The pain is a reminder to forgive again, and again, and again, up to even more than seventy-seven times, if needed.

Is the fact that I feel this pain mean that I haven’t really forgiven my parents?  Is that an indicator?  I want to be free of this pain, and some days, weeks or months are fine.  But then something happens, a word said, or a holiday comes up and the pain circles up to the surface again.

I was angry at God when I was younger. Because of my childhood.  Because I can’t even remember most of my childhood, because I feel like it was stolen from me.  I denied God for a long time, shunned Him out of my life.

Only until a few years ago, did I let Him back in.  With the help of Ray Williams, who I never could have moved past the pain if he weren’t my friend.  With the help of Michael Lister, who helped me see the awe of creation and experience the love of a stranger.  With the help of Carol Therrien, who helped me see the love and joy of God in all her actions.  These people were my examples when I was a baby Christian.  These people helped me see good examples of humankind and thereby examples of Christ.

I became a Christian. Went to Church. I read the Bible and other books which were helpful. I actually believed, which my former self would scoff at and belittle.  I changed.  I actually believed I could become a wife again without failing that like I did before.  I believed that my future was not to be alone.  I believed that I could have children!  That was a major step for me.  I never wanted to have children. Ever.  Not even allowed myself to dream or play house when I was a child.  I never wanted to risk that.  Risk what kind of mother I would be upon another human life.  But I forgave my own parents some and I found out that I wanted to have a child, that I could do it.  And then I met Jeff. My husband now.  And I love him more than any one else.  He is goodness, personified.

And then I got pregnant.  I was scared at first. And then happy. extraordinarily happy.  Worried about what kind of mother  I would be. Already planning and thinking of how I would teach my child to be kind, to be always questioning, always in awe of things, to be compassionate and strong and their own person, regardless of the crowd. I wanted to teach the child the joy of reading and the secret worlds to be found in books.  I wanted to skip stones with my child.  To be outside and play.

And then the first doctors visit came.  The doctor didn’t see anything in the gestational sac.  No life.  It measured at 5 weeks so perhaps I was too early to see anything yet.  Wait a week.  Then the longest week of my life.  Waiting to find out if it’s a viable pregnancy or not.  Second ultrasound. Still nothing.  Blighted ovum.  Body absorbed or destroyed the baby because of some abnormality. Nothing we did wrong. It just happens.  I could miscarry on my own or have a d & c done.  It’s a dilation and curettage.  Basically taking out the empty gestational sac.

The doctor seemed to recommend it.  It will help me move on, they say.  End this chapter of my life and try again.  Everyone keeps talking about trying again.  I hate it when they speak of it.  I don’t want to talk of that yet.  I don’t want to think of that yet.  I want this one.

I originally said I would get the d&c done . It’s scheduled for Tuesday.  I thought, it’d be messier and horrible to miscarry on my own. Just get it done.

But now, I am thinking.  I believe in God.  And it is with that faith, that I am thinking maybe it’s not too late for a miracle?   Maybe God can fix the blighted ovum that I’ve been diagnosed with.  Maybe he can breathe life into that empty gestational sac?  He’s done bigger things.

I won’t bargain with God. I won’t say I will go to Church more or volunteer more, or that my faith will be increased if he just does this one thing. This one little thing, on the scheme of things God can do.  I won’t test God.

But I will EXPECT a miracle.  Is that too much to ask for?  Didn’t God make Mary a virgin mother?  And bring a baby to Abraham and Sarah when they were old?  Then, too, can God make a miracle out of me too.

Am I setting myself up for even more anguish when I miscarry naturally?  Maybe.  But while there is a gestational sac, there may be hope. And  while there is hope, maybe there is life.  I don’t know. I don’t know if I am just in the denial phase of grief or not.  But I can’t bring myself to have a d&c and then be told later on, they made a mistake (if the medical community could be trusted to tell such a truth).

