Somewhere Between Self-Control and Fits of Rage

Forgive me, friends, for my blogging delinquency. I have struggled with my topics. I never know where I should start. In retrospect, I believe I have been tempted to shy away from the embarrassingly ugly parts of me God intends for me to share. I want to put on that mask and present my own version of me. But that is not the real me and that is not who God has called me to share. As I have said before, it is better that I share nothing at all with you rather than present lies as truth. May God forbid it.

So here is a story about the real, ugly me, and how God is working to change me.

We had a wonderful Sunday.

We had a not-so-good weekend.

One Thursday night my husband went to the hospital ER for some sort of digestive problem. It was the sort of problem you just want to END quickly, and after 10 hours of it, he was exhausted, in pain and completely spent. I felt horrible that he had to drive himself to the hospital in the middle of the night, but someone had to stay home with the children. I suppose these are the sacrifices parents must make. Since this story isn’t the point of the blog, I’ll just say he was sick for three more days and spent quite a bit of that time in the hospital. Needless to say, this was not the weekend we had planned.

By Saturday afternoon, I was pretty tired of being alone with the girls. Now I love my girls and I couldn’t dream up two better toddlers or a more fulfilling job for me, but sometimes we all just need a break from the everyday. In retrospect, I also realize that I had not taken my “happy” pill that day. [Another topic for another day.] Perhaps that had something to do with it. But whatever the reason, I found myself unable to rise to the occasion and present a calm, energized and loving demeanor to my precious children.

I yelled. I didn’t curse or insult them or degrade them or anything like that. But I did strain my voice, get in their face and speak with a harsh attitude. The specifics don’t matter. What does matter is that I was wrong. I should not have done it. I am an adult and capable of controlling my actions. I am so sorry. I was sorry even then. Please forgive me Lord, and grant me self-control. Help me to walk in Your Spirit.

I knew I was wrong as I was doing it, so I tried my best to just be quiet instead. In these situations, when you just need a break, in order to avoid doing something wrong that you might regret, experts and experienced moms advise calling a friend or family member to help. But in this situation, I felt like it was something I just had to endure. I shouldn’t call for help because my husband was coming home soon. I should be able to calmly handle my own two children for just another hour or two. Well, I did endure, but only through clenched teeth, gnashing all the way. Not well.

When we awoke the next morning for church, I did NOT feel like getting up and making the effort to go to church. (I needed a break, right?) But miraculously, my husband did. Even more miraculously, I submitted. After rolling over, tossing and turning, and enduring a frustrating internal dialogue, I reluctantly got out of bed and took a shower. I still had a horrible attitude, but at least I was moving myself in the right direction.

Thank You, Lord! Occasionally, I CAN manage to do the right thing – only by God’s grace. And I SO enjoyed church. Of course, God spoke right to me. Our class lesson and the sermon spoke right to my shortcoming, right to my need.

Success = Obedience

Joshua 1:8 – Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.

Obedience requires knowing God’s Will and doing it; obeying His Word; yielding to the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. (Galatians 5:22-23)  The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. (Gal. 5:19-21)  What was my fruit on Saturday? Where was my obedience? How can I overcome my sinful nature and live yielded to the Spirit?

Somewhere between self-control and fits of rage, I live. I flounder. I waver.

This quote is often in my head when I think on this struggle:
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. - F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

Why has this quote survived for years in my brain to continually resurface? It must mean something to me. We keep striving forward toward our God-given destiny, inevitably encountering the obstacle of our past-selves. We make forward progress and we continually encounter our old fleshly nature as it sets up roadblocks in our path.

And there was something else in our class lesson regarding the Fruit of the Spirit:
1 Cor. 13:13 - The greatest of these is love.

(v.4-8) Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails.

Yikes! Where was my love on Saturday? My love, my self-control, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, protection, perseverance? I certainly need to post these scriptures somewhere I can see them often to remind myself of what Christ saved me for. It certainly wasn’t for raising my voice to my precious children when they are simply acting like children. I have been saved for much more than selfish fits of emotion and frustration. God does not want me to act this way. He has enabled me to do much more. I endeavor to live better. To live my calling. To live in the Spirit. Bear the fruit I was intended to bear.

Forgive me, Lord. Direct me to do much better in the future. Don’t allow me to settle for less. You have never settled for less concerning me.


Yielding,
Alexis

Obedience

Ok. I know I promised you the end of the beginning, but I'm short on time and I think this post is best split into two. So only one more post after this one until this story is complete.

Again, this journal entry quotes from my current favorite blog. But I cannot deny the powerful way God has spoken to me through the life and pen of this "cyber-sister."

