In 2009 Ms. Thompson was arrested for burglary of a children’s medical center in Torrance, California.
Hers is an unusual case for several reasons: First, because the burglar was a woman. By far the great majority of burglars are men. Second, because she was given three years for her crime. Too many people walk from such nonviolent crimes. Third, because she is eighty!
In explaining her crime, she told the court that if the she had more money coming from the government she would not have to steal. Wow! Her crime is the governments fault.
Unfortunately she is not the only guilty person to blame their sins on someone else. Here is the problem with her excuse: she was also arrested for theft in 1965, 1977, and for burglary in 1980, and 2008. Her criminal record started 55 years ago, yet this one was the fault of the government for not giving her more money.
She is not too different from most folks. When we are caught in our sins we seek someone else to blame. It is the fault of our mother, our father, our husband, our wife, or whoever else we can find. Until we are willing to accept responsibility for our own actions we are certain to keep messing up.
Many years ago, a teenage girl in our congregation ran away from home. After about a week she came to see me. She told me how hard things had been. She told me that the only thing she did wrong was that because she was hungry and had nothing to eat she stole some food. In reality her excuse for stealing was a snow job. She did not fool me; she fooled herself. She did not steal because she was hungry and desperate for food. She stole because her pride was too great to call her family or even me.
We love to make excuses, but what we need to do is confess our sins and behave righteously.
After the 80-year-old convict was sentenced to her three years she asked the judge, “I feel guilty for asking this, but is this a solid three years or is it just half time?” When caught she blamed. When sentenced for her crime she tried to escape the pain.
Blaming and escape is human, but Christian must rise above this kind of behavior.
Lonnie Davis
A myth is anything that many folks believe and seems like it is true, but it is not. Here are four marriage myths:
1. If a girl does not marry by 24 she is going to be an old maid.
Currently the average age for marriage in America is 26.8 years for men and 25.1 year for women. There is only a 50% probability that women will have married by age 25. For men that age of 50% probability of marriage is 27.
2. Second marriages last better than first marriages.
The divorce rate for second marriages is higher than for first marriages. It is even worse for third marriages. I think this is because after exposure to divorce, some couples learn to run from problems rather than do the hard work of making things better.
3. More than 50% of all marriages end in divorce.
Statistics lie. If you have a group of 100 married women and only 20 of them have been divorced, but they have each done so 3 times, the divorce rate will be 60% even though 80% of these women have never been divorced. In truth the age at which you married greatly affects the likelihood of divorce. Women who marry at under 20, get divorced at a 27.6% rate. Women who marry at 35-39 get divorced at a 5.1% rate. Between those two ages, the rate decline with each age bracket.
4. Living together gets one ready for marriage and makes divorce less likely.
Hugely wrong! Living together is not like marriage at all. That makes as much sense as renting a car for a day and claiming to know what it is like to own a car. Two people living together do not own the relationship. In fact they have decided not to commit to the relationship. According to an article in the March 2, 2010 New York Times the experience of living together before marriage weakens the marriage. “The likelihood that a marriage would last for a decade or more decreased by six percentage points if the couple had cohabited first.”
Some myths are harmless, but these are dangerous. Learn the truth.
Lonnie Davis
Actually I do not call them sayings. I call them “WiseWords.” They are words so wise that we all should remember them. Here is one of mine…
“A luxury once tried becomes a NECESSITY!”
If you do not believe that one is true, then try to live a week without a remote control, or air conditioning, or a refrigerator. Of course you would claim that a fridge is a necessity. Exactly! Around the world there are millions of people who live with a fridge. You prove my point.
What is one of your favorite “WiseWords?” Leave a post and share it with me so I can tell others.