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******Soapbox warning**** Ok, consider yourself warned. I'm stepping up onto my soapbox, and I hope I don't offend anyone with this post. I guess I should apologize in advance, just in case. I apologize.

Well, now that that's out of the way, I have a confession to make: I HATE "forwarded" e-mails. I hate them with the white, hot intensity of ten thousand suns. You know the kind: once you've scrolled down through ten different peoples' entire address books, there are pictures of cherubic children or puppies or smiling bunnies with text that pleads with you to continue sending this letter around the world or someone will die, or miss God's blessings, or some other unimaginable horror will happen to you and everyone else who was unfortunate enough to receive said e-mail.

Then there are the ones that loudly proclaim "You are ashamed of Jesus if you delete this e-mail." Hello??? I highly doubt Paul had e-mail in mind when he wrote about never being ashamed of the gospel of Christ. And don't forget the ones asking for money. If we all give a dollar to a mythical sick child, his or her mythical disease will be miraculously healed. Although these are preferable to the ones that actually make your computer "sick" by giving you the latest internet virus when you open them. And, admit it, haven't we all secretly e-mailed Bill Gates, who is just out looking for ways to get rid of his billions and will gladly dash off a large check to an anonymous pastor's wife in rural Maryland! Yeah right!!

And, to date, I have lost hundreds of friends because I have failed to forward a certain sappy e-mail to twenty people, which of course means that I have also failed to get them back, which of course means I'm worthless and so are all my friendships. How will I survive?

I confess, if you have forwarded an e-mail such as this to me and you have felt very "unblessed" lately, it's my fault. Yep, I'll take the blame. I failed to forward, and the world as we know it will be coming to an end. I hope you can find it in your hearts to love me anyway.

Now, forward this to ten people and ..................just kidding!