Love is…

1 John 4:8

Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

and

1 Corinthians 13:4-7

 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

I have been thinking a lot on love lately. There seems to be such confusion on what love is.  Love is complex. We are complex and our God is complex. On the surface love seems easy.  I mean it is love, we all love someone.  So if we all do it, it must be easy. Right? I have also wondered why is love so important to God. I mean other than the fact that he is love.

Matthew 22:34-40

The Greatest Commandment

Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’This is the first and greatest commandment. ³⁹ And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

The greatest commandment is to love God. The close second was to love your neighbor.  I am pretty sure that neighbor isn’t just meaning the people who live next door. So why is it that Christianity has become synonymous with judgmental people. Especially when the Bible says:

Matthew 7:1-2

“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

Here is why I think it is so important to start at a point of love. Loving lets you look past peoples flaws.  Just like I can forgive my two year old her bossy ways.  Or how I could stay up all night rocking a crying baby.  Love is the reason, I can look past Dan’s short givings.  It is why I can forgive my 11 year old her poor attitude during this time of puberty. If you start from a point of love, you can overcome so many things. Love leads to patience and kindness and lets you forget who is winning. The reason why love doesn’t keep score is because if you are keeping score you are losing in love.

Love doesn’t mean never feeling frustrated, it means you work past the frustration.  Love doesn’t mean that you don’t speak the truth but you do it in a way that isn’t nasty and mean. Love means you look past the sin and let God do the work. Love doesn’t mean you don’t point people to the way but you don’t force the way on them. God wants the heart of his followers. So as Christians maybe we should stop Bible thumping and bullying people into believing.  Maybe it is time that we let people see the God that forgave us our greatest sins.  You know the one who loves you. The one who never leaves you alone.  The one who gives you strength.  That awesome God who does all that for you can certainly do it for them.

God loves the World

John 3:16

 For God so loved the WORLD that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

This is the verse in the Bible that even Christian children know by heart.  I have for a long time believed that we forget that this means that God loves the WHOLE WORLD. You know everyone! Not just those of us who believe in him. This may surprise a lot of people but God’s word is the truth so I am taking him at his word on this.  While I know how important it is to have people of faith as friends.  It is time we went out and made friends with those sinners.

Not just the sin we are more comfortable with.  All those nasty sins, that make us uncomfortable.  You know the homeless that remind us that we are all just a few bad choices or set of circumstances away from being in their shoes. The drunk and the prostitutes and strippers should be hearing the good news not the hell and damnation we heap upon them. How about those that are part of the LGBT community?  Or those ladies who are having abortions?

There are a couple of verses that maybe we have forgotten.

Matthew 7:3-5

“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

John 8:7

 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”

God isn’t calling us to judge one another, he is calling us to love one another.  So maybe instead of standing out side of an abortion clinic with signs of unborn babies and telling people they have murdered their baby, maybe the sign should say “Jesus loves You.”  Maybe instead of signs that tell homosexuals they are going to hell, we should be letting them know about God the redeemer.  Here is what I know, no one judging me has ever changed the way I behave but God working in my heart has.  We should be letting them know about God and letting Jesus take on their sin.  Maybe we should be feeding the homeless and giving them a place to stay instead of keeping them out of sight and out of mind.

What are you doing to love one another?  Do you need to do more?

Is your heart seeking the Lord?

2 Chronicles 12:14

He did evil because he had not set his heart on seeking the Lord.

My husband read this verse yesterday.  He posted it on Facebook.  It got me thinking.  How do you set your hear on seeking the Lord?  What are the things that get in the way?  How do you know you are seeking God and his will and not your own?

For me I think the biggest thing is looking at where you put your time, money and energy into.  If my time, energy and money are going to things that are not God centered, then I am putting other things above God.  We are taking something else and putting it in the place of God.  We will do evil when we replace God with something.  Today we may not have idols built in gold or bronze.  This is why we feel less like we are doing that when we put things above him.

Here are some questions for you to think about…me as well.

How many hours are spending watching TV compared to how many hours you spend reading the Bible?

How often are your praying compared to watching or playing a sport?

Do you tithe?

If you broke down your day, where are you spending most of it?

At work, are you working to show Jesus in what you do?

