Plain Forgiven: Worth a read

Just wanted to share a few articles that I came across recently on the Internet. Some of these articles are long reads. I do not necessarily agree with the conclusions of the articles. But some of them totally cracked me up.

The first batch is a selection of articles from http://www.christianitytoday.com

1. 70 Effective Resolutions
http://www.christianitytoday.com/leaders/newsletter/2003/cln30102.html

Jonathan Edwards was a serious man. Even at 19, the young man who would become a leading figure in the First Great Awakening took his faith seriously. In several sittings over a one-year period, Edwards drafted 70 resolutions by which he governed his life and ministry....

2. Our Chief Work. What Tops Our Shorter To-Do List For The New Year
http://www.christianitytoday.com/leaders/newsletter/2007/cln70101.html

I read an article that created a great deal of anxiety in me. It was entitled "If You Are 35, You Have 500 Days to Live." Subtract the time you will spend sleeping, working, and tending to personal matters such as hygiene, odd chores, eating, and traveling. In the next 36 years you have 500 days of leisure. If this world is all there is, then none of us should waste our time praying. We should literally be grabbing for all the gusto we can get...

3. A Woman Of Influence. Why Elisa Morgan, CEO of MOPS International, is passionate about helping women see themselves as more than their roles
http://www.christianitytoday.com/tcw/2007/001/1.20.html

Elisa Morgan has her audience eating out of her hand. Onstage, the petite dynamo with spiky hair and a warm grin regales the 5,000 women gathered in Nashville for the annual MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) International Convention with a hilarious anecdote about her preschool-aged grandson, Marcus, whom she unabashedly adores...

4. Of Goals and Grace
http://www.christianitytoday.com/singles/newsletter/

"Did you make any New Year's resolutions?" my friend Jill asked me when we were at my friend Kristee Jackson's New Year's Eve party earlier this week.
"Yes, I've decided to try to get to bed earlier in the evenings," I responded, adding that I have the unfortunate tendency of getting a second wind toward the end of the night.
"So, you're saying you want to spend more of 2007 asleep?" she teased...

5. Remembering To Forget

http://www.christianitytoday.com/tc/2006/001/6.54.html

Forgetfulness comes naturally to most of us. But it is highly selective.
My neighbor Sandy told me about an acquaintance who left the grocery store, went on another errand, then realized she had forgotten her groceries. She went back and checked all the carts in front of the grocery. Her bags were not there. Someone must have taken them.
She marched in to tell the store manager about the crime. "Could you describe your bags, ma'am?" he asked. "Paper or plastic?"
"They were plastic," she said confidently. "There were two." She went on to carefully list their contents.
"Oh," said the manager. "And might they be the two plastic bags that are hanging from your arm?"
The woman looked down. There they were, dangling from her left elbow...

Other Christianity-related articles:

1a. Oscar Wilde, poet, playwright, gay icon and deathbed convert to Catholicism, has been paid a rare tribute by the Vatican.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13509-2531949,00.html

1b. The long conversion of Oscar Wilde

http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/arts/al0010.html