Snippets

Hahn Kathy

Description

Each page, or few pages, is different. The book is not about one subject, but a series of events in my life. lt is funny, poignant, sad, hopeful, angry, joyful. I am a Christian, therefore there is more religion in the book than I expected. Some page titles are: Tattoos, My Daddy was a Welder, Life After Covid, Wedding, Good People Have to Suffer, My Brain, Silly God, What am I Doing Here? Summer, Edgar Reed. lf I wasn't there when it happened, someone in the family was. We can't call it fiction although some of it sounds like it is. lt's a fun little book that will occupy your free time and hopefully exercise your mind a bit.

Sujets

• Psychology of Religion
• Philosophie et théologie
• Story
• Religion
• Life

Informations

• Publié par: Xlibris US
• Date de parution: 25 août 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781669844433
• Langue: English

Extrait

Snippets
Little pieces of my Life
Kathy Hahn

Copyright © 2022 by Kathy Hahn.
 
ISBN:
Softcover
978-1-6698-4449-5

eBook
978-1-6698-4443-3
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.
 
King James Version (Authorized Version). First published in 1611. Quoted from the KJV Classic Reference Bible, Copyright © 1983 by The Zondervan Corporation.
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
 
 
 
Rev. date: 08/24/2022
 
 
 
 
 
Xlibris
844-714-8691
www.Xlibris.com
845555
Contents
Good People Have to Suffer
Update On Depression
American Politics
To Be Or Not To Be
Wedding
What Is Wrong
Life
A Little Girl Dances
New Word and Phrase Meanings in American English Lately
What Am I Doing Here?
Jesus Loves You, This I Know.
My Mother’s Not Dead
Except Sundays 11/22/21
I’m Old
Silly God
Palm Sunday
I Don’t Get It
Psalm 136
Thank God
Life After Covid
Edgar Reed
The Generic Cold
Something Happy
This Was Not A Good Day
God Don’t Make Junk
Birthday Party
My Brain
Mother
Summer
Heat Wave Continues Unabated. For My Part: Thank You, God.
Grade 6 - Bad Teacher 1957
Tattoos 6/2/22
To Sleep Forever Or...
Sinful People
Dance
Politics???
God’s In His Heaven
My Aunt Judy
The Ordinary Samaritan
Traveling By Air
God Doesn’t Dammit
The Original Plan
Historical Christianity
Do Cockroaches Go To Heaven?
A Quiet Day
Oh My God 1/27/22
Laughter Isn’t Always Funny
Be Strong And Of Good Courage
Depressive’s Lament
It Occurs to Me... Re: meds
Lent 2022
Marriage
Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of Holy Week
Getting Old
Chaplain Intern — My Biggest Mistake
The Event Was About Speaking In Tongues
The House Grandpa Owned
My Two Sisters
Fiddler
Physically Ill
Daddy Was A Welder
Opposable Thumbs
Christian Behavior In Our Society

