What do I strive for most?
- Healthy relationships with effective communication of unconditional love
- Understanding of Biblical history and facts that lay a solid foundation of Truth
- Discipline – daily routine of prayer, devotion, hygiene, organization, physical exercise, healthy diet in a culture of love and respect
I wrote this down last winter (09/10) in a hurried attempt at answering the posed question. I think probably to “proof” my daily routine. Many times people say they believe certain theories but they are not proofing them out in their daily life….was I? Am I? So I literally scribbled these three statements on the back of some scratch paper. Then I misplaced it. Then I frantically searched for it knowing I wanted to type it up and save it. Then today…June 21st, 2010….I found it again. Yippee! The scribbling came out so quickly and the statements were so coherent that I thought, “Yes. You’re proofing them out because they just rolled out of your head without thinking.” Uhhh….maybe. Or, it was the Holy Spirit and a divine moment of revelation. More likely. I think it’s a combination of both. I think we are definitely striving for those things and it shows in our daily routine. I think we’re actively failing in those things and God’s grace is helping us try again. I think He gave me the words to write it down so that I would be encouraged. He likes to do that for me – encourage me – because I’m a very hard person when it comes to personal scrutiny. He’s also testing me by allowing me to find this list today at the beginning of this week. Three reasons:
For starters, it’s our anniversary week (tomorrow-14 years) and that’s a good time to think about whether you’re on track as a couple, as a family. It’s like “New Years” for your marriage. So I guess today would be “New Year’s Eve” and it’s a holiday so I don’t have to go and sand sheetrock mud? I don’t think that’d work. Anyway.
Second, I’m a list maker. I love lists so that I can pat myself on the back over the things I get done and cross off and so that I can guilt myself into a depression over the things I don’t. It’s sick. We’re working on it. I used to view the fruits of the Spirit as my “to do” list. I’d work and work at trying to be patient. And kind. And at peace. And with joy. Arghh. It was something akin to an apple tree straining and groaning and producing facial contortions (I know the only apple trees with faces are in the Wizard of Oz) trying to produce an apple. It took me a long time to process that I didn’t need to “produce” spiritual fruit…..and that God loved me as much as He was ever gonna way before I knew anything about fruit. But we’ve been working on this more this summer, kind of like a graduate course in Veggie Tales. “Hey, you still know that you’re special and I love you very much right?” And so the second reason I think God chose to reveal the hiding spot for my little list (see I’m already calling it a list) just this very morning is because He wants to test me and see if I’ll write out all three of the statements, reduce each one to action points that we can work on and then set up a “to do” list to ensure that we’re hitting good hygiene at 7:30 am and 9:00 pm and everything else in between. Frankie say relaaaaaxxxxx. I have trouble with relaxing. That’s why He gave me four kids in 5 years and the last three right.on.top.of.one.another. Sigh. And a host of other extremely irritating things to a control freak like me whose life is spinning like an out of control ferris wheel at a seedy county fair.
Third reason. Moving right along. The third reason He gave this to me today is because yesterday the speaker at church called us all out on the carpet. Well, that poor guy was just getting all of the dirty looks, God’s the one that called us all out on the carpet. Or maybe just me. Anyway….I felt like I was standing out in the middle of the carpet all alone and my hand was halfway down in the cookie jar and I was IN FOR IT. So….the speaker asked if we were aliens. If this world is not our home and we’re just a passin’ through (that’s such a great song), then why do we look and act and talk and live like everyone around us??? He said that America is not a Christian nation, just like Pres. Obama stated whenever it was that he stated it and made us all mad. He said it never has been. If it had ever been a Christian nation then we would have been founded as a theocracy and not a democracy. He said that America was a democracy founded by and filled with Christian people who lived by Christian truths. All of this is true. Check.
So what’s changed? We’re still a democracy. We’re just not led by or filled with Christian people. Ouch.
So…..none of what this preacher said was new to me. I’ve known and believed all of this pretty much my entire life. But you can’t hear a sermon like that and not be convicted if you’re a Christian.
Do I look and live and act and talk and spend my time like a 21st century American? Or am I an alien among Americans who looks and lives and acts and talks and spends her time like a 21st century Christian who happens to live in America?
And then first thing this morning God drops the little “vision statement” for our family that I’ve been looking for for months right into my pretty little non- manicured, cuticle trashed, sheet rock dusted hands and says, “Whall-a! Here you go chickey!” Well, God didn’t say that, but while we’re on the subject, what does He sound like in your head? Anywhoo. So I’m not going to use these statements as a to-do list. I am going to get up every morning and let God love on us right where we’re at and I’m sure that He’ll cause the things in the 3 statements to keep happening as naturally as they already have been because they’re just everyday life things. My only responsibility is to respond in obedience to those daily life things when the choices are before me. Right now the kids are playing cops and robbers or cowboys and Indians or something upstairs and Charlie just wailed, top of his lungs, wild desperation in his most distraught voice “But I don’t WANT to be a bad guy!” And that’s exactly what I’ve been trying to say. :-0)
Have a good one!
The (sheetrock) Mud Slinger
P.S.
We had D and Ch’s birthday parties yesterday and I’ll post about them and put up pics soon. We had a great weekend that involved sheet rock mud, Toy Story 3, sheet rock mud, birthday cake, sheetrock mud, light sabers and bicycles, and, um, sheet rock dust. You thought I was going to say sheet rock mud. Oh, and the pipeliner formerly known as my husband threw rotten leftovers (as hard as he could) in my face, hair, chest areas. It is SO ON like donkey kong. He immediately had that “I’m an idiot and I should run and hide in Zimbabwe” look on his face. Have you ever seen that look? He’s right. He should sleep with one eye open. My hair still smells like rotten French dressing.
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