May 20, 2012

Anger dwells on in the bosoms of fools.

May 18, 2012

Turn your face to the sun and the shadows will fall behind you.

May 15, 2012

In your relationship with God, does He feel loved by you—or used by you?

May 15, 2012

2 Positive Steps to Overpower Anger

Have you been battling anger, but it keeps rearing its ugly head? Have you noticed that the harder you try to not be angry, the more your family retreats?

Anger management doesn’t work. Stop fighting anger. The harder you focus on NOT being something, the more you become like it—including being angry.

Change your focus. Don’t struggle to manage your anger.

1. Instead, learn to love, really love, sacrificial love. Love others like Jesus loves you. If you don’t know how, meditate on 1 Corinthians 13.

If you’re like Robert, my husband, and you need something different, something where you can see it and study cause and effect, watch the video on this site where he gives his testimony. He was desperate for help, and the Lord gave him victory over his bondage to anger. In 1 John, he saw something that opened his eyes to see how love affects other people. He learned a secret that helped him learn to love.

1. Another possible focus is to learn to respect everybody you come in contact with, from your spouse and children to the driver that just cut in front of you or is blocking your path. It is impossible to put somebody down in anger while showing respect for them.

Both love and respect consider the other person before self. That is the real secret of overcoming anger, to think more highly of the other person than yourself (Rom. 12:3ff).

Don’t fight anger. Seek to grow in the character of God instead.

While you’re at it, don’t forget to ask for the Lord’s help. It doesn’t matter how hard we try. We can’t gain godly character on our own. We are totally dependent on Him to do it in us. However, if we ask, and keep on asking, we will receive.

May 13, 2012

A Tribute to Mother

When we were young parents, Pop, Robert’s grandfather, said, “You never truly appreciate your own parents until you have one of your own.”

There’s some truth to that. You can’t fully appreciate the sacrifice until you have to do it yourself. However, with the recent death of my mother and thinking back on her life, I don’t think I appreciated her enough even when I had four children. We live in a different time now. On the whole, we don’t know sacrifice like our parents did.

In the decades since my parents reared children, we’ve become softer and more self centered. I’d like to share a tribute to my mother, but it isn’t just to her, it’s to her mother and grandmother, and many other mothers of their era. It’s to the mothers who served, often without complaint. Mothers who were dedicated, committed, and faithful to lay down their lives as servants to their families.

On Wednesday, April 11, my mother peacefully moved into eternity, leaving her friends and family with memories and a legacy. I’m grateful for her life and her influence in my life. She was barely over 5 feet tall in her prime, but her impact on me has been huge.

My earliest memory of Mother is of sitting on the couch with her and 3 of my siblings as she read Bible stories before we went to bed. Yawns interrupted her reading. I cherished those times, but thought, “I’m not going to yawn when I read to my children.” … But I did—and I still do with my grandchildren.

It was during that period in my life—through the 4th grade—that mother made most of the clothes (all that weren’t handed down) for herself and her four daughters. Our dresses had gathered skirts, gathered sleeves, and sashes that tied in the back.

I can still see clothes hanging on the line behind the house. When they were dry, we brought them in, and Mother sprinkled the outer clothes with a coke bottle fitted with a sprinkler cap to dampen them for ironing. She then folded and wrapped them in a ball to distribute the moisture as they waited to be ironed. They were made out of cotton, so ironing was a must. Just one dress took a lot of work. I can only imagine the many hours Mother worked each week to keep a family of 8 decently dressed.

She made biscuits from scratch for nearly every meal and froze and canned food from the garden Daddy raised. With six children, eating out was extremely rare. Breakfasts were real meals, not quick cereal in a bowl or a sugary toaster treat as we went out the door. All meals were eaten with the family gathered around the table.

Mother could have been the “poster child” for the era of fixing things that were broken rather than throwing them away. If something worked, she used it until it could no longer be fixed. Furthermore, if the pennies didn’t stretch far enough for what she needed, she did without or found a way to bring in a little more. She worked hard to earn some of those pennies. For example, when she had four children—newborn to 6-years-old—she milked cows, sterilized milk bottles, made chocolate milk and sold it the public to make ends meet. And she never had help with the kids or the cleaning, not even relatives nearby that could lend her a hand.

Later, with six children, ages 5 through 15, she spent her summer sewing ballerina costumes for a dance class. She said she’d never do that again. That fall, she taught 4th grade so Daddy could go to seminary—her first year of teaching. Today, college kids borrow their lives away rather than work while in school. Mother worked hard, doing what was needed to provide for a family of eight so her husband could go to school.

She expected work from us too. We were responsible for keeping our rooms clean, but also helped clean the house, and had a rotating schedule of kitchen duties.

Mother was the boss, and she expected us to obey. When punishment was needed, we had to go outside and pick our own switch. Trying to choose a switch that was acceptable to her, but was deemed pain-free by me, was more painful than the punishment. I dreaded choosing a switch.

Manners and character were also emphasized, including sitting still through church, even when young. We learned to say “Yes ma’m” and “No, ma’m” and please and thank you. We were corrected if we called her, “Mama.” Mother thought that was disrespectful. Consequently, she was always “Mother” to us. In addition, no four-letter bad words were allowed in our house—not even the mild variety. We knew what it was like to have our mouths washed out with soap.

But one day, while we were moving from a seminary apartment to a house nearby, Mother’s exasperation reached its limit, and her tongue let one slip. That particular day, Mother drove a small trailer load of boxes and took a couple of us along to unload it.

