It's 10:08 p.m. and I'm outside blogging because I don't want to miss any of the warm nights we have left. I find it a little ironic that I love peaceful, quiet moments because for the first 34 years of my life I was an adrenaline addict and if I didn't have any chaos to deal with I created some on my own. At work today we talked about some of the people who've been in the news lately, like the guy who killed the North St. Paul Police officer. The people that really bother the ladies at my table are the women who live with and marry abusive, crazy men and continue to go back to these guys time after time. I think the reason lies a little bit in my example of chaos. I swore as a kid watching my father drink that I would never drink and I would be the nicest mom in the world and give my kids all the things I wanted and never had. I turned into the alcoholic I swore I would never be and I did NOT turn into the nicest mom in the world. (I am now, but that's another story)We, as humans, are not logical beings. Yes, some of us are more logically minded than others, but even Paul in the Bible says he does the very thing he doesn't want to do and he doesn't do the thing he wants to do! (Romans 7:14) I've heard the example of our brains being like computers. Just like a computer can only regurgitate the information that has been put in it, our brains can only direct us to do the things that have been put into us. The statistics show it to be true when most abused girls marry abusive men and abusive men have most likely been abused as boys. It's a pattern of human behavior. It's sad and scary, but what really changed my attitude of condemnation about these people is when I realized I was one of them and I am capable of doing any of the hideous things I've seen and heard about if given the right circumstances. It doesn't make it ok. It just makes God's grace for me that much more real.