I know for me, I feel like there are so many distractions, Do I need to get up earlier to spend time with my God?  Where  can I make him a priority in my life. How am I teaching my kids to love the Lord?

Maybe it is time to clear out some of the distractions.  Maybe I need to ask the question in all the things I do, Is this bringing glory to God?

 

 

 

Forgiveness

Matthew 6:14-15

For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

Confession time, I am a person who stews over just about everything.  I want to find any flaw from any failed interaction so I hopefully can correct it in the future. I am sure that this after action review contributes to my anxiety. That being said, I have a hard time forgiving, in part thanks to this review. Not only to I find all the ways I could have done better, I find all the ways they could have done better.  If the transgression is large enough, I stay on it way too long.  This is true whether it is my transgression or theirs.  I hold on to things.  My ex-husband use to say that I could remember everything that he had ever done and  could recall the day and time and the exact wording.  Which may I say is a complete over exaggeration.

Yesterday at church we had communion.  There was a lady who got up to talk before the we partook in communion.  She said that not forgiving was like drinking a poison and expecting someone else to die. What a vivid picture it brought. It really got me questioning things like, when is it okay to forgive and still let people go? There are things in my life that are just too big to forget. It isn’t that I hold the transgressor any ill will. It is just too big to forget happened. These are things that were life changing and built who I am. They don’t define me but shaped me.

There are a lot of issues in my family. My brother and my parents, don’t receive me well and I am cautious with them. There has been a lot of hurt. My family believes that I think I am better than they are. While this isn’t true, I do think that I have made some better choices. I pray for my family and hope that they find a relationship with Christ. I just don’t know that I am the one that can minister to them. Sometimes the past gets in the way and they think that I am coming from a place other than love. At the same time, they exhibit toxic behavior that I don’t want my children to be around. They undermine my authority in front of my children, talk bad about their fathers in front of them. I have asked them to stop but they just won’t. At what point and time does one decide family or not they  can’t be in your life? At what time do you have to say I can pray from afar and let God work in them?

As I write this, my stomach churns. I guess that poison is still there making me sick. I realize as I am writing that I haven’t forgiven them completely. I still feel resentment at having my parents check out after my older brother died. I had to grow up way to fast. I do resent them for not keeping those friends of my brothers away. They should keep their children safe. I resent the fact that my little brother still seems to be the favored. He is always there with his hand out and they continue to help him even though it is clear it doesn’t do him any good.  He is angry he gave his kids to my parents and doesn’t care to succeed because then he would have to help pay for his children. My family is a ball of chaos. As bad as it may sound, I don’t want that fed into my girls. I want them to see that life can be different. I want them to feel loved and protected.

I still have a way to go on my forgiveness journey, it is a choice. I know I won’t forget what was done but I am hoping to forgive them some day. I also hope that the Lord gives them someone that can minister effectively to them. I want them to be saved. I want them to have peace and rest.

The disrespectful wife strikes again!

Just when I think I am getting better, take a major stumble. This morning we woke up late.  We have found new church where we are planning to move and we had planned….more correctly, I had planned to finally make a visit.  I woke up and we had an hour to get out the door.  It was important to me that we finally make the trip down there.

So I say to my wonderful husband that we have 45 minutes to get into the car.  That gives me the 15 minutes extra that it seems to always take to get out of the house.  Out the gate, I am showing so serious signs of disrespect by not trusting that if he was going to come that he couldn’t be trusted with the true time frame. He informs me their is not enough time to get out the door and get there on time.  So he would rather not go. He doesn’t want to feel rushed and start out in a way that he wouldn’t give the church a fair shake.

So what did this disrespectful wife do? I pushed. I had been asking all week to go, I mentioned it yesterday.  So I push. So I go wake up the girls. I get Guin up and dressed.  I even have her in her shoes and at the table eating breakfast.  I go back and get Abby out of bed and tell her to get a move on we only have 30 minutes to get out the door.  So I head up to our bedroom.  My husband is laying in bed in his underclothes.

Oh….no he didn’t…this disrespectful wife wasn’t having it. So I nag again. I inform him again that the little one is ready, it will take mere moments to get myself dressed and Abby is getting ready. He tells me that he won’t have enough time to get ready. So I go to the laundry room and get my shirt, I get dressed iron my shirt and make a pot of coffee.  I go back upstairs.  There is progress…well kinda. he is sitting on the bed and he is still in his undies.

