Clearing the fog before Christmas

OH hello friends :)  Oddly enough I have this day that is being rocked and moved by this crazy world, but as I try to focus my circumstances not on this world but God- I am choosing to see my: cancelling work appointments, late sleeping son and husband and well mannered, on time, ready for school daughter as a gift from him to glorify HIM.  Also thank God for supplements and Juice Plus as another round of cold seems to be on its way as payton sneezed 18 times on me last night (early morning) and Mya woke with a sore throat.  Probably doesn't help we just ate about 5 pies this weekend ;)
  It was an intense but reflective weekend.  Mostly it hit home for me yesterday during an amazing sermon on "Pre-Christmas Calibration" and the story of Mary and Martha.  And now this morning my devotion (which has been getting dusty on my shelf this past week or two, I will ashamedly admit) on how to strengthen yourself in the Lord.  I know the story of Mary(the sister who sits and Gods feet and is in awe of his presence blocking out all distraction) and Martha ( the "do-er" who is busy serving every one and being angry mary isn't helping) seems and old tale to most but two things hit me as this sermon had a new hit on my heart yesterday.  (ps here it is if you have a few minutes to listen www.faithbaptistfellowship.com nov 25 sermon, it will probably be uploaded by tomorrow) Usually we hear it and think "ok, yes do less, stop putting so much on my "to-do" list and pray more.  But the pastors point was not that.  Point 1, "instead of trying to stop being like Martha to be more like Mary, start being like Mary to be able to stop being like Martha."  WHOA that I had to hear more than once to understand but here's what it meant to me: I need to start putting God first, listening to Him, spending time in His word, spend time in silent prayer, then  I can tackle my mile long list and if things don't seem as important they will eventually fall off the list.  I (and josh) start by crossing things off our lists because we think that will give us more time and more opportunities to be with God.   It's all about law and action.  Case in point taking Mya out of dance because it took up too much time and money.... no, it didn't.  We just found something though WE could fix instead of letting God show us how to draw near to him and showing us how we could have peace and see the love of others around us trying to help.  We constantly sit down and try to cross things off our list financially.  Those of you who know me well know we cancel our cable like two times a year, or try to change phone plans or try to down size our house (that was a more recent example).  Now, maybe if we had a moral conviction of those things (which is another blog) then we would need to act and follow through, but WE are trying to fix something without seeking God and trusting him with what he has given us.  Please don't message me that God didn't give us cable ;)
Now, what all this means to me is that I avoid the internal and jump right to the external.  What can I do, how can I fix.  Not, how can I seek God and come closer to understanding who I am in Him? How can I feel his presence and peace more daily and rest under his light yoke?  That was point number 2.  Ask yourself those questions.  Who are we trying to please? impress?  by our Martha get it all done be all we can be attitudes.  Do we rely on others or Christs opinion of ourselves?  I can tell you one thing we would have waaay less stressed society(especially at Christmas) if we took on Christ view of ourselves.  Humans by nature don't want to give up sin and admit a need for a Savior. Then there can  never be an adoption in Gods family and love from him the way it's deserved. People think the bible is full of too many rules but in reality Gods loving guidance for our best interest is less harsh than the expectations we put on ourselves to succeed. We take every thing to far because we are told that it's ok to make yourself happy, to bad WE always fall short and we never get the approval we need.  This year I feel no joy in decorating my house for Christmas because of the stress we have been under, other than putting up our trees and stockings.  When I think of a client walking through my house or someone coming over and seeing it how I usually do it, I think of the praise I would get and it makes me want to begrudgingly haul out my stuff.  But I'm not going to.  I'm going to do my Christmas cards because they have been so far stress free and enjoyable to do.  I am going to look at my two trees, one lovingly decorated by Mya and her cousin and one that I will over primp on, and that will be enough.  I am going to take Mya to her dance competitions and enjoy the heck out of watching her do what she loves and not worry about how Payton is acting or how perfect Mya's hair/makeup and dance moves are.
1 Samuel 30 talks about a group of guys including David coming home from a long journey to find there homes torched to the ground and there woman and children taken away.  It says "they raised their voices and wept until they had no more strength to weep."  I can't imagine the sadness and depression that would cause. Until it then turned to anger and bitterness against David and they wanted to stone him.  Instead of giving up hope he prayed to God to strengthen him and for help in a decision to pursue in battle against those who had taken their families. How long do we sit in the fog of depression until we reach out to God to break the pattern.  I sink into my hole, I give into my desires and bad habits and I over compensate by reaching out to others opinions of me to fill the void that my God can only satisfy.  The world can give immediate, temporary fulfillment and satisfaction buy only God can give eternal security which produces fulfillment and everlasting peace that is OH so satisfying :)
May you reach out to God today for joy all decisions and in return have the most enjoyable pre-Christmas ever!!
laura