What I hope you will find in these pages are snippets of me. When I started, a book was the farthest thing from my mind. I have Major Depressive Disorder (currently well controlled, but I’ve been writing for several years) anxiety disorder and just a pinch of O.C.D. I love God and my family. I would like to love everyone, but that’s a tall order. I write like I think, so it sometimes needs a second reading to get on my wavelength.
I tried sorting these pages all different ways and finally decided not to separate them into “Theology”, “family stories”, “Politics”, “how crazy do I feel today”, “friends and ‘not-friends m . There are probably more that I can’t put in a category, but I just mixed it up. Over the years, as I wrote, I didn’t realize how much I focused on God.
It should be a fun book if you have a modicum of education and humor. Being chummy with God will help too, but it’s not a requirement. I do not have a sign anywhere in my home that says “Live, Laugh, Love”, but there is one over the toilet that says, “sit a spell”. Some of the stories have dates, some don’t. Some sound stupid, and they could be. Some have political viewpoints exposed. Read them anyway. It won’t hurt you if you don’t believe it, and they’re short. Some reference my faith, my lack of faith, my family, my illness. It’s rather self-exposing. There is a vast amount of experience to share about myself. If enough of you like this one, I’ll do another. I haven’t It)LD ALL yet.
I would like to dedicate this book to my mother, Donna Jean Orndoff Davison whom I loved, honored, and respected and my father adored. They have rejoined in heaven; of that I am certain.
Good People Have to Suffer
Why do good people have to suffer?
Everything happens for a reason. REALLY?
It’s God’s will. Are you SURE about that?
We get what we deserve. Somewhere you have done something for which you should pay. Did you ever really think that through?
God is good. God is Love. There is no evil in God. There is no BAD in God. God never gives anyone anything bad. (I may explain Job in a later article, there IS a valid explanation.)
If we just prayed harder, God would protect us from suffering. Mother Theresa might argue with that concept.
We’ll go to heaven, and the bad people won’t. Oh, that’s helpful when you are burying your child.
God is good. All people sin. God gave us the ability to sin because He wants our love, but it isn’t real love unless we choose to give it. In order to choose to give it, we must have the ability NOT to give it, to withhold it. Withholding love from God is turning our backs on Him. That is the definition of SIN: Turning our back on, withholding love from, not giving love to — GOD.
Anytime you can turn BACK to God and give Him your love, He welcomes you back like the Prodigal Son because that’s what you are. You have chosen to reject your sin (that particular sin) and return to Him. (Repent MEANS return.) Christ made this possible, and God is gloriously happy about it.
That is the meaning of repentance and that is the meaning of forgiveness and THAT is what Christ Jesus gave us.
It still doesn’t seem right that such a good God would let so much evil exist here. Doesn’t He love us enough to prevent it? That’s a little more difficult to explain but easy enough to understand.
Let’s use a parable. It worked for Jesus, maybe it will work for us.
God gives us glass bottles (to keep our food and water in). When we sin we break a bottle. There are millions of broken bottles all around us in our world. Sin caused the breakage of every one of them. We must negotiate around them trying not to get cut. We are wearing flip-flops, so we all get cuts and scratches around our feet and ankles caused by harsh words, cheating, dirty jokes, gossip, distain, selfishness, and other small hurtful things we all do to one another. Small, but still sinful. They hurt. Christ weeps.
Sometimes we get more serious injuries. We fall or are pushed and get cuts on our knees and hands, elbows, hips, and backs. Some of them, lost jobs, car crashes, foreclosures, paying good money for bad workmanship, family hatred (because Grandma died and left the china to the other grandchild), identity stolen, infidelity, abuse, robbery, rape. Some of them are pretty deep. They leave scars. They are caused by other peoples’ broken bottles. Christ weeps.
Sometimes we die. The driver of the OTHER car was drunk so you bury your wife. You are sitting by your window when a drive-by shooter puts a bullet through your head quite by mistake. He was aiming at the other guy. You had been riding a motorcycle for years and had never had an accident, but the trucker hadn’t slept for two days. They wipe pieces of you off the street. Christ weeps.
“NOT FAIR!”, you say. Where was God? But way back behind you, maybe three years back, YOU broke a bottle. JUST ONE. Maybe you cheated someone and never got caught. Somebody else was cheated on and never recovered. It had nothing to do with you except that it was YOUR BOTTLE, your little sin dumped onto the street with everyone else’s. Sin Hurts! Everyone’s sin hurts someone. Even one bottle — even one sin.
It’s time to say something hopeful.
Any act of Grace heals, protects, comfort, and saves someone from sin. Maybe their sin, maybe someone else’s.
Any act of Grace is a gift from God to God through Christ.
If there is a smile, a kiss, a hug, a word of gratitude, a word of praise, a sharing of knowledge, toys, books, hope, prayer, if there is any sharing of Love there is an act of Grace.
There is the love of God made visible in this broken world, there is someone who is carried some distance over broken bottles. Carried by Christ Jesus through His loving, repentant child. We all sin. We all can return to God. We all can be a means of Grace through Christ through Gods other children.
We will still break bottles. They will still hurt people. But Grace heals, protects, comforts and saves. The saving Grace of Christ is the road back to God. There are still bottles on this road. We broke them, and we have to walk through them whether we are walking towards God or not, so why walk the wrong way? Christ is our navigator he can show us how to avoid the really sharp pieces.
He helps us catch someone who is about to fall. He helps us get up and keep going and pick others up so they can keep going too, and he helps us accepts a hand when it is offered all gifts from God so we all can keep going towards Him. We suffer because we live in a broken world, a world broken by sin as surely as a bottle breaks when you smash it on a table. The love of Christ could sweep all the broken glass of the surface of the earth if we would only love him back. Over and above of all this is the unchangeable and absolute fact that God is good. God is love. There is no evil in God. There is no BAD in God. God never gives anyone anything bad.
Good people have to suffer.
Update On Depression
I waited a few weeks before writing this. I have been battling depression and anxiety for about 60 years. I was so young I couldn’t tell you when it started. Maybe around age 13. About 4 months ago, I began a friendship