I think I’m having a low self-esteem day. It’s hard to say because it’s only 7:00 in the morning and I’ve only really been awake about 45 minutes, but it definitely feels like a low self-esteem day already.
I kind of go through seasons like this, where, if we lived back in the days of The Scarlet Letter, I’d be wearing frocks embroidered with a giant, bright red letter “L” for “Loser”. Or at least that’s how it feels, anyway. I just can’t seem to get much of anything right, no matter how hard I try.
Most of it comes from opening my big, fat mouth. Oh, how the world would be better off some days if I were struck mute for a moment or two! I am Queen of the Awkward Word, Master of the Misspoken, Grand Duchess of Things Better Left Unsaid. I know this about myself, and still I insist on exercising my voice. When will I learn?
It seems, on days like this, like an impossible trait to escape. I want to do better, to be more honorable with my tongue, to be a few leagues closer to “faultless” in my speech, but it seems like something so engrained in my make-up that getting rid of it would be about as easy as scrubbing off freckles.
Oh to be rid of this sin! To be free from this fault! To be able to walk into a room of women and breathe easy knowing that I’m not about to verbally lay waste to all I’ve ever thought well about myself!
The only thing I know to do today to rise above it all is to pray for forgiveness and help from my one and only Savior, while remembering words He has just recently whispered my heart: You have been saved from bigger things than this, and you have been saved for better things than this.
Those words are taken a little out of context in this situation, but I think they apply all the same. He has plans for me – plans that go well beyond being a big-mouthed loser – and He won’t let anything stand in the way of them, not even me.
So, in light of that reminder, I’m going to get off this couch in a few minutes and get started with my day. I think I’ll choose to live with the knowledge that in Christ I can overcome anything – even something as big as my tongue – and not let it hold me hostage today. I might even wear something other than a red-lettered “Loser” shirt (I’d have to do laundry to wear one anyway….I’ve pretty much exhausted my supply lately). But, if it’s all the same to you, I think I might take a break from phone calls and knitting circles for a moment…
Monday was a teacher work day at school (otherwise known to my son as a “get out of jail free” day), so my man took a much-needed personal day and the four of us spent some family time together at the zoo. Though we’ve been to the zoo many, many times and I’ve never noticed this before, I discovered something interesting about myself this visit: I think I have a lot in common with hyenas.
Now I wish I could say that I came about this comparison because I laugh a lot, or because I can be pretty rambunctious and playful. But I’m afraid the analogy runs to a deeper, more primal place of animal behavior, and I can’t say I’m proud of it.
In my ladies’ Bible study right now we are going through Beth Moore’s study on the Patriarchs (I highly recommend it, by the way, but then again – it’s Beth Moore….I highly recommend anything God shares through her). Last week during the video session, Beth spoke about how we, who are fully and purposefully blessed by God, tend to always want someone else’s blessing instead of our own. We have a great family, but hers is bigger. We have a ministry God has called us to, but we wish there was a little more to it. Our house is nice, but… You get the picture.
Beth encouraged us that while this is a common human experience, we need to confront this kind of spiritual jealousy head-on and get rid of it, because it gets in the way of us accepting, appreciating and participating in the call God has specifically placed on our lives for His purposes. Her words pricked my heart, and I began to see that I had a lot of work to do in this area. I vowed to think more about it later, and then tried to let it slip my mind so I wouldn’t have to.
Then I found myself standing in front of the hyena and wild dog exhibit at the zoo Monday morning, and it all came to me in a way I couldn’t avoid.
One of the zoo keepers was preparing to feed them a treat as we got there, so we stuck around for a minute to see what would happen. She threw three boxes about the size and shape of a to-go box from a chicken place into the pen – one for each hyena present – and let them go at it.
Immediately the youngest two hyenas dashed for the prizes. They each grabbed a box and started to tear into it to find the meat, but then one of them realized there was a third box that the older hyena hadn’t gotten to yet. He then left his own box to steal the unclaimed one, and the real games began.
Both of the younger hyenas would only spend a few, short seconds trying to get to the meat before they would realize that the other one was either making progress on his box, or had left the third box completely unguarded. Then they would once again abandon their own box to try and steal another. This went on and on until eventually they had pecked at some of the boxed enough that there was actually some meat exposed. Wanna know what they did then? Did they give up the fight and enjoy the spoils of plunder? No way! They left the meat on the ground and kept trying to steal more for themselves!
