Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Why do you share what you believe?

I do not believe it is right to go at a persons beliefs with the soul purpose of proving them wrong. Or of proving yourself smarter, better, or even right. I don't care what the belief is... if it's what they are standing on if it is all that is holding them up...why do people feel the need to destroy it? Why not help improve it change it, why not show love....

This I think is one of the major differences between a true follower of Christ and an unbeliever sharing their beliefs and opinions.

 1. Someone with true faith and respect for fellow men will share what they believe and why without telling a person all they believe in is wrong, or a lie, or whatever to an extent. We can only share Christ word and love, then wait for the holy spirit to do it's work. We can not take credit for a changed heart or a saved soul...It's like the child asking for a reward for following directions. It's expected of us to spread the word.

2 Someone with true faith will in essence give a person something else to stand on, another hope then step back to let God strip away the rest...

3. There is no pride in showing and sharing your faith, it's not about you. At the end you should have NOTHING to brag about... It's about God's love it's about the grace, it's about how you are no better then any other person on the face of this earth. It's about the cross, it's about forgiveness, and if you share your opinions and beliefs with someone who believes differently...it's about respect NOT tolerance. It's about telling not judging even if what you have to say is hard for them to hear.

Maybe it's a difference in confidence. In another blog I read by Kevin A. Thompson he wrote about why that jerk at your office, that arrogant and rude status poster on facebook might really be lacking true confidence. They might doubt themselves and not even know it, they might be trying to convince themselves...They maybe be hurting. Kinda helps you get a new perspective.

   It takes a lot more confidence to NOT believe in the grace of God then it does to actually except God's grace.

To not believe, you have to have confidence that you are right , you afterlife will be fine. You can earn heaven or paradise or a good second life. Or you have to be confidant that there is not heaven hell or even any God at all  YOU have to do it all.

All while being so very broken....so very human.   No pressure.

Ah, but to be on the other side, to believe in God and his promises to receive his grace and forgiveness. It's a confidence with contentment..confidence with peace. When your content AND confident you don't have to destroy others systems and beliefs because they don't line up with yours...you just want to share your contentment your hope your story...you are no better in anyway then any other...

It's this confidence with peace that builds up... it's why a Christian can walk away from a fight, Why we don't have to get angry when someone tries to destroy our faith. IT's why at the end of it all we can be told we are wrong and they can fight us with perfectly good reason and logic and we can say okay...and walk away still confident and peaceful. Not because we are blind, or stupid, or weak minded...but because we have peace with who we are and what we believe... Faith goes beyond reason...

So the next time you face that obnoxious person in our office, the next time you read that status that just makes you go really? before you respond to the person think about why you are responding. Speak kindly, instruct, build up but don't be scared to share the truth even if it's not what they want to hear, even if it goes against all that society says is acceptable ...with your words hope can live or die. And be prepared for them to walk away thinking no different then they did before.

Speak Life.

Sunday, February 23, 2014

balancing acts.

Identity...

    I don't have children, I know that if I had them I would be proud and love to share pictures of them. However, being on the other end of this still; surrounded by young parents (most all my friends have children) in this wonderful age and curse of social media. I know what it's like to sign into facebook and see post, after post, after post, of pictures, status, or comments about my friends children. I feel very little connection with some of my friends as individual adults... Like some people got married, had children and then had no life, no identity, outside of their children.

  I'm not talking no life: like no time to talk on the phone, or stay out late, or drink or what not..but no life beyond their children even when they do get a night out... but maybe since I don't have children I'm missing something...

   I'm not so naive to think that my friends are going to be able to do the things I can do with out kids. Nor do I think they should. You can go way to the other end of this and address those who never spend time with their children...

   However, I know enough of my friends who have found a balance between having their children and still having some sort of social life, hobbies, interest beyond their children. It might only be a night out with the girls once a month, or some who refuse to really put anything much about their children on social media. My one friend told me once that she makes sure she has time each morning to spend time alone with God FIRST then with her son. I had another mom tell me she doesn't mind not being able to get on facebook anymore because all she ever sees is others peoples children.. It's not that they love their children less then those who can't seem to go 5 minutes without speaking of them.. they just have a balance I hope I will be able to have if I ever have children.

