Jesus picked up the conversation. "As the crowning glory of creation, you were made in Our image, unencumbered by structure and free to simply 'be' in relationship with Me and one another. If you had trully learned to regard one another's concerns as significant as your own, there would be no need for hierarchy.

It is so easy to get sucked into the if-only game, and playing it is a short and slippery slide into despair.

Trust is the fruit of a relationship in which you know you are loved.

I give you an ability to respond and your response is to be free to love and serve in every situation, and therefore each moment is different and unique and wonderful.

Religion and anger has gone together a lot, historically. My father, being very religious and angry, was trying to reconcile the ideas of love and forgiveness with damage in his own heart. We historically create God in the image of someone who will redeem us, or someone who has damaged us. A lot of my imaginations of God was a projection of my own damage because of my father. God is good but he has a lot of expectations, of which I have failed -- just like my dad. But I don't think it's truthful to create God as a projection of either our damage or our altruism.

I suppose that since most of our hurts come through relationships so will our healing, and I know that grace rarely makes sense for those looking in from the outside.

I had a very angry father and was disconnected from my family.