A Spoonful of Grace Helps the Judgement Go Down

Today I had the privilege of reading Heather's latest blog entry on freelybroken.blogspot.com.  In it she candidly shares her struggle with being judgmental.  I wanted to post a comment on her blog about what helps me in that area, but then I decided that, as long-winded as I can be, it might be better to blog on it myself.  

 

So what do I do to combat being judgmental?  (I use the word combat on purpose, because it is definitely a battle)  Two things that are closely related.

A)  In my experience, most of the time people hurt us unintentionally.  I can't take the offense (real or made up) personally.  The Rude Cashier didn't mean for the comment to sound so harsh.  The Stupid Driver didn't single me out to cut me off, I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.  My Friend didn't intend to make that horrible decision to aggravate me, something else must be going on in her life.  Don't take it personally.  Try to give the benefit of the doubt.  A little grace can go a long way.  

Even if we suspect what they did WAS intentional, what better way to diffuse it and make it stop than to let it roll off?  Truthfully, nothing gets my goat more than someone who won't fight with me when I want them to, but it does take two to tangle.  Yes, I will be a little perturbed that you're not going to be baited, but really, it will be so fun for you to watch my reaction.  (Okay, my human nature is coming out)  It's also helpful to remember Proverbs 19:11, A man's wisdom gives him patience;  it is to his glory to overlook an offense.   I usually have to quote it to myself early and often.

2) I remind myself that I do not have all the information on a person or situation.  For all I know, the Rude Cashier may just have learned that her mother is dying of cancer.  The Stupid Driver may be losing his job at the end of the week.  My Friend who made a stupid decision might be influenced by people or situations I know nothing about.  There is nearly always more to the story than I know at the time.

This is the way that I try to react when confronted with Rude Cashier:  "Wow, she seems to be having a bad day.  I wonder why?  Did I do something to contribute to it and need to apologize?  No.  Is there anything I can do to help turn her day around?  Yes.  I can be sure to smile at her and tell her 'Thank you.'  I can try to lighten the day with a funny observation.  Above all, I can pray for her, that God will meet her where she is right now and shine His light into her life.  That He would send His comfort and strength, wisdom and understanding into whatever situation she is facing today.  That I can be His hands and feet to her." 

I'll be the first (and loudest) to admit that I don't always succeed in this.  But I am trying to follow Romans 12:2 and "no longer conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of my mind."  Transformation takes both time and the power of the Holy Spirit. 

God overlooks the hundreds of times each day that I snub him.  He forgives me when I'm harsh with my kids and my husband.  He waits patiently when I cut Him off before He's finished talking to me.   The least I can do is try to extend that same grace to others.

Creativity In All Its Forms

I believe that women, in general, are pretty good at multi-tasking. 

I'm not quite as good at it as some.  It seems I can handle several small things at once (I am, after all, a mom), but big projects?  One at a time, please.

I finally sent my skit to be edited and I guess my brain decided it needed to take a break.  So in place of creatively writing, I've been creatively decluttering.

I don't like a lot of "stuff".  Clutter stresses me out.  I'm not a collector.  My preferred style of decorating is minimalist.  Of course, I'm married to a pack rat, so our house is a happy medium.  

However, one thing I do seem to collect is information.  I am a pack rat of paper.  So this week I've done a complete 180 from writing.  Rather than create more papers I am flinging paper.  Flylady would be proud.  I even came prepared with a new box of band-aids on hand for the inevitable paper cuts. 

There are several places in my kitchen and office that have become repositories for paper clutter.  I want my info close at hand, but then I can't find what I need in the piles, if I remember I have it in the first place.  Those places are now either gone or severely edited.  Anything I want to save I'm placing in a bin until I get my filing cabinet drawer "flung through" (hopefully next week).  

This newly decluttered drawer will be a haven for ideas and other information I find interesting and worth saving.  It will be organized.  Even if I only have one piece of paper per folder, that paper will have a home in that folder.  Hmmmm.  I may need to purchase another box of file folders.  Or two.  Better add that to my shopping list.

You may remember a few weeks back when I posted a picture of my "office space."  Here is the before and after:

It feels amazing to have the clutter thrown out, or at least put in temporary housing in the basement while its mansion is being built.   I can't wait for next week to tackle that file drawer!  

Some may ask why I didn't start with the file drawer and have it ready before sorting the office and kitchen papers.  The answer is that I know myself, and if I can accomplish a few smaller tasks and get them out of the way I am more motivated to tackle the bigger task.  Starting with the big task can seem too overwhelming.