I expect a miracle.  I am told in Church and in Sunday School to be expectant of our prayers to be answered.  Not just hope, not just pray, but fully expect it to come true.  And so I will. For the first time in my life, I will expect a miracle, an answer to a prayer.  I know my prayers have been answered before, but never while I fully expected them to. This time I do expect it.

I expect it because I know God is good and loving.  I expect it because I have to.  I can’t believe that the sac is empty and that all hope is lost.  I can live with hope, until the miscarriage will take it away from me.  And I may be angry with God for not answering my prayers.  But I won’t ever shun him from my life again.  I will be angry.  But He can take that.  I will be angry….but any relationship, any good relationship, has anger as part of it.  I will be angry because I love Him.

But I expect a miracle.

Recently I saw a movie, Adjustment Bureau, which sparked me to mull this aspect over more.  Is God unchangeable?  Is His plan etched in stone, forever and ever?

I had been reading the Bible as well this year, from cover to cover, for the first time.   With the flood, he wiped out the sinful people and only let Noah and his family survive. They became the new “Adam and Eve”.  But if God is unchangeable, why wouldn’t he just start with humans 2.0 instead of drowning out the entire nations?

Also, when Moses and everyone was wandering in the desert, there were many times when God became angry at the people. Yet Moses interceded on their behalf and convinced God to give them another try. I am paraphrasing here, but that’s the gist, (correct or incorrect) that I took from it.

It seems to come to Free Will (as the move I had watched suggested).  The Free Will of the Old Testament people allowed them to become so sinful, that God just wanted a clean slate.

Maybe God has a plan, but when we exercise our free will to the fullest, when its most painful and difficult to do, maybe that’s when God’s plans can be swayed and adjusted.

Exercising that free will, when its at its most difficult to do, is perhaps rarely done.  Maybe once or twice or a handful of times in our life, do we really, when we look at it closely, exercise our free will, apart from the Government, apart from the Church, apart from work and family pressures.  It’s not anarachy or anything like that to exercise free will like that, just life altering.

So much of our lives  it seems we just go along, to get along.  I know I do.  I take the easy course sometimes, even when I know its wrong. An example is a difficulty we are having with a former landlord.  He always said we owed him “x” but would never really sufficiently explain why or how.  We’ve paid him just to be rid of him from our lives.  Instead of fighting it.  We are just going along, to get along.  Sure, its a small example. But whole lives are built upon these types of examples.  I just figured, a year from now, how much will that former landlord matter? How much energy should we put into arguing with him about it?  It’s a compromise.

Personally, I’ve thought of this a lot lately.  For my whole life, until recently, I never wanted children.  I never thought I should have children.  But now that’s changed. With God in my life and my love, Jeff, in my life, I want children now.  But maybe all those years of my telling myself, my friends, and everyone who would listen that I didn’t want children, maybe, I convinced God too.

I don’t know what’s in God’s plans for me.  But I don’t think God is unchangeable.  He is God, and forever will be God and that part of him is unchangeable.  But I don’t believe in predetermination to that extent.  I think if his whole plan was predetermined, that would question the whole free will theory anyway.  There may be a plan, but I think God will take into consideration my wants and needs with the plan too.

That’s why we pray, we  plead, we cry out.  For God to help out, to give peace of mind and heart, to heal, to give courage.  We pray, because  He will hear us and answer our prayers.

But I thought God answered my prayers.  I had prayed before recently that I could get pregnant and Jeff and I could have a child together.  I prayed that God would forgive me for my past sins and let me have a child.

You know, they say that if you pick up something in a store, in your mind, you already own it.  If then, you find out you can’t afford it, you feel some loss, even though you never owned it to begin with.

Such it is with me.  I wasn’t pregnant. So it doesn’t make sense for me to mourn its loss because it never was.  But I feel like I’ve lost something.  I spent a week feeling sick, spent a week having morning sickness, spent a week nauseated, spent a week watching my caffeine intake.  I felt pregnant, with my whole body and soul.  I thought I could feel God knitting my baby in its womb.