When you try to tell yourself you not being stubborn....

Well when you convince yourself that you're being "self sufficient", "strong" or "taking a stand" against something your sick of doing....then you're like me you are just being stubborn.  I have had multiple situations that have stuck out to me this week and even a conversation with some of my clients to confirm this.
One said to me that they were sore, achy and had a headache, I said, "when did you last go to the chiropractor?" they said, "ya, I just had so many doctors in my life I guess I got sick of going in and now I forget to go".  Hmmm, so we have really decided to take the path of stubbornness over feeling good, parenting well, or having good relationships.
For me mine is of course health, as I JUST have found a family physician for our family.  I was SURE that I was done going to the doctor and I was going to just be so darn good at keeping my family healthy and we were gonna drink so many darn green smoothies and I would make my kids lunch and it would be all organic and they would just LOVE it..... hmm.  Ok so even if all that panned out like 80% life still happens and really it was just me being lazy and not having a "plan".
You see I feel like if I plan, I will fail.  If I plan to have lunch money in Mya's school lunch account for backup, I will fail to make her lunch.  If I plan to have a doctor on hand, I will just go in too much or think there is always something wrong with me.  If I plan on having meals during the week, I will just not have time to make them and thus- feel failure.  Yep, "if you fail to plan, you plan to fail" was apparently never found, placed or stuck in my brain.
Even with my children.  I am so stubborn about how I feel.  Like "ugh today I am so sick to the brim of telling my son 100 times to do(or not do) one thing, I am so sick of exerting so much energy!  I am sick of saying-in a super sweet obnoxious voice, 'oh, no thank you payton' or 'please use kind words with your sister payton' or 'please stop spitting oranges in the vents payton'.  So I'm just gonna yell and grab and demand" And I tell myself that will feel better, and for one second it does but it in no way solves the problem.  When my daughter told me this morning I was and I quote, "wasting her time" as I was finding her favorite song on her ipod... whew, just thinking about it boils my blood... ok I'm good-  I just literally bit my tongue and then said, "I can't believe you would talk like that to me" very stone cold complete unbelief.  I knew if I yelled she would cry or pout and leave my car and go into that school without hearing me say "I love you".  low and behold we pulled up and she mumbled "sorry for saying that to you" and she was still a bit pouty but it was resolve there was nothing left unsaid as we parted ways.
So I'm just blogging this because maybe there is something today you  think you are doing such a good job at NOT doing because you are telling yourself you're sick of it.  In reality though sometimes we have to do things over and over and over.  How many times do we tell our kids, "brush your teeth" how many times do yo think our moms told us ;)  How many times do we try to make healthy choices, not yell at our kids, pay the bills, do the laundry, make beds, clean, clean some more, go to the grocery store and my most favorite... be super loving and nice(or at least smile at) to my husband when I've had a stinkin' rottin' day!!!  We can't just stop doing these things because we are sick of them.  However, we can take a break.  We can ask God to give us a new perspective and we can put away our stubborn behavior (our 2yr old behavior!) and do what is right because we know in the end it will go better.
Lately I have been asking God to help me see my children as God see's them, like on the spot right in a heated moment.  It makes me calm down and take the personalization away from how attacked I feel as a mom/person.
So here's to taking the shorter route to a happy day!!  And if you aren't having one go get a starbucks turn on a movie for the kids and pick up a pizza for super, there is always another day to be supermom/wife/friend....etc.
laura