When we got to the house, she had to back the trailer in. A bridge was being repaired at the edge of our property, and the road was closed, so it didn’t matter if she blocked the road in her efforts. That was a good thing, because the trailer refused to obey like it did for Daddy.

Mother backed, and pulled forward repeatedly, without success. To make matters worse, her passengers (i.e. me) made suggestions the first couple of tries—before realizing that silence was much wiser. Mother backed, and pulled forward for 20 minutes, but never got the trailer to cooperate. It didn’t help that the men working on the bridge repair kept glancing our way to see how she was doing. Finally, she stopped, gritted her teeth, and spat, “Piddledy-Poo!” –then turned off the engine.

It was not a traditional exclamation, but was surely the most heart-felt “4-letter” word I’d ever heard. What struck me was that Mother didn’t say any words that were forbidden in the household. She followed her own rules, even when she had reached her limit.

Shortly after the move, we had friends over for supper. Their lifestyle was a bit higher than ours. As a teen, I was conscious that we didn’t quite measure up. For instance, we were eating around a table that Daddy had made by adding wrought iron legs to a hollow core door. It was sturdy, served well, and was covered by a nice table cloth—lace even—but I knew our company would never have a nice shiny table, not one like ours.

As we left the dining room, our guest said, “Your mother is so gracious.” I must have been speechless and probably looked shocked, because she added, “It was such a good time together. She made us feel right at home.”

I thought back on the meal. The time together had been fun. Warm laughter had filled the room in the midst of meaningful conversation. I’d never thought of Mother as gracious, but maybe the guest was right. I remembered that comment and checked it out for myself as the years rolled by.

Mother carried a lot of responsibility and didn’t have time or resources to put on elegant affairs. But when she entertained, she was indeed gracious. She had plenty of good food, and she made people feel at home when they sat around her table.

I think her secret was that she focused on the guests, not on the fuss. To her, they were what was important. She cared more about getting to know them better than she did about impressing them. And they felt it.

In fact, she was gracious away from the table too, because she cared about people and she showed it.

As a teen, the last thing I wanted was to be like my mother, but I’ve decided that’s not such a bad thing after all. She made the world a better place.

I miss you, Mother. Thank you for your love and care—and for your example.

May 07, 2012

I’ve Had It!

A home school mother (we’ll call her Christa), who was frustrated with her inability to conquer anger, shared the following story with me.

It had been a stressful morning. Nothing was going right. The four children had been intentionally irritating each other all morning long. Three of the four had already been taken aside for discipline, a couple of them more than once. What a morning! Christa’s insides were tied in knots.

After one more altercation, Christa suddenly exploded, “I’ve had it! I’ve had it! I’m not going to put up with this any longer!”

The children looked on with wide eyes as frustration and anger spewed forth, “You are not going to keep behaving like this! We are going to learn character in this family! We are going to start acting like Christians! God is looking down on you and He is not pleased!”

Christa paused for breath and suddenly realized, “God’s looking down on me too—and He is not pleased with me either!”

In guilt and remorse, she thought, “My anger, screaming, and yelling don’t teach them to love one another. No wonder my children act like they do when they see my example.”

Christa and her husband had chosen to home school in order to build godly character into their children. On this particular day, it didn’t seem to be working. Her efforts seemed in vain. She was frustrated from the conflict, but she was also disturbed because godly character was lacking in her children.

Christa had tried to be patient as she addressed one conflict after another. When the quarrels continued, she called on anger to make herself bigger and more powerful. She needed more power and authority to make her children obey.

Anger is counterfeit power that we use when we feel threatened or helpless. But it is counterfeit. It may bring about temporary results, but it doesn’t bring transformational change.

James Dobson said that “disciplinary action influences behavior; anger does not… . When it comes to boys and girls, … I am convinced that adult anger incites a malignant kind of disrespect in their minds.”

Dobson goes on to say, anger is “ineffective and can be damaging to the relationship between generations.” Children may change their behavior to avoid stirring up more anger, but the more they are subjected to the wrath of their parents, the more resistant they will become.

Furthermore, as children, they are learning from us how to handle situations in life. If we resort to anger when we are hurt or frustrated, what are they learning? What will they do when they are parents?

I believe that anybody with children can identify with Christa and understand why she blew her cool. But the desired goal of righteous children does not sanctify the use of anger to reach that end. We want our children to walk in righteousness, anger does not produce the righteousness of God.

Righteousness comes from God. If we could force righteousness into our children through anger, God wouldn’t have told us to get rid of “all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor” (Eph. 4:31). In Galatians 5, He calls it a “deed of the flesh” and puts it in the same category as immorality, idolatry, sorcery, drunkenness, and carousing (vv. 19-21). Anger is disruptive and damaging. It needs to be put away.

Christa was disappointed, hurt, frustrated, and angry. But her heart was still open to hear from God. Even in the midst of her outburst, she saw that she was guilty just like her children. She owned her responsibility as parent to model proper behavior. Accepting personal responsibility is the first step in conquering anger.

The good news is that we are not alone. Jesus is not only our Savior. He is also our Redeemer. If we yield to Him, and cooperate with Him, He will change our hearts—not just when we get saved, but as we grow into His likeness.

But first, we need to admit our responsibility. Then, when we call on God for help and we yield to Him, He’ll be there. He is waiting to transform us so we can act like Christians—and thereby be better influence for others to walk in righteousness.

May 04, 2012

Don’t worry about tomorrow, God is already there.