Tuesday, February 02, 2010


Ann Voskamp marvels at the wonder of ice crystals on her windowsill – how intricate, miraculous, delicate and fleeting. Mostly unnoticed.

[A link to the entire post is provided, but I have included an excerpt below.]

http://www.aholyexperience.com/2010/02/how-to-discover-true-value-of-you-and.html




“Beauty out of nothing.
Worship out of thin air.

I push away from my desk, kneel down on knees by the sill. How can I blithely keep working when wonder is happening and right there on the windowsill? Who will give witness? Who will whisper glory, Glory?


Heavens fall white.

That God creates this finely wrought beauty and no one continuously applauds. That in the womb of winter, He weaves water into clear crystal, glass.


That every single one of these millions of snowflakes births out of vapor, vapor of ocean waves, of jungle plants, of river current. Vapor of my every breath, now falls snow, breath of God. Vapor with no genetic code to follow, that assembles out of air into rarefied design, ornaments of The Invisible Hands.


And I rarely notice and I rarely give praise and whether His work is regarded is entirely irrelevant because God is fixed on beauty, and the pure joy of the creating, and the secret delight simply in the working. I can’t get over it – every flake masterpiece and there are no accolades and what do I know of hidden work simply for His glory’s sake?


Water droplets pool on the ledge.


The pile of stacked powder on the sill – is it waning? Has the temperature shifted even just a degree? They’re melting. Exquisiteness evaporating, the stellar dendrites, carved glass arms, one at a time, right before my eyes, vanishing. Beauty vanishing into thin air. All His magnificence…. Gone. I can’t believe how I mourn in that moment.


I am vapor too, grieving my kin and in each flake fading I see the way of my going.


And yet to God, there is hallowed worth simply in the being, that the coming and the being is the important, not the accomplishing or the acknowledgments. That the masterpiece of each person is all to His glory no matter the noticing and that all work need be beauty, even if unsung vapor.


God revels in the unrecognized.


‘Do not depend on the hope of results. When you are doing the sort of work you have taken on, essentially an apostolic work, you may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all, if not perhaps results opposite to what you expect.

As you get used to this idea, you start more and more to concentrate not on the results but on the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself.’
 —Thomas Merton, in a letter to Jim Forest dated February 21, 1966"



Today in my Bible study, Psalm 119:49-56 describes a confidence and comfort in obedience despite the opinions or reactions of others. Oh, to be confident and satisfied with “the value, the rightness, the truth of” pure obedience! What a gift from God! That we would know the truth, He would give it to us, and we would find complete freedom in obedience!

Oh, to be completely satisfied by my Audience of One! Will I ever truly cease performing for others? One day I will. That one day.  Until then, I will continue striving to please the only One who truly matters, and be completely satisfied with His thoughts of me. Pure obedience is completely independent of earthly results - accolades or criticisms. Lord, help me obey with a pure heart.

In Obedience,
Alexis

Just Obey Already!

Continuing the story of why and how this blog began, below is another excerpt from my personal journal.

Friday, October 23, 2009

Ask, and ye shall receive! Ever since Monday’s pondering about whether to blog or not, God has not stopped speaking to me about that very topic. Even during that entry, He was already speaking to me. And now that I think about it, He was even guiding me to the answer before then. The question has been rolling around in my mind for a long time. I suppose, since I became pregnant, when I suddenly felt I had something worth blogging about. Funny how perspective changes. Because now my children aren’t the primary subject I feel led to blog about. Yet they were and are a major catalyst that has sent me back to my knees time and again. God has used them mightily to illuminate my weakness and selfishness and also draw out the gifts and abilities He has given to me. Most importantly, He has used them to draw me back to himself begging for the forgiveness and holiness my soul longs for, and seeking the direction and wisdom I dare not go on without.

Obviously, as mentioned in Monday’s entry, I am good at pondering, mulling and planning without ever DOING. They say if you put off making a decision for long enough, you have in essence, made your decision. Thus is my modus operandi. In Bible Study last week we studied the Israelites crossing the Jordan River. (Joshua 3) The priests had to step into the raging river BEFORE God stopped the water from flowing. We should OBEY God’s instructions immediately, even if the plan isn’t all clear to us. In Bible Study this week, [a friend] told us about her trip to the [unnamed mission initiative] in Africa. Discussion ensued about how we often sit and wait for God to speak to us before we commit to serve Him in certain areas. We’re waiting for something earth-shattering or life-altering to happen. Often we never end up making a move. All the while, needs around us are going unmet, souls are being lost and other workers are exhausting themselves. Sometimes finding the “perfect” opportunity doesn’t matter. Just jumping in and doing SOMETHING is the most important thing. While you are working, God will speak. (Know of a better place to hear him, than wherever you are serving Him?) If He doesn’t want you serving there, He’ll make it clear. If He has another opportunity in mind for You, He’ll let you know. But in the meantime, you will be serving others and glorifying Him. Often, that’s a whole lot better than sitting around in your prayer closet, waiting. Mostly, I don’t know what I’m waiting for. He’s usually already spoken to me at that point, and I’m just reluctant to get started.