 I guess I'm proof of the old saying, "You can do it all, you just can't do it all at once."  

Maybe that makes me a Minimal Multi-tasker...?

Skit happens...

I've been trying really hard to work on my skit for the Oil Belt Ladies' Day in April.  

Last year it was a one-woman skit.  This year there are two of us.  

Last year if I rewrote the entire thing 5 minutes before I went onstage it was okay.  This year Mary has lines to memorize, too, and we'll need to rehearse together.   

Ladies' Day is in 10 weeks.  I've been making good progress on the skit this week, but I've had to neglect my blog a bit to get it done.  

Hopefully I'll be finished very soon and will get a few of the ideas I have off the post it notes and onto the computer.  

Stay tuned!  :)

Updates and Boundaries

UPDATE: With this post I am reaching my weekly goal of posting here at least once a calendar week.  Yeah me!

The writing for 15 minutes a day is not going so well.  I'm procrastinating on my skit.  But I've had several ideas for my blog, which is half the battle there.  I hope to get a chunk done on the skit this weekend as Matthew will be out of town and I seem to be somewhat caught up on my housework so I won't have my To Do List nagging at me.  Nathan and Clinton, however, do remain factors in play...  Boo me!

UPDATE: On another note, yes, I gained a few pounds over the holidays.  Doing okay (not terrific, but respectable) on the exercise but having no motivation on the eating.  But I'm working on it, and Joline and her exemplary eating habits are kicking in my guilt complex.  The self-motivation will follow as soon as I'm done with the self-loathing part.  Boo me!

NEW STUFF:  In addition to the Daily Audio Bible, I listen to the Daily Audio Proverb podcast.  One chapter of Proverbs a day, so all of Proverbs in a month, twelve times a year.  The ultimate book of wisdom.  As you well know, I could definitely use me some wisdom.

Today is the 22nd so we read from Proverbs 22.  Something I heard this morning in verse 28 got me to thinking. (No smarty pants comments on that part, please.  I've heard it all before.)  The Contemporary English Version says, "Do not move a boundary marker set up by your ancestors."   

I've always thought of this verse in the physical, property line way, and it certainly does mean that.  This verse is good advice for maintaining warm fuzzy feelings with your neighbors.  But today it hit me that this verse also applies to boundaries in life.

What I mean here is that the rules haven't changed.  What was right and wrong generations ago, even back to "Bible Times," is still right and wrong today.  Don't move the line, or the law, based on the whim of the moment.

The laws of physics don't change.  The laws of nature don't change.  It's as true today as it was yesterday that if you jump off a cliff you will get hurt.  It doesn't matter if you think you won't get hurt.  It doesn't matter if you think you shouldn't get hurt.  The fact is you WILL get hurt.  Those property lines haven't budged a millimeter since the dawn of time. Truthfully, they are there as much for our protection as for our limitation.

The laws of right and wrong do not change simply based on what we want right and wrong to be.  If you do wrong things you'll pay the consequences.  Just because we don't like where the boundary is placed doesn't mean we have the option of moving it to suit our fancy.  I realize that many things are not black and white, but some things are, and we need to maintain those boundary lines in order to not lose the deed to the property altogether.

On biblegateway.com, the footnote to Proverbs 22:28; reads "In ancient Israel boundary lines were sacred because all property was a gift from the Lord (see Deuteronomy 19.14)."  Time and again in the Old Testament we see the Israelites mess with the spiritual boundaries God gave them until they finally got physically kicked out of the promised land. 

I don't know about you, but I would rather not have to pick up and move out of my promised land any time soon. 
 

Goals Schmoals

So my friend Joline and I are now over 2 months into our workout accountability, and I think it's going well.  We both slacked off A BIT during the holidays, but now we're back on track.  Yeah for us!


The nice thing is that this accountability seems to be rubbing off into other areas of our lives.  As you may remember from last year, Joline blogs at TheCuppaJo.  Today she informed me of her writing goals.  I thought that was a great idea so I came up with some myself.  They are:


1. Post in my blog at least once a week.
2. Write for 15 minutes a day.  As Flylady says, you can do anything for 15 minutes.  I am also planning to work out for 15-20, declutter for 15, and read for 15.  So far in 2010 that has all happened together in a single day, but I am trying. 
3. Start a Writer's Group.  Praying and seeking guidance on that one, but I believe this is what I'm supposed to do.  Hopefully more on that later.
4. Write a kick a** inspiring script for Ladies' Day on April 17.  You'll have to come to Ladies' Day to see how I do.