  It's not necessarily bad to share cute moments with your children on social media, nor do I mind it now and again..though I'm still not convinced it's always the safest thing to do.(that's a whole different topic) I do know that those out there who don't have children for one reason or another can find the endless parade of their friends children and even acquaintances children on their news feed slightly overwhelming...but really isn't that all social media and interactions these days...just to much...

(still not as annoying as all those stupid captioned pictures...or worse those stupid cartoons...of course that's just my opinion. share away lovely minions)

   Again I don't know what it's like to have children I've never felt that all consuming love for a squirming baby... I got that... I love being able to see pictures of my friends kids, that I don't get to see often. I'm not saying don't do it at all...just like in all areas of life there needs to be a balance...

You are a mom yes...your children are not all their is to your life (I don't think) moms are often a wife, a daughter, a co-worker, a friend..Not first and foremost while your children are young but at some point....

  Yes kids are great, yes I love them...yes they deserve your attention, love and a TON of your time... I understand you are proud to be parents...however to all parents out there at some point your kids will be grown and if you have spent the last 20 or more years without an sort of identity or interest outside of your children. If you have stopped trying to maintain even somewhat those other "rolls" God has given you here on earth, (maybe not all of them or even those I've listed)...what then is going to be left of who you are, who you were?

Saturday, February 22, 2014

Freedom and Dreams.

The joy of teaching, the wondering in watching the hardships and trials in life turn into a huge huge blessing. Remembering it's not me...it's YOU.

Teaching..

I remember in college the decision to drop the education track, after spending my entire life wanting to be a teacher it was hard to understand how that desire could just shrivel up and die like it did. I remember the floundering around after to figure out what I should do instead and now almost 8 years later I'm no closer then I was then. I'm not a very driven person, in some ways the lack of a desire to have a career, make a mark on the world, a name for myself, or have a bunch of money is probably a good thing. I'm not lazy either. But now...now a couple years away from 30 shifting through memories and plans and dreams that evaporated, either by choice or by circumstance... it's like an empty journal you always meant to write in and didn't and not from lack of trying but a fear of messing up the page.

You are as free to the same extent you are fearless.

I almost told my boss "no" two years ago...when offered a lead teacher job in a 3 year old room. I almost gave into that fear in the back of my mind of you will fail, you can't do it, don't even try. Almost but I didn't.

Teaching; a dream I thought I had chosen to walk away from...one that I find I enjoy very much. Every time I have designed to go a different direction with my life I've always come back to children. I.love.children.

You are free to the same extent that you are fearless.

I once read that there are years that ask questions and years that answer. I think they left out the years of just waiting which I think equal far more then either of the others. Yet, in all my waiting I seem to dream the most. It's in these times where hope bubbles and swells inside and breeds a certain empty longing. In essence...

A.Dream.

In all our planning how often we forget to be content in our current circumstances whether those be waiting, asking, or answering. Dreams I thought gone have re-kindled and presently in life seem far realistic then I ever really wanted them to be.

I've been hunting down and regrouping old photos that are lost on a dead computer and collecting them from various other places. Now and then I run across a photo that I call a pivotal moment. Upon remembering the moment I remember the over- whelming feeling that everything is perfect. Yet knowing that when the next day comes it will never be this way again, You have reached the top and there is not where but down you have no idea how you know it, it's just a feeling in your heart....these people will never all be in one place at the same time again, This place can't stand forever...they.just.wont. Except for in that picture, that moment it's just that, a photo of a perfect moment in time when you wish life could go on forever just.like.that. Safe and familiar.

But that's not freedom, that's not fearless.

I treasure those moments, those feelings, that knowledge that at this moment you are fully enjoying life...if even just for that moment. Though I don't want it to end it's lovely to wonder what what the next one will be.