I watched their silly little antics unfold, and realized that in my spirit lately I haven’t behaved much better than them. You see, I have my blessings – blessings that God has given just to me for a very specific purpose according to the things He desires to do through my life on this earth. He has been so good to me in so many undeserved ways, and yet I sulk and pout about what it is I think I don’t have.
I know the ugly truth of my hyena heart every time I find it hard to rejoice with my friends over the great things the Lord has done in their lives, and all too easy to sit back and wonder how great it would be if that happened to me instead. I know that sounds horrible, and I’m really ashamed to admit it, but it is the naked truth in my life right now. I’ve been given a perfectly good box with a delicious piece of the Lord’s blessing inside, but instead of enjoying it and digging in, I’ve been chasing after the boxes of others I somehow hope have been left unguarded.
Now I’m not trying to say that I’m a vicious opportunist, or a lying manipulator or anything. I’d like to think I’m pretty good about keeping my sin to myself, and I hope I haven’t outwardly hurt anyone with my ambitions. The truth remains, however, that I have been ambitious in things that aren’t my own to pursue. I have had my eyes on boxes that don’t belong to me, and because of it I’ve overlooked my own blessing and have dared to leave it even partially unguarded.
Lysa Terkeurst says that whenever you find yourself wishing you had another’s blessing instead of your own, you should remind yourself that you aren’t equipped to handle whatever it is she faces on a daily basis, both good and bad. I believe that. God has equipped each of us to respond to His specific call on our lives, and we will only fail if we abandon His perfect plan and try to fill someone else’s shoes. I know this, but I’m looking forward to the day that my heart finally catches up with my head.
Anyway, I hope to encourage you today to look at the state of your own heart. Are you content with your “box” of blessings from the Lord? Or do you too struggle with a hyena heart that seems to always grapple for what your neighbor has? Ask God to show you by way of helping you realize all He has given you in this life. Take some time today to breathe in the joy of undeserved blessings, and to rest in the knowledge that God has a plan for this life that is just for you.
Thanks for reading, and for letting me have a moment of confession. I hope you have a truly blessed week.
Ok, folks. I've found it: The secret to actually getting work done around my house. And it comes from a very unlikely source.
Do any of you out there watch the show Kings on NBC? Well, I was just introduced to it, and in a way it's revolutionized my housework schedule. For those of you who aren't familiar with the show, it's a modern kingdom setting loosely based on David and Saul from the Bible. It's really fun to watch it and see where it parallels the Biblical story and where it strays. Not to mention that it's just plain good.
I've just started watching it from the beginning on the internet, but here's the thing: Season one is only available on Hulu until September 20th. That means that I only have a few days left (relatively) to finish out all 12 episodes before they're gone. You would think this would cripple my life to that of a couch potato, but amazingly it hasn't. It has, however, provided me with an odd sense of motivation.
Little Man is a bit under the weather this week, so I knew we wouldn't be heading out today. I had resigned myself to housework and Spongebob for the afternoon. But after starting Kings last night when the boys were in bed and my husband was at Bible study, I came up with a new plan. Watch Kings for a few minutes, then pause it and tackle something in the house - the kitchen, laundry, trash. The anticipation of getting back to the show was more than enough motivation to get the jobs done quickly. I dare say I did more cleaning this way today than I would have otherwise!
So a couch potato I am not. I'd like to think that, instead, I'm a much more productive vegetable. Maybe a carrot? Carrots are good for you, right? That's it - I'm a couch carrot. And my house is all the better for it.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got some chores to attend to so I can figure out what's going to happen between David and Jack...
I learned a very important lesson yesterday. Well, I guess you could say it took me a good part of the weekend to actually play it out, but yesterday I finally “got” it.
It all started with a new wireless router. The one we had been using was a hand-me-down and worked just fine for what we needed, but now that I’m working from home it has become increasingly necessary to encrypt my network (or in other words: make my neighbors start paying for their own internet service). So I went online, found a great deal on one, and ordered it without hesitation.
It got here late last week, so I set aside a few minutes Saturday to install it. Notice I said a few minutes. I’m sure you could probably guess it took a little more than just a few minutes. Yeah, try more like five hours.
Between my techy brother-in-law and I, we worked on that thing all Saturday afternoon and finally gave up. The reviews had said “easy, quick installation”, but we didn’t happen to agree. Nothing about this was easy or quick.