There.  I said it.  Or rather wrote it.  In print.  For all the world to see.   

YIKES!!!!  WHAT HAVE I DONE???!!!  AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!! (That's the sound of me running down the road, screaming and pulling my hair out)


Okay, so these are not earth-shattering goals.  I didn't say I wanted to write The Great American Novel or The Next Blockbuster Movie.  These just might be attainable goals FOR ME.  If I keep plugging away (and limit my Facebook time), by the Grace of God I might complete 2010 with something to show for it.


I'll keep you posted.


 
By the way, I've added a picture of "the office," where I plan to do at least part of the writing, which is really just a converted closet in the kitchen. 


I've also posted the bulletin board where I've listed these goals.  By the way, no slamming me on the messy desk.  I've not decluttered that far yet.

  

If I'd write it, maybe you'd read it

Okay, so I haven't posted in a while.  

First of all, it seems that I can't put a decent thought together.  Every idea I get, I hate.  Or I like it in my head but hate it when I see it on the screen.  Or I write it and like it but come back to it later and hate it.  I'm having this problem on everything from emails to this blog to Facebook comments (believe it or not).  Don't even get me started telling you about my children's book, Christmas play or devotions.


On the other hand, I am writing another skit for Oil Belt Christian Service Camp's Ladies' Day (try saying that ten times fast).  For some reason that seems to be working.  When I have a chance to dig in to it.  This isn't a "five minutes here and there" thing for me.  I need blocks of time.  I don't get those much these days.

Maybe God is trying to tell me something, like I shouldn't be messing around with all the other writing right now.  Admittedly, some of it is necessary.  Well, okay, the Facebook stuff is just fun. 

Maybe I should ask my Writing Boss what He would have me write.  And then listen for the answer.  And then go do it.  


If you need me, I'll be on vacation in the Swiss Alps with Sylvia.  At least that's the direction the skit is taking me for now. 

Away, and alone, in a manger

This Christmas season, I found myself pondering the birth of our Lord.  For some reason, even though I’ve known the story of Jesus’ birth my whole life, it struck me in a new way this year.  It suddenly struck me that Mary and Joseph were alone when Jesus was born, and how unusual that would have been.  I guess, in reality, their families could have been there with them, but Luke 2 says that when the shepherds got to the stable they found only Mary, Joseph and the baby.  

What was the deal with their families?

I’m especially curious because when a woman is about to give birth she is usually surrounded by family and friends, at the very least by close relatives like her mother.   Where was Mary’s mother?   Where was the rest of Mary’s family?  For that matter, what about Joseph’s family?  

Clinton had an interesting thought about it.  He wondered if maybe they were alone because their families shunned them due to Mary’s pregnancy.   Unmarried daughter claims the child she carries is God’s child, and her fiancée is going to marry her anyway?  At the very least they would have been accused of disgraceful behavior, and at the most of being completely insane.   The possibility of the pain and suffering Mary and Joseph may have experienced, through no fault of their own, made me so sad! How lonely they must have felt!

I tried to picture what it could have been like for their families.  I would think that both families were surely in Bethlehem at the same time, as both Mary and Joseph were descendants of David.  EVERYONE had to go to his own town to be taxed and counted for the census.   Surely their families were there.

How would the families have heard about the baby if they were estranged from Mary and Joseph?  Even with Bethlehem full to overflowing with people, a story as unusual as the one the shepherds told would surely have reached every nook and cranny of every street corner.  Imagine the possibility that the new grandparents would have heard along with all the rest of Bethlehem about their grandson being born. What would the family members’ reactions have been, hearing that the baby born in a manger was their grandson/nephew/cousin?  

What could have been their reaction to the amazing story the shepherds told?  Angels declared that Mary and Joseph’s baby was the Christ.  Perhaps they reconsidered the truthfulness of what Mary had told them about Jesus’ conception.  Do you think they were more likely to have believed the shepherds’ story than the average citizen did?

I felt a glimmer of hope.  If they were estranged, could the birth of grandson Jesus have helped to heal the rift?  We know that at least by the time Jesus was twelve that He and the Holy Family were surrounded by extended family (Luke 2:44).   Even if they didn’t fully believe He was the promised Messiah, somewhere along the line forgiveness and reconciliation had to have occurred.

Jesus' conception and birth may have caused a rift in his earthly family. I don't really know.  But I am comforted that if there was an estrangement, that it seems to have been temporary.  Maybe “on earth, peace to men on whom his favor rests” included Jesus’ own family.