This disrespectful wife isn’t done yet.  She once again informs her husband that he needs to get dressed.  The coffee is done and since I am driving he can do his hair and use the electric razor in the car.  I nag a little more as I get my shoes on….then this disrespectful wife admits defeat.  I say it out loud.  I say you know what you are a grown man. I am leaving in 10 minutes and if you aren’t in the car I will just go with out you.

Trying the new church wasn’t a huge priority for his day. Not only that he is a grown man.  Why am I acting like his mother? It was clearly important to me.  So I had the choice. I could rush me and the kids and get out the door or I could stay at home with dear husband.  Man….it is hard.  The worst part is that I felt justified because it was church.  I can push my husband for God right. Man do I still have a lot to learn about being a respectful and trusting wife!

 

Trust, you say?

The definition of trust is a Firm reliance on the integrity, ability, or character of a person or thing.

Seems like trust should be so easy. For this disrespectful wife it seems to be the central issue.  The question I have been asking myself for a while is; Do I trust that God gave me my spouse? Really it is a series of questions. The next question quickly follows, If I trust that God has chosen my husband for me, why am I not trusting in him? I have found honor, respect and submission are all a result of trust. Meaning, if I trust my husband, it is easy to esteem and respect him. When I have trust and respect for him it is much easier to submit than if I do not.
In the past, I have focused on submission. I have read a number of books about biblical submission. They have run the gamete. While I do believe that God gave me the set of skills I have and he wants me to use them, I  can’t do use them to usurp my man! So if I am to take the word trust and break down the definition, maybe I can find good reason to trust. This might seem like an odd exercise but follow me. Does Dan have integrity, ability and character that should lead me to have a firm reliance on him?

Let us start with his integrity. Although, I know he has lied about things in the past, It is very rare. He is a pretty open book.  He is honest in his dealings. He is polite to most people. He has a good heart. He trusts in God. He leans on God. He doesn’t steal, he abhors porn, hasn’t cheated, puts God first and thinks of his family as he makes decisions. While there are a few things like sarcasm as a mask for pain, and joking as a way to get out his feeling in a ha ha not so funny way. The great preponderance of the evidence shows that his integrity is GOOD and I should be able to have a firm reliance on his integrity.

So what about his ability? I think he has it is spades. He is well liked and respected at work. Not just at his office but across the state. People ask to work with him on complex problems. You may be asking how does this apply to the house? He has great problem solving abilities. When he runs up to a problem at work he works until it is solved. This sometimes means he has to be creative, which to be fair is needed when you have a wife like he has.  He makes enough money for me to stay home with the children. This makes him a great provider. He pays our bills on time. The children mostly like him but always love him. He is a GREAT dad. He took on being a parent when Abby was already 7. Which by all accounts is a strange place to start. Honestly, I can’t find anything lacking in his abilities. He is constantly amazing me with the things he can do!

So what about his character? Well aside from his sometimes hurtful humor, he has exceptional character. Although, I wish he apologized more, there isn’t a lacking in his character. I can depend on him 99 times out of 1oo. He calls when he says he will call. He shows up when he says he will. He is honest, and forthcoming. He is loyal to friends and family. He always speaks well of me to others. So overall his character seems to lead me to believe that I can have a firm reliance on him.

One of the things that I learned while in a group for my anxiety, was that you have to dissect a thought. When something makes you anxious, you have to break the thought down. What you do is you say this is my thought, it makes me feel a certain way, is this a reasonable thought? So as I am looking at the thought that I can’t trust Dan, I need to dissect the thought. Is it reasonable to believe that Dan is untrustworthy? Well as you can see….Dan is trustworthy. I can have a firm reliance on his integrity, ability and character. If I can have a firm reliance on his attributes I can have a firm reliance on him.