But it was just stress, anxiety and probably some heartburn issues.  I can’t think of it without crying.  I have a plan though. I always try to have a plan….to get healthier, to loose weight, to go back on birth control while I loose weight (so I won’t have to go through this again..), and then my doctor assures me it will be easier when I loose weight, even 30 lbs.

Right now, I can’t help but wonder what I’ve done wrong in my life, what sins I’ve done . Maybe all those years of saying that I didn’t want children, that I didn’t dare to have children, that I thought it would be tantamount to abuse if I ever did have children, maybe all that finally convinced God too.

I didn’t know I wanted to be a mother so much until this past week.  I didn’t know I was brave enough until I had Jeff in my life.  I didn’t know that I would be strong enough until I accepted God in my life.  Maybe its too late.  I pray not. I pray…I pray…

I learned that today in a profound way.  I had a horrible day at work so I left work early when a friend could give me a ride.  On the way up the stairs, I noticed a woman sitting on them, talking on the phone, in obvious distress.

I continued up the stairs to go home, but once there, I felt the need to go back and check up on her.  She said she was fine.  So I went back upstairs.  I didn’t believe her of course, she was crying and a mess from head to toe, and the snippets of the conversation I overheard were cause for concern.

I went back down again with a washcloth that was partly wet and partly dry so she could clean herself up somewhat, and gave her a bottle of water, and told her what apartment I was in. She again said she was fine and I let her be.

Back in my apartment, and I am crying now too,  I noticed a friend who just finished the Stephan Ministry training. So I message her, asking for advice, asking what more I can do.  And then I talked to Jeff, my husband on the phone and he suggested I give her our Church’s phone number and address.

So I wrote it all down for her, and went to check on her again.  She said she was fine again and I just handed her the paper with the Church’s name and number on it.

After a while again, I went back out to check on her and she’s gone.  I don’t know her name. I don’t really know her situation.  I just know she’s pregnant and having some trouble with her boyfriend and just in so much distress it pains me to think about it.

If I am to be the hands and feet of God, I wish I could be more effective, but I don’t know what else I could have done.  She knows that she’s cared for, even if by a stranger. She knows where to find me, if she needs me.  She knows where to find the Church if she needs them.  I hope she’ll reach out to someone.

She’s in God’s hands now.  I pray that he protects her and her unborn baby and that she finds some help and eventual peace.

I signed up to do this.  I’ve read the New Testament and parts of the Old Testament.  So I am eager to do this as a dedicated part of my daily life.  I am hopeful that it will help me stay at peace more, if I read and pray every day.  I am hopeful that I might, through prayer and meditating on the Word, find some ways to get to know my parents and family, before it’s too late.  I am hoping to be able to be seen as a Christian to my non-Christian friends and be a light in the world for them.  I am hopeful for a lot of things for the New Year.

I am excited and hopeful for the New Year.  I love my Heavenly Father, and trust that he will help me, if its his will, to reconcile and build a relationship with my family.  I have no idea how to do this. I don’t know how to take the first step.  But I will pray about it.

As I have gotten older, much of it away from any family, I have come to admire and value the elderly generation.  I like to listen to them.  Hear their stories.  And try to learn from them.  I think if we ever do learn from our elders, that maybe, just maybe, history won’t repeat itself.  But we never do.  The younger generation always seems to know more than the older generation. But in reality, it’s just an illusion.  Sure, there are always new gadgets to learn, new business techniques, new ways to travel.  But the real lessons of life, the real issues, the real problems…they stay the same from generation to generation.  Ethical problems stay the  same. Morality, stays the same.

I wish I had gotten to learn some of these things from my grandmother.  But in my youth, I was angry with all my family.  In my 20′s, I just didn’t care. Or pretended to not care.  In my 30′s, I moved to escape.