Monday I called the tech support number on the company’s website and was told that Timmy (THE tech support guy) wouldn’t be in for a couple of hours. I figured at this point I was in trouble, and began researching the steps I’d have to complete to make a return to an online store. It didn’t take much to lead me to believe that my new lesson to learn was somewhere along the lines of either “Don’t buy equipment online” or “Don’t buy anything from a company you’ve never heard of”. But then I called Timmy.
After all that work and manipulating of things I can’t even pronounce that we had tried on our own, Timmy had me go to one little page in the router’s program and change one little number. Seriously – just one digit of an address, and boom! I was connected to the internet and all was once again right in my ridiculously techno-dependant world. It was such a simple solution, but there was no way we could have found it on our own because we weren’t privileged to the same information as my new best friend Timmy.
That’s when the real lesson hit me – if I had just gone to the maker of the product when I realized I was in over my head, I could have saved myself (and my brother-in-law) a lot of frustration.
That whole situation seemed irreparable to me – I was more than certain that there was something unfixably wrong with my computer or that bargain basement router I bought. I was ready to give up on it all and cash in more of the money I already didn’t have to buy a more expensive, just as capable model. It just seemed impossible to get around any other way. In reality, however, the solution was simple for the one who actually knew what he was doing.
How many times in life are we ready to just give up on something (or someone) and cut our losses because we just can’t see how to make things work? If you’re anything like me, you’ve been at that point many times. I often find myself ready to give up on things like family situations, or “ministry opportunities” (isn’t that a nice way to to say “situations that you really don’t want to be involved with”?), or even just my daily grind of life. There are just days when it would be easier to walk away from it all because it seems impossible to find any peace or resolution.
But if I’ve learned anything in my life lately (and yesterday was just a good reminder), it’s that I have got to stop trying to fix those things myself, because I’m just not equipped with all that’s needed to get the job done. There is One, however, Who knows the perfect solution, and He’s always on call.
Jesus is the Rock to which we can always turn, and there is absolutely no situation that could ever present itself in our lives that’s beyond Him. He is all knowing, all seeing, all powerful and totally capable, and with Him nothing is impossible. That’s our God. That’s the One who knows you better than you know yourself, and the One who has the answers to every question you could ever ask. And He’s closer to you than your own breath.
So before you give up on whatever situation is on the last nerve of your heart, turn to the Lord and ask Him for help. He might not always help in the way you expect Him to, but He always has a resolution to every seemingly impossible thing we encounter. Don’t keep beating your head against the wall trying to fix it yourself – turn to the One who made you and has the answers you could never find on your own.
I promise, you’ll never find better “tech support” than Jesus.
Last night we had an experience with one of our sons that rocked our world a little bit. I’m sure it won’t be the last time we deal with this issue, but it was most certainly the first time we’ve had to confront it in such a blatant manner.
Last night our son lied to us.
Ok, so he’s lied before – they both have. But never quite so…intentionally. He did something he knew he wasn’t supposed to do, and then he brought it up just so he could tell us that he “didn’t” do it. Too bad he didn’t realize there was a pretty blaring flaw in his alibi that his daddy would (and did) catch immediately after it left his lips.
I’m glad that Dad was in the car, not only because he figured out the truth and we were able to handle it, but also because he was able to actually confront it and announce a fair punishment in a very calm, matter-of-fact voice. I, on the other hand, found myself rather shell-shocked and at a loss for words right at first. I mean, how could this be? My sweet, innocent boy actually premeditating a lie?
We spent the next several minutes walking through what he had done wrong (from the original offense on down through lying about it), and talking about why he shouldn’t lie, how it hurts all of us when he does lie, and how he really has no reason to be mad with us for punishing him because that’s the consequence he chose when he decided to break the rules. I don’t think I have to tell you that it was a long, tearful evening that ended with him asking to go straight to bed instead of taking a shower and eating a snack.
At the end of the night, though, it really all came down to this: I know my son, and I know that he’s a lot like me. I knew that if we left things on a down note, he would beat himself up over all this for the next several days. So before I let him go to sleep I made him look me in the eyes while I told him three separate times, “You are a good boy – you just made a mistake.”
I started to think about it later, and I have a feeling that a lot of us need to hear that. How many times do we do something wrong and then totally beat ourselves up over it because we just can’t let it go? Especially if it is something that we’ve been struggling with not doing? It’s hard to admit that we’ve messed up again, but – if you’re anything like me – it’s even harder, then, to believe that it does not define you as a person.