I’m not saying that in my case, humility is not important. Pride is something I need to rid myself of. But if I wait until I empty myself of pride before beginning this endeavor, I’ll be waiting a long time – forever. When all the while, I could have been glorifying God and sharing Him with others. And He certainly won’t forget about my pride and need for humility while I’m writing my blog. Oh no. I’m sure He’ll use the whole experience to work on me in exactly that area, among others. Amazing! Thank You, God for this journal, Your Spirit, that Bible Study (just finished), and for the way You move. If I hadn’t been writing it all down, I never would have noticed it. Thank You for words, especially Yours.

So it was settled then. Then very next day I began this blog. 

Wrong. Of course, it didn't happen that way.  I'm too complicated for that. I mean look at how many posts it is taking to tell you why I'm even writing this blog!  Someone else would have just written one sentence and been done with it.  Not me.  There's more, and the plot is about to thicken, as they say.  I'm sure you were hoping for it to get interesting sometime soon. Otherwise, you'd be surfing away wishing you hadn't wasted ten minutes of your life reading these two posts! So tune in later this week for more of the story, if you think you can stand the excitement.


Complicatedly  Yours,
Alexis

Holy Fear and Humility

With great fear and humility, I continue this journey and record it for all eyes to see. This leg of the journey began several months ago, though my journey began thirty-some-odd years ago (and only One knows how far back the preparations really began). Therefore, I believe the best beginning comes from excerpts from my personal journal. This is the story of KNOWN.

Monday, October 19, 2009
...Oftentimes I feel the compulsion to share my gifts with others, or that God has given me gifts worthy of being shared with others; some things they could learn from. I have wondered if I am too hasty with that compulsion. Am I too proud of what I have been given or have learned? So proud that I feel superior in some way and therefore must grace others with the knowledge I have or the special talent I have? I’m beginning to feel that sometimes I am too quick to jump to that conclusion. This is pride. Also, approval-seeking, and I need not go there anymore. I have given that up. I need not man’s approval; only God’s. I need not feel SO blessed by my gifts, talents or lessons learned that I cannot simply appreciate them for the gifts that they are to me – also, take time to develop them – before I must flaunt them before the world.

I can see in a way how shouting them from the rooftops is good and right. Allowing the Living Waters to overflow from me to others is Our Commission. I have been given these gifts and experiences that I might serve others with them. My concern is that I use them with right motives. Not to bring glory to me, but to Him. Not too hastily, that I might miss all of what God is developing in me. To simply appreciate them for the gift they are to me is the right beginning. To allow Him to develop them to His standard and His goal so that I might be able to completely share them with others is the right goal. To follow His leading in sharing them with others is the only proper catharsis.

I know too often I mull and ruminate over things for too long before sharing them. Help me, Lord, find the balance – wait for Your Spirit to lead me – not fearfully delay, or proudly rush onward. I do not want to begin a blog for my own glory or the glory of my children or the informing of my loved ones. Though perhaps some of those are noble goals. But I simply do not feel led to add to the cacophony of voices shouting to be heard over the fray unless I have something You deem worthy of shouting. There is so much noise on this world-wide web. I have never been one to shout over the noise for my own sake or of my own accord. Lord, if You have something for me to shout through a blog, I will gladly shout it. With all joy and enthusiasm – energy that could only come from You. And if You have somewhere else my words need to be heard, I will shout them there too. But I vow that I will NOT shout anything, anywhere that does not come from Your Voice and Your prodding Spirit. Help me do that. Lead me in this task. I seek and await your direction.

In the meantime and in the quiet times, I will record these words here as an encouragement and reminder to myself, and a manner of bringing Glory to you. For you have given us all the gift of words that we might record Your deeds and forget not the great and mighty things You have done for our generation and the ones to come. Thank You, Father.

Case closed, right? Did you notice the date? October. What month is it now? February. Obviously there's more to the story. Check back tomorrow or later in the week for the next leg of the journey that led me here.

To Barely Brave Beginnings,
Alexis