The Choices I Get To Make

I get to choose daily what type of attitude I “clothe” myself with.

I get to choose whether I see my cup as half empty or half full {on the days that my proverbial cup doth not runneth over}.

And get this: I even get to choose the “climate” of my home.

Wow.  What a reality check.  What a great honor.  What a hefty responsibility!

We, as women {especially as wives and mothers}, have a tremendous impact on the “tone” of our home environment.  In short…we set it.

It is sweet.  Or it is sour.

Unlike the sauce, It cannot be both.

I get to choose how I respond to my children when they behave poorly.  I get to rise above and initiate an energizing cycle, in spite of bad behavior, and regardless of how badly I may have slept the night before {thanks to them}…or simply react negatively out of my own selfishness and immaturity.

Wisdom or impulse.  It’s my choice.

I get to choose how I respond to my husband when he is weary, unknowingly abrupt, and still in “work mode” {which, translated, means treating me in a way I interpret as unloving}.  Choosing to love and serve, even when I am feeling unloved and empty.

I get to choose.  Every time.

Fuel or water.

What will I choose to pour over the situations I find myself standing on the verge of on a day-to-day basis?  And those I find myself hopelessly stuck in on rare occasion?

My attitude has the potential to change everything…the basic dynamic of my day…of his day…of their day.

I’ve heard it said, “attitude is everything”.  And the older I get, the more I grasp the magnitude of that statement.  It’s undeniable…our attitude has the potential tomake or break us, and those around us.

And the heart-breaking truth is, I’ve failed miserably in this department over the past few weeks.  Specifically in regards to my sweet husband.

I so easily turn my focus inward.  Selfishness consumes my thinking, and a mutually uncomfortable season in our marriage, brief as it may be, becomes one where all I see is my own emptiness.

I am instantly the victim, my husband the culprit.

Sucked into the vortex of my own self-centered, little pity party, I fail to recognize where my man is struggling, where he is feeling worn down and empty, and how my superficial attempt to explain my feelings leaves him feeling dejected and insufficient.

Fuel or water?

I had been choosing fuel almost exclusively for a week.  Crying myself to sleep, I made agreements about myself and my marriage that were so far from the truth, but were powerful enough to slowly drive a wedge between us.  Intimacy, shot.  Heart, hardened.  Climate, frosty.

My perspective clouded by selfishness, I held him at arm’s length and practically demanded my {emotional} needs got met before his {physical} needs had a chance of being met.

How does the knowledge I’ve acquired regarding the differences between men and women get forgotten so easily.  While I was processing legitimate heart-ache, I was going about it the wrong way.  I know that isn’t how this relationship thing works!  I know that isn’t the way God intended me to love my husband.  I know that isn’t the way to woo my husband’s heart.

It starts with dying to self.  Laying my agenda aside.  Loving extravagantly – without expectation – and allowing God to do “His thing”.

I forgot the power of pure water.

I’ve laid my bucket of fuel aside, pursued my husband’s heart {in spite of feeling the nagging ache of loneliness…oh, how I despise ‘night shift’}, intentionally prioritizing the refreshment of his weary soul…and now find myself reveling in the sweetness of God’s upside-down way of doing love.

My cup runneth over!

It’s delightful.  It’s mind-blowing.  It’s life-giving.  Tis’ sweet, my friends!

And it has energized the heck out of my marriage.

I get to choose.  Initiate an energizing cycle, or perpetuate the destruction of the crazy cycle.

All because of a small {okay, enormous} decision to change the attitude of my heart.

I’ve written previously about my love for the often quoted saying by Chuck Swindoll… “The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life…The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past… we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. And so it is with you… we are in charge of our Attitudes.”

I’ve had an attitude adjustment over the past week {and for this, my husband is eternally grateful}.

It was hard and awkward and tear-filled.  But oh, so necessary.

And oh, so worth it!

{because marriage, God’s way, always is}

By Joy McMillan, Simply Bloom

The Gifts we Bring

At Mass this Sunday, the Epiphany was reenacted. Three men from our parish community served as the three wise men; their children accompanying them, serving as pages. They laid their three gifts before the statue of the Christ child: gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

Those are unusual gifts for a baby. I’m sure many of you have heard the joke about how if the three wise men had been women they would have brought much more practical gifts. Yet, the gifts those wise men brought from afar had a great deal of symbolic meaning. All three were highly valuable. They were gifts fit for a king – these men who had traveled so far brought the best that they had to offer.

Gold needs little explanation. Then, as now, it was a valuable metal. Frankincense is a fragrant gum resin used in incense and in embalming. It was often used in religious services as an offering to God. Myrrh