Written on
January 14, 2011 by
Mary in
Blog
“Pblllltttt”
“Moooom! He’s spitting!”
I don’t know about you, but I don’t have any patience for tattling. If someone is in imminent danger of physical harm, I want to know about it, but otherwise, deal with it or drop it.
I’ve tried to empower my kids to let someone else know when they’re breaking a rule or doing something they shouldn’t; they don’t need me to intervene for every random thing. At least, that’s my theory.
I thought I’d outgrown tattling a long time ago. “Deal with it or drop it.” But how often do I sit in church and think, “So-and-so really needs to hear this,” or fill my prayers with, “Lord did you see…?”
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And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man. Luke 2:52 NIV
From the very first moment I found out that I was pregnant with my first child, I just “knew” that I was going to be a “boy mom.” I don’t know how or why, but I just knew that God knit me together to raise boys. The exciting, adventurous, rowdy days could be a challenge, but the sense of purpose was like a mission for me.
Twenty-two years old, married less than a year and completely overwhelmed with this next stage in my life, I cried out to the Lord and asked Him into my heart.
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WHAT? How come I put the peanut butter on first?
This morning, as I was making my son, Brennan, a sandwich, he looked up at me and asked me the peanut butter order question. As I stood there with a knife loaded with peanut butter, I didn’t know what to say. I had never thought about why I put the peanut butter on before the jelly. I’ve just always done it that way.
So I told him that I didn’t know and that’s the way I always do it.
His response? “Maybe you could try to do the jelly first sometime?”
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As I’ve sat and reflected on the coming New Year, there are a few goals I would like to accomplish. I have always been one to make resolutions — a resolution to lose weight, spend more time with my family, be more organized, simplify, eat better, sleep more, and be more patient and loving. But as each year has come and gone, I have found that, for the most part, my resolutions remained unmet, and I was left confused, angry at myself, and unmotivated to continue the journey.
I have always been an “all-or-nothing” person. And when I fall short, I can tend to be hard on myself.
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I have hinted at in my past writings that the winter always tends to be a difficult time for me. It reminds me of things I would like to forget, but every year those same old bluish memories wash over me once again.
The other day, in a bout of unseasonably warm weather and a strange urge for me to get outdoors, I decided to go rake out the plant beds around my house. These beds, in my “not so master gardener” mind, are beautiful and luscious in the spring and summer. They make me so happy when I walk around the edge of my house and see the butterflies dancing all around.
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This last week has slipped away from me. The days race by…faster and faster and faster. As hard as I try to utilize every moment of time, I still find myself short, wishing for just a little more time to cram everything in.
What is it about time? How can I need more time? The Lord gives us 24 hours of time every day. Not a minute more, not a minute less. And yet, here I am, frazzled and yearning for more time to complete everything.
Strength and dignity are her clothing,
and she laughs at the time to come.
Proverbs 31:25 (NIV)
Laughs at the time to come?
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“Knowledge flows like spring water from the wise;
fools are leaky faucets, dripping nonsense.”
Proverbs 15:2 The Message
Nonsense!
Wow, what an amazingly fantastic word. I know we “know” what it means, but digging a little deeper, look what I found out about nonsense…
According to Merriam-Webster.com nonsense means;
1a : words or language having no meaning or conveying no intelligible ideas b (1) : language, conduct, or an idea that is absurd or contrary to good sense (2) : an instance of absurd action
I’m not a rocket scientist or anything but I can tell you this…I do not want to be a leaky faucet dripping nonsense, do you?
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Yesterday, I did the unthinkable. Well, at least for me, the mom who likes everything organized and tidy. While cleaning my laundry storage shelves, I grabbed the bag of mismatched puzzles, put together the puzzles with all the pieces, and then THREW AWAY THE LEFT-OVER PUZZLE PIECES. I had been holding onto these pieces for years…hoping that the missing piece would show up…afraid that if I threw away the puzzle then I would find the piece. So there they sat – lone pieces, taking up space.
Throwing away those pieces was freeing. As soon as I began, I wondered why it took me so long to let them go.
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