So while this doesn’t guarantee that Dan will be 100% reliable. It does mean that I am doing more harm to our relationship worrying about the tiny amount of times he will let me down.  The fact is that most days, I feel loved and understood by Dan. Why am I treating him with such distrust? This disrespectful wife really needs to take a leap of faith and trust that God did indeed plan to have Dan and I together. I need to believe that Dan is deserving of my trust! Maybe I will just start with a very granola, Washingtonian thing and make it my daily affirmation. I might just start off each day saying, I will trust Dan. I will trust Dan.

Just trust me.

This blog post has been sitting in my queue of drafts for over a month. It was three-quarters of the way done. I would like to say thank you to April at Peaceful Wife’s Blog. Click here for a link to the blog that gave me the courage to finally dust it off and finish it. It also has me writing another one. So again thank you April!

Jeremiah 29:11

New International Version (NIV)

¹¹ For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

There are a few things that Dan and I have been looking at lately. I have a hard time trusting in things. I am a planner and need to know exactly what is going on. Dan has what I  would call a broad idea of what he sees and wants. He is more likely to look at next week than next year. I am trying to plan for the next ten years. Dan has no need to plan. He has complete faith that God has his back. He doesn’t go messing with guessing what his plan is. I trust in God but I long for direction. I want to have a family mission plan or statement.

I think that one of the biggest issues we have in our relationship is the different opinion we take on planning. The fact is that this difference takes me way out of my comfort zone. I squirm and I stress and I just want to be let in on the plans. Not just from Dan but from God. I know that they both have my back but I want in. I want to know where I am going and when. I don’t know that I would want to change the plan but I just want to know. I am sure if I saw it all I would think the plan a crazy one. That still doesn’t seem to curb my fears. Maybe there are others who know what I mean.

Dan takes what comes and deals with what is at hand.  He doesn’t want to be caught boasting of his plans for tomorrow. I on the other hand, don’t want to boast but what to at least have a general direction laid out. I love Dan’s faith in God. I love that he has comfort in knowing that God has each step laid out and he shouldn’t worry. I was trained to worry.

My life has taught me to have a plan for as many possible outcomes as you can. My life hasn’t had consistency. My life has been filled with chaos. In the midst of it I learned to worry.  Once I get to know someone, I can often see what course of action they will take. People rarely surprise me. I have learned to read them and I get most people. Unfortunately, because I have a long history of seeing the cliff people are running full speed toward, I have a hard time trusting anyone. Poor Dan sure has to deal with a lot of my trust baggage.

While I admire Dan’s ability to run straight ahead towards what appears to be a cliff; while trusting that God will catch him if it is a cliff or will keep him from it all together, I am completely afraid of it. It has me afraid to trust in Dan. In all truth, it has me afraid to trust in God. God has never let me down. He has always come when I have cried out. I have myself wondering….why is this trust thing so hard!

Feeble and Severely Broken

It has been crazy in our house as of late.  Abby has been out of school and Guin is well two and quite a Houdini. I am always listening for my door to open with that one. I am shocked the neighbors haven’t called the cops to report my two-year old roaming the neighborhood unsupervised! On top of having children and starting to get some of the schedule kinks worked out for teaching Abby and getting her to want to do work outside of the school type setting, we have been getting the house ready to sell. On top of that we had Grandpa come to fix one of the cars. That took longer than expected in part because Dan is at his new job and may I say doing an absolutely great job but can’t take leave till it is all in order. (I am pretty sure that the last sentence wasn’t grammatically correct but not sure how to change it.) With Dan having longer days a lot of extra work has been put on my plate including painting each room in the house and prepping and painting the exterior. The house is a horrible yellow. I have been over loaded with things.

As the weeks have gone on I was feeling stressed.  So I knew what I needed to do. Put God at the center and the rest would fall into place. So when I get up in the morning with Dan so I can make him his coffee and talk a little to him, I take time to read the Bible a little when the kids are still asleep. I have also started taking a run a couple days a week to help me focus better and relieve some of the stress. All that being said, my husband, loves Psalm 37. It gives him courage, hope and comfort. So I read it myself but I kept going onto Psalm 38. When I got to this passage:

Psalm 38:8 I am feeble and severely broken; I groan because of the turmoil of my heart.

That from the man after God’s own heart? This has made me decide it was time to do a thorough study on King David. That verse has given me such comfort when I feel like a failure because I am not doing enough. Or when I feel like a failure because there are days that I don’t make enough progress or days when kids have me taking a step or two back. God loved David. He chose David over Saul. I know that I am feeble and severely broken, but God used David when he was feeble and severely broken.  I know that my God can see past the broken person I am and use me as well.

