Do Unto Others... or Conviction is Good for the Soul

Convicted!!

The other day they had the honor roll ceremony at my children elementary school. Since this is my son, Luke's, first year with letter grades I wanted to be there for his first honor roll ceremony. It was really nice to watch and he was just so proud of himself. When they all gathered on stage at once Luke was in the back and stood on his tippy toes and lifted his certificate up above his head. Luke is usually one to just hide in the background. You know this brought tears to my eyes.

Afterward I went out to my car. We have purchased a little Nissan Versa for me to drive when the kids are not all with me. It is blue with black tinted windows. Looks to me more like something a young person would drive. But it is fuel efficient and therefore good for our family.

Once in my car I did all my checks and made sure I had my seat belt on. I put the car in drive, turned my head to check if it was clear and slowly started to move. As I was taught, as I started to move I did a double check. Sure enough there was a car there so I stepped on my break right away so I never entered the roadway. I looked at the lady in the car as she drove past me and the look she had on her face... well... let's just say that it elicited in me thoughts of such awful insults that I found myself getting angry feeling lower than the lowest. I even had a the childish notion of showing her "Tall man." Thankful I didn't as anytime I have ever succumbed to that urge I have always ended up feeling awful and ashamed of myself.

I pulled out and started to drive. I was so angry and upset by this woman. I justified to myself that I hadn't even left the parking spot. That I only rolled a very very short distance before the double check that had caught the first glimpse of her vehicle. I thought about the stupid blind spot in my car. And then... I thought about how she just gave that look because I had startled her with the thought that my car was going to pull out. That is when it dawned on me that I had cast that very same look at people for the very same reason.

Convicted is what I think they call it when you realize that you are guilty of something you are upset with someone else for doing. So I drove along thinking of how many times I had cast that look and I vowed that I would do my best never to do that again because I never wanted to make anyone feel the way that woman had made me feel... EVER!! And then comforted myself with the thought that this woman was giving that look to my black windows and not me as she couldn't see me.

Feeling a bit better, I drove home and picked up the package I had forgotten to take with me so that I could go to the post office. As I was driving out of our neighborhood a truck with a trailer full of lawn supplies started to pull out in front of me. He pulled half way out into the road. In an instant I remembered and instead of shooting him that awful look I smiled and waived at him so that he would know I understood we are all human.

I can only pray that I will be able to catch myself as well every time. I fear, due to the fear that this kind of thing brings up when you think someone is going to possibly cause you to get into an accident, that there may be times I don't catch myself quick enough. But I will be very grateful to God for every time I do.

I was raised that you treat people the way you want to be treated. Thought it was a biblical command for many years. The importance of this was not lost when I found out that it wasn't. It is a part of who I am. It is why I hold the door for people. It is why I keep my children quiet when we go out to eat. It is why I get out of the left lane of traffic when I am not passing. It is why I donate to every change jar I pass when I have change in my pockets... even if it is just pennies. It's why I smile at people and say "Hello." It's why I go in the entrance and go out the exit even if it is inconvenient. It's why I let the guy with five items go ahead of my full basket even when I am in a hurry. I could go on... but won't for the very same reason. :o)

So the next time someone innocently starts to pull out in front of you, or walks behind your car just as you think you are going to back up or pulls up and stops behind you as they want to wait for that parking space that is one or two spaces closer and didn't notice your backup lights or whatever the case may be... consider how you would want to be treated if you were in that position. The next time you want to send someone that look that reduces them to ash... remember how you would feel if the tables were turned. Be convicted!! :o)*

How high is your hoop?

HOW HIGH IS YOUR HOOP?


Today, as I was out and about and I drove by a house that had their freestanding basketball hoop out by the road. The family had lowered the hoop down for obviously smaller kids. I instantly thought of our same kind of hoop at home and how it stands at regulation height. I thought about how it used to be that none of our kids could shoot high enough to even hit the hoop and how now even some of the younger ones can hit that hoop. Our son, Luke, is our newest one in the "STAR*" game. He is 9yo and each day I watch him shoot from a little farther back and am so proud, as he is, of his accomplishment.