This is the day the Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it.

Yet I have hope for a future..and in that hope, I find a joy in waiting for the time. Until then I'll teach and love other's children. God will bless me so that I can bless them and in an off hand way I can make a mark on this world...because the drive to love children is a joy and a blessing.

I am free to the same extent I'm fearless.... I am fearless to the same extent that I love.

I'm instructed to love as God loves....unconditionally...what kind of freedom is that?




Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Drama, confrontation, and observations.

Criticism...I've never been very good at taking it, I've always appreciated it for the most part when delivered tactfully and with the intent to help. Yet even then I'm not good at taking it. I take things so personally all the time, things that are in no way my fault. I know I've come a long long way since high school and even early college..actually even since marriage. But yet I've cried a couple times now when a parent has come to me..and I feel terrible each time I do it because it makes that person feel bad..and it's not their fault. Then I get frustrated because they don't come to me again after that..Oh I could just shot myself (hows that for dramatic...)

I still and always will hate confrontation... though now I do confront despite that hate. It's way better then the worry, and the "drama" in not knowing.

It never stops amazing me; people can be so blind to their own faults. All people myself included.

“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. ~Matthew 7:3-5~

It was brought to my attention rather bluntly that "I like drama" while I see where it's coming from because I am dramatic...I was a terribly dramatic child..just thinking about my childhood even through 8th grade I cringe...So yes I'm the first to admit I'm dramatic (just ask my older brothers)...but I've also been working on it and it's amazing how God can calm me and how far far FAR I have come since then (writing helps but God has helped more) However, I would not go so far to say that I "like" drama...

After this was said to me I was at first angry, yet I could not understand why I was angry about that? Maybe it was the way it was delivered. Like I was a child being put up with, as I do with my nieces dramatics, and not a friend or adult 27 years of age.. an annoyance...not an equal.

Maybe that's part of it... but I've been thinking about it for a while now, and I think it's always hard to have pointed out something you have been working hard on for so long a time. To feel like maybe I'm just fooling myself and I haven't improved. When in actuality I have but it's not 100%.  Then to think farther on the subject and realize that some people last remember a younger and in my case a less calm  individual, they have not been around for one reason or another as life happens...to see the growth and change.

I wonder how many times I have done this to people... held against them their past actions forgetting that in some matters people do indeed change...

"Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken a hold of it. But on thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead." ~Philippians 3:13~

We.grow.up.

This is not a justification of my actions or rather my (writings). It's an observation. I'm not good at being blunt in an awkward situation...so I hint, and self ridicule instead of simply asking straight out what or if someone has a problem with me...or if it's all good. I know I don't take confrontation well and I assume wrongly that others are the same way. Actions I didn't even realize I did until this conversation giving off the appearance of drama, then it was like glass shattering and it all made sense.  I use to just let things go and it would build and build and build...

So yeah, I'm not who I was 10 years ago, I'm not who I was 5 years ago, I'm nothing like I was 3 years ago.  Thank. God.

 You don't know who a person is by a couple of talks over a period of years...That's the joy of human interaction; you never know who your're going to meet, who will stick in your life and who will drift off... I thank God everyday for who he has made me to be..and I thank God for the people that have been through this whole journey with me, as well for the people who have fallen out, or who were only in it for a short time. Also for the few that have drifted in and out a number of times over the years.

Life is all your moments in a row..blink and watch them go. Tread softly tomorrow will pass in the twinkle of an eye.

I'll always be a writer, a poet, and therefor I will always play around with dramatics. I will always feel words, and thoughts...It's a way of life for me. Sometimes it's the only way I can keep breathing...Yet I know the need for balance.

"He has made everything beautiful in it's time, He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from begging to end." ~Ecclesiastes 3:11?~ (can't read my hand writing not near my bible it's 11 or 12.)

I have to stop tying myself wroth to the approval of others and my success in this world.

It's.not.about.me.

It's.about.

HIM

Amen.