Well I hope you all have a blessed day and I am glad to start getting back into the writing habit again!

The power of thought.

I worked with the wonderful guy a few years back. I find myself quoting him often. He use to tell me when I would say something self-disparaging, that people will beat you up enough without you helping them. Anxiety is really at it’s core a thought process that is harmful to yourself. I am really good at negative self-talk.  I have been at it for years. I have told myself that I am stupid, even when evidence says otherwise. Accounting isn’t an easy degree nor is finance and I have one in both. So clearly, I am not an idiot.  This being said I still have negative self-talk.

Lately, I have been finding that I am at a place that I don’t want to talk to friends on the phone, or go out of the house much. I am forcing myself to get out with the kids a little but I don’t even want to talk to the neighbors. I have even avoided the blog. I really am just too afraid to live.  This anxiety is hard to overcome.  So I pray for help.  When today, I was led to the following verse.  Where the Bible gives note to the power of thought.

Proverbs 23:7

For as he thinks in his heart, so is he.
“Eat and drink!” he says to you,
But his heart is not with you

The Bible tells you as you think in the heart, that is what you are.  So when I believe in my heart that I am stupid, I am stupid. When I tell myself enough that I am not a good mother, housekeeper or wife, then I won’t be.  When I worked outside the home, I had a time when I told myself that I was good at my job.  By golly wouldn’t you believe I was really good at it then. Then there was a time when the anxiety was at a peak and wouldn’t you know that I told myself I wasn’t good at my job and I wasn’t.

The fact is that when I am in the cycle of negative thoughts I have a hard time seeking truth. The truth is that God loves me, I am knitted together by him. That God knows me. He made me as he wanted me.  The truth can be strong when you use his words to affirm what he tells us. He is the truth. We need to look no further than his word to see that his love has been for us since the beginning of time. He wants us to have relationship with one another, he wants to have a relationship with him. God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. He is the same for all time.  Our God loves and created us. He made no mistakes. That serious nature is just what he saw I needed. That humor that Dan has God knew I needed in my life.  God will provide.

What’s that you say? Don’t blame others?

Isaiah 58:9-10

Then you will call, and the Lord will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.

“If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
 and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday.

If you are the parent of a tweener, you have heard all of the blame you can stomach for a life time. Mom I used the word because the kids tease me at school is I don’t use curse words. I didn’t take my lunch because you didn’t wake me up on time. I hear it all and the one thing I have come to know that it is never Abby’s fault! My tween isn’t the only one that I hear the blame game from. She provoked me, is one I have used. My husband has blamed his share of things on me or his boss or you know someone. The only one who doesn’t blame yet is the two-year old. She has the truth on her side I guess.  She wields it often. It seems like the blame game is learned!

It isn’t just my family though. Society has gone to a whole new level of the blame game. I killed because my parents abused me. I am rude because my parents never taught me better. All of which can be true but the other part of that sentence is missing.  People may have never been taught to be anything but rude and they haven’t cared to find out how. Your parents may have abused you but you chose to kill. Sure there are many contributing factors and we can justify anything.

We live in a world where people are suing fast food companies for providing them food. We choose not to use self-control and we are fat because McDonald’s fed us the food. When I was getting a divorce I certainly wanted to point the finger at him.  If I am honest there were many things that led up to the marriage failure. When I talk to other people who have divorced I see a lot of finger pointing. Trust me there is plenty of blame to go around. You won’t grow as a person if you are busy pointing finger instead of looking at how you can improve! The Bible says as long as we are blaming others, out light won’t shine for the world to see.

Oh what a crazy thought, as long as we put ourselves as the victim and center on ourselves then we won’t be able to share God’s light fully!  I am not saying that God can’t use us. He can use the most broken but we won’t shine his love when we are the victim! So where do we begin?  When you start to blame others, we can start with finishing our sentences. Yes they provoked me and I chose to lash out in anger. Yes you didn’t wake me on time but I have chosen not to use an alarm.  When we only use half the truth we often find ourselves pointing the finger.