Then I thought about the unseen kids that use that hoop. Their parents have set their sights lower, not asking as much from their kids. Making it easier for them to succeed at a lower level. At first I thought about how it would build their confidence and how maybe we should have done that for ours. And then I thought about our children aiming higher. We expect more and don't want to give false highs but let them achieve that sense of confidence that only comes after perseverance and success that they know they have earned without any parent clapping in the background. The confidence that comes from within.

We want our kids to achieve to their greatest ability. If we make it easy for them then we rob them of the hard work that gives them the tools they need to succeed at other things. If we make it easy then they go out expecting others to do the same. And when they fall short, setting their sights lower to keep it easy, then what will they accomplish in the end? When they are placed against their peers who will fall short? The peer who has learned to aim high or the peer who never had to as it was always brought down to make it easier for them?

Yeah... and I got that all from a lowered hoop! You will see at the top of this post a picture of our basketball hoop that is not out in the street. As you can see... We set out sights high for ourselves, for our children, for our life. How high is your hoop? :o)*

(STAR is our version of HORSE with a positive twist. If you lose you are not a horse... you are a star.)

What a world we live in...

Sometimes you just need a good firm smack in the forehead!



I had to post about this. We are winding down summer vacation with school starting Monday. In preparation I decided to get rid of some of the stuff we have tossed in the garage. So I got onto the Citrus County Freecycle group and posted and offer for a stereo cabinet. We have a large screen TV and the table below it made the need for the cabinet obsolete.

Now I grew up with a blessing I never knew I had. I was born with common sense. Not that I don't make a major blunder once in a while... but I do have common sense. I never knew that everyone didn't until I went to nursing school and met people that could look at someone who was pale, in a cold sweat, with flushed cheeks and have them not know that something was wrong with the patient without taking their temperature, blood pressure and so on. It blew me away. Since then I have met many such people and not just in the medical field.

I just got home an hour ago and read a response, two weeks after the listing on Freecycle mind you, from someone who was interested in the stereo cabinet and had a few questions. This is the exact email minus identifying information:

"do you still have that stereo cabinet. id be very interested if it is still in good shape. does it play Cd's and have a working radio?"

Yeah... that is quoted exactly. I had lots of stuff go through my head on how to respond. You know this person left themselves open for a whole slew of responses. I didn't want to be mean but I did want to instill some thought into the sender. This was my response:

"No I don't have it... but I have to ask... Have you ever seen a stereo CABINET that can play Cd's or radio channels? If so please let me know because I want to see that cabinet."
Have a great day!!
Bobbie*"

Welcome to my world!! How's yours?

:o)*

Life's Busy Pleasures...

... have kept me from having the time to ponder even the most basic of things. The last few months my mind has been on control and trying to give it to God. I have always been a control nut. Not over others. I learned long ago that it wasn't a good idea to ever think you could control others and have you or them be happy. But I am very big on being in control of myself and what I can control that has to do with me and my family. But we were never meant to be in control and when we try to be in control it can lead to some really big stress and unhappiness that we'd never experience if we could just truly trust in God to take care of us.

I know that God controls my life. I know that God controls every aspect of my life from start to finish. Not control like someone taking you by the arm and dragging you to where you need to be. No... God likes to lead us... some times subtly and sometimes with a great big shove. But always where we need to be to stay on his path. And maybe it is just with people like me, who ask God to help keep me on his path that go through this and maybe it is everyone; like it or not.

A good example is when I was still in my mid 20's. My Brother, who now rests in the arms of Jesus, told me that I should go work for a company that was an hours drive up the road from us because he heard that they paid almost twice what minimum wage was for laborers. I, at that time, was trying to raise four children on my own. I heard what he had to say but all I could think of was the amount of money I would need to move up to a place I knew nothing about with my four children and hope I got a job that would pay the bills. There was just no way it would work with the kids. Alone... well I could sleep in my car. But with the children I could never put them through something crazy like that. So it would not be an option. Back then I knew God, but I didn't know him as I do now. So I blew off the suggestion, as tempting as it was, knowing it was not feasible for us.