But you know what? Jesus went to great lengths to come to this earth and die for our sins so we could be a whole lot more than the sum of our mistakes. It’s called grace. And because of it, our Father in Heaven somehow sees us as perfect – covered with the redeeming blood of His son.
Even redeemed people mess up every now and then, though, so just in case you need to hear it, here it is:
You are a good girl – you just messed up.
Now, tell your Daddy you’re sorry and move on, because He’s already let it go. Accept the gift of His grace and rest peacefully tonight knowing that tomorrow is a whole new day full of opportunities to grow and maybe even make a few better decisions.
Man, I’m struggling this morning. I have to just come out and say it. Not so much in like a spiritual sense or anything, but to physically get up and get going. Apparently, by the way, there’s a reason why they call it “Instant Breakfast” and not “Instant Something You Drink Part Of Before You Go To Bed”. I don’t know what’s in that stuff, but I might as well had a Mountain Dew last night – I hardly slept at all! And that’s the only thing I can think of that was different about my routine or my diet yesterday. Who knew?
So that, combined with the fact that I accidentally poured too much sugar on my Rice Chex this morning as I was trying to lightly sweeten them, and boom – I’m ready for a long, fat nap. Now all I have to do is convince the grocery shopping, my doctor’s appointment, work, the house cleaning and my rather impetuous four year old to put life on hold so I can actually take that nap. Yeah, I don’t see that happening, do you? I think I’m going to have to figure out something else, and fast.
That all being said, I had great intentions of writing something that actually made sense this morning, but I’m having a hard time at the present moment even thinking anything that makes sense. My head feels like it’s full of a thousand conversations being played back in slow motion. It’s a very heavy, muddled mass of confusion up there, and I just don’t think anything productive is going to come out of it right now. So I’m afraid I’ll have to leave you with an apologetic good morning, and a vow to try and write something more intelligent soon (when I’m not under the influence of Instant Breakfast and sugar).
I guess I’ll go now, get dressed, drive to the store with Little Man, shop for groceries, fight over why we don’t need yet another pointless toy, brainstorm a week’s worth of meals, and decide on something for lunch so I can come home and haul it all upstairs and put it away.
Oh mercy, friends. We’ve been battling head lice at our house this past week.
Bugs. In our hair. Yuck.
I think I’ve tried every homeopathic treatment (and one not-so-homeopathic treatment) I’ve found on the internet, and though it has gotten 98% better, there is still the issue of every now-and-then finding one tiny little egg. Then you have to wonder, is it an old egg that I somehow missed, or is it a new one and we have to start over?
Not to mention to whole physiological phenomenon of feeling lice whenever you think about them, regardless of whether you have them or not. You know, like some of you are probably itching right now just reading these words. You have no reason, really, to think that you have lice, but what if you itched and it really could be them? Do you know how many times a day I’ve thought about lice over the past week? That’s a lot of phantom itching that starts to make you wonder….do I have lice, or am I going crazy?
Or is it both?
This is definitely now the number two question on my short list of things to ask Jesus when I get to heaven. Number one is still why do men have what we refer to on our boys as “chest buttons” (I mean, seriously, why do they need them?). But what’s up with head lice is now firmly planted at number two. I’d really love to know what was going through His holy head on that one. There’s gotta be a reason, right?
I can honestly say, however, that this whole experience has changed something in me. I now know that when we get that little slip of paper in the backpack from school that says “Your child has been exposed to lice in the classroom”, that it’s really an urgent prayer request for a struggling family sent out by an institution that’s not allowed to officially ask for prayer. If they have to mask it as a “warning”, then so be it. But I now know the truth: Someone out there needs some spiritual intervention before they lose their religion over piles and piles of laundry, hours of vacuuming, and days of treating and combing nearly invisible specks out of the heads of impatient, wiggly little kids who can’t go to school even though they most certainly feel well enough to wreck the house.
So please pray for us, and for the thousands of other families this week who found their wheels spinning in a different direction the moment their kid reached up and furiously scratched his innocent little head. I know that they, like us, would love to have their lives back.
Next time I get a chance to write, I have something I want to share about God’s heart that I learned last week (you know, before our sense of peace and security was invaded). But for now I’m afraid I have to run…
