...welcome to my ramblings...

10.16.2013

I'm mad...because he's mad...


     This morning, an hour after we'd dropped Aaron off at school, my 2 year old, Layla said, "I'm mad, mom!  But I'm not mad at you. I'm mad at Aaron." I asked her why she was mad at her brother, he wasn't even here and he hadn't done anything mean to her this morning.  She replied, "I'm mad at Aaron because sometimes he gets mad at me, because I get mad at him, because he gets mad at me..."  I began to realize that she wasn't really mad, she just wanted to pretend to be mad at someone and since he sometimes makes her mad, he was an easy target since he wasn't around to defend himself.

     As I began to think about my daughter and her displaced anger, I thought about how many times we as adults, as people, get angry.  How many times we get angry for unknown reasons. How often we project our hurt and confused emotions onto others as anger. How often we have displaced anger.  So many times in life we hear someone might be angry with us from another person, so instead of talking to the person, we just hold it inside and get angry at them, for being angry at us. Other times we feel like someone is angry with us, so we get angry at them, because we feel if they're angry at us, we have to be angry at them. Or even still, our friend or loved one will talk to us about a person they are angry with and we feel we need to be angry with them too, because if they are angry at our loved one, well then they must be angry at us too!  Oh help us, Lord.

     Please understand that I am not saying anger is bad. Anger is a feeling, like all feelings, we are allowed to feel it and will feel it many times as humans. However, it is just that, an emotion. We feel many different emotions throughout any given day. This is how we were created. The problem lies in holding onto our anger. So often we hold our anger, because we are really hurt and are afraid if we let go of our anger we will end up hurt again. Anger helps us to believe that we are no longer vulnerable and that somehow we are now safe, because we've put up this anger roadblock. But holding onto anger is not ok. Holding onto anger will create a war within our own heart and mind.

     The Bible says in Ecclesiastes 7:9 "Do not let anger upset your spirit, for anger lodges in the bosom of a fool." Ouch...did your read that? Don't let it upset our spirit?! Oh man, that's hard. How many times have you allowed anger to completely change your day, your mood, your spirit? I'd rather not count, thank you. In Ephesians 4:26 it says "'Be angry, but do not be willing to sin." Do not let the sun set over your anger." I've heard the last part of that verse quoted often, but I've rarely heard the first part, "do not be willing to sin." Um, does that mean I can't sit in my anger and plot against whoever has made me angry? I can't just block that person who made me angry out of my life? Life would be so much easier if we could do that, don't you think? If you make me mad, I'll just block you out of my life, hold my anger for you inside and if I ever see you, I'll just completely pretend you don't exist....if only. Thank God He doesn't block me out when I make Him angry!

     As a Christian, I am so glad I don't have to process all of my anger by myself...cause if it were left to me, I wouldn't process it at all!  I'm so thankful that I have a God who is bigger than any of my anger issues.

Wow...that was a lot from just a little statement from my 2 year old. Thanks for reading...

10.13.2013

Let's suck it up & get real.

People don't wanna grow. 
People don't like change. 
Growth is change. 
Faced with change we're forced to get real. 
Real can get ugly.
Real can hurt.
Real can be embarrassing.
Real can be hard to swallow.
Real has to happen before growth can happen.
People really wanna grow;
We're just afraid of getting real.

10.06.2013

So, I think I had an epiphany...

      I grew up in church. I've been in church my entire life. I'm proud of the heritage I have and I'm very thankful for my parents and their belief to bring up their children in church. I want to bring my children up in the church too. I grew up watching those I love serve in the church. I began serving in church at a young age. I continued serving in church into adulthood. After some time, I became bitter and cynical; I was angry with people in the church. I wanted to know how they could call themselves "christians" yet just sit on the sidelines and watch. How could they come to church and, in my opinion, do nothing?
     I decided to take a break from serving so much. I thought it best to take a step back, maybe visit other churches and just do my own version of sitting back and watching, like those who I had become so angry with - of course, that didn't help much, maybe just put a band-aid on a gaping wound. However, during that time I stepped out of the center of it all, I still desired something more; I still desired God's will for my life and I still do today. That time has made me realize something major; I think I had an epiphany.
    I started to think about the church I had spent most of my life in. All churches have their issues and I'm sure they're all basically caused by the same thing - people. If I think back from the1980's, when my family started attending the church I grew up in, through today, I can pinpoint relationship issues, people issues, that had a detrimental effect on the church as a whole. All of the people within the church may not have all been involved, nor did they always even know there was something going on. As I look back though, I can see people leaving, people getting upset, people getting bitter about something someone said to them or something someone did to them or something someone didn't say to them or something someone didn't do to them, etc. Lots of hurt feeling, lots of emotions, many relationships ruined and many people leaving the church - not just this church, but the church in general. It's sad. I've seen this my whole life, so honestly it's nothing new to me & it's probably not new to you.
     Here's where it gets interesting. I recently had an "aha" moment, an epiphany if you will. Some of you have probably realized this long ago, but please, humor me. What if one of those times people didn't leave the church, or this church? What if instead of getting angry or bitter, we realized that it's not about what someone did or didn't do; what if we realized that all of this drama is caused by the enemy? What if one day we all realized that all along, Satan has been at work, trying to destroy the potential of this church?! What if we realized we are all in this together - really, I mean we all say the words, but what if we really acted as if we are family? Can you imagine how we could squash Satan, instead of letting him continually squash the work of our Lord? 
     I'm going to start looking at people differently. It's hard, but if we just drop our expectations of how we should be treated and just start really loving people - including forgiving and really forgetting - we would be surprised and in awe of the amazing things our Lord has in store for us, as well as for His church.