It only took a year for God to remove everything from me, all obstacles he needed out of the way to get me up to the very place I needed to be to get a job at this exact company my Brother had suggested. I had sent my children out to live with their Dad while I got myself on my feet. I applied to the company my Brother had told me about and went in and did their testing. Then a few weeks later I got a letter in the mail saying they had been trying to reach me to offer me a job. And there I was. A laborer making good money compared to what I had made in the past. Even more than when I was a Deputy Sheriff. I know... sad isn't it?

But that wasn't the only reason God had pushed my life to where it was. It wasn't the only reason he had made my situation desperate enough for me to send my kids out to live with their Dad so they wouldn't suffer with me any longer. It wasn't the only reason he had brought me to that company to work. It would be there that I would meet the love of my life and best friend, my husband, John. A whole other story, and too too personal to be entertaining, so we will leave it at that. God had turned my life upside down. Taken everything I valued away. Had me in a total tail spin of unhappiness, lost without my children, feeling like a failure, moving up where I could get away from everyone. But he knew exactly what he was doing. Exactly how I would react. He knew his plan for me and that this was exactly where I needed to be.

He knew if I had gotten a loan to move up to this area on my own with my kids I would have never taken the time to apply at this company because the hiring process was too long and I would have needed a job and money ASAP. He knew that once I met my future husband that he wouldn't have given me the time of day if I would have had four children at home. He would have, by his own admission, been afraid to have even dated me with all that baggage right there. He would have been frightened away. And on top of that I could have never worked the hours I needed to that put me on the same work crew as my future husband. No night time sitters.

Now if someone had said to me, "Look, we are going to have you get a really great job and then snatch it away from you. Then we are going to make it hard for you to find another job to the point that your children begin suffering because of it. Then we are going to make you so distraught about it that you send them off to live with their Dad. Of course then you will move up to this place, get this job, meet the love of your life and bring them all back home to live happily ever after. Is that ok with you?" I would have been happy. I would have known the plan and why things were happening and that in the end we would all be better for it.

But that didn't happen. No one told me. And I ended up at a place in my life where I felt like it would be better to believe that there was no God than to believe that there was a God and he was just sitting back letting all this awful stuff happen to us. It was a very cold lonely period in my life. But thanks to God I got through it and came out on the other side exactly where God knew I would. Eventually God even let me know why things had to happen the way they did.

This all boils down to faith. If I would have had true faith in God I might have questioned why he felt the need to take me down such a dark and unhappy road, but I would have known in my heart that he was leading me to where I needed to be and for my best interest. And God leads us to where he knows we will have our happiness, and if we are very lucky, will be one of his instruments in other's happiness as well. But that kind of faith... it isn't for the faint of heart. It takes real strength to stand up when going through the fires waiting to get to where God is using those fires to take us. In my case, it was to my husband and the father of our 12 children. (Yeah... I laugh too when I think of how he said he would have been scared off by four. LOL)

Satan loves to use doubt and fear and guilt against us. He whispers in our ears as we go through adversity asking us where our God is now. Knowing having faith in something you cannot always see is not always easy. He reminds us of our every sin and giggles with glee as the guilt sets in and pushes us further away from God. He sets the thought, "Why would God do this to you? Why would he allow this to happen?" planting more doubt pushing us further from the truth and the light and the way.

When life is slamming us, dealing us bad cards, making us absolutely miserable... God is still there. He doesn't change. He doesn't give up. He remains. He knows us. And in that he knows how vulnerable we are to Satan's whisperings. Hold on tight to God when life gets rough. Hold on tight and rebuke Satan at every turn. When your mind feeds you thoughts that you know are not right, rebuke Satan. Hold strong to the word of God and to your faith. If you are standing at the bedside of your toddler son and he is slipping away ravaged by illness, as much as it will hurt to be without him, remind yourself of where he will be and that you will be together again. If you are sitting in your car outside the job you just lost hold on tight to the Lord and know that he is going to carry you through this. That no matter how bleak things may look, you are on your way to something better. It is hard to know or think that as you are going through it, but try your best. I know I do, every time. And most times I get hit by the ugliness of life it takes just a bit of time to catch my breath and remember who is in control of my life and that everything, no matter how bad, will be ok, because he is in control.

(Note: This post is a bit similar to an earlier post I made. The point being made is different, but some of the references are the same.)