My grandmother passed away today, Christmas day.  Many people are saying that she must have been a very special person for Jesus to call her home on his birthday.  I am not sure what kind of person she was.  I don’t know what she wanted out of life, I don’t even know what she did for work, if she ever did.  I don’t know what books she read, or what movies she liked best.  I don’t know if she was a good cook or a bad cook.  I met her several times when I was younger…and made a point of visiting her when she was in rehab when I was in Maine last.  But never reconnected with her like I should have.

I didn’t know how.  I am sad that she passed away today. But I am glad she’s no longer in any pain. She isn’t hurting anymore.  The only sadness I feel is for missed opportunities, for a broken family that doesn’t know how to talk to each other.  I feel bad for my Dad who lost his mother, but not sure how to even reach out to him.  In a family that doesn’t talk, or say anything important or meaningful, how do you start?

I grew up in an opposite environment than this. I grew up without the word “love” in my vocabulary, without warm hugs.  Generational abuse describes how abuse is passed down the next generation. We are products of our past. We learn to do something by  how it was done to us.  Sure, there are exceptions. Always exceptions.  But who is to say that I would be the exception?

Very distraught one day, I emailed my brother, Joe.  I do not trust my memories. The few that I have.  I asked my brother if it was really as bad as I remembered. I’ve heard that the past is always glorified, whether for good or ill.  While I still don’t trust my memories, my brother has confirmed that it was a very physically abusive, emotionally, verbally abusive, and just plain neglectful environment to grow up in.

But Joe is a great dad of two beautiful daughters.  And before he had kids, he was right on track to be like my dad. He drank, he did drugs, he got into fights.  By all accounts, most people would have given up hope on him.  But when he found out he was going to have children, he gave up on all that.  He is such a great father and his kids are his life.

He thinks we’ve distanced ourselves enough at a very young age, that we have a chance to break the generational pattern.  We moved out at ages 15 and 16  and never once moved back home.  We knew there was something wrong with our childhood from a very young age.  So he thinks this gives us hope to be good parents.

But I am still scared.  I wonder often if its even responsible to try to have kids knowing my past.  If there’s even a chance I could be like my parents, I wouldn’t want to take the risk.  But risk is what it’s all about isn’t it…..everything’s a risk.  As Tolkien says in Fellowship of the Rings, “its a dangerous business going out your front door…”

But I do have God to help me get through this. I have my loving husband. My work family and friends. My Choir and Sunday school family.  I have a lot of support and love in my life. I am blessed.  I am lucky.  Maybe my parents didn’t have these things when they tried to raise us.  Maybe they were younger than I am. Maybe they didn’t really believe in God.

I am blessed in my life to have all that I have. And I hope, and think, and hope some more, that a child of mine would be blessed too.

A lot has changed since those days.  I  still am a new believer. A baby Christian.  But I’ve learned a lot and changed a lot.  I asked God what he wanted for me for my future, I asked if he wanted me to get married again (something I never thought I would do again) or if he wanted me to have children.  I agonized over this for weeks.  Praying and pleading and asking God if I should open myself up to these possibilities.

Then I met Jeff at Church.  He is a very sweet and wonderful.  He wanted to get married and have children.  We hit it off and have so much fun and laugh. We got married on August 21st 2010.

Life is good.  We praise God and serve together.  We support each other through difficult times. We’ve been tested already a great deal, and believe that we can get through more as long as we both support each other, and don’t sweat the small things.  When upset at things, I try (most times) to think of how much it would matter in 6 months, 1 year or 5 years from now. And most times, it wouldn’t matter at all, even in 6 months. Or a week.

I still have issues that I question, which I will write about more frequently now that my life has settled some.  I still wonder about the mysteries of life, of faith,  of God, of friends and family. I still struggle with forgiveness.  I believe I always will.  But I will write about it. Whatever it is and hope that by writing, I might, just might, be able to settle my mind some, and if anyone reads this at all, it might spark interest at least,  or something more.

And so, Merry Christmas to all, and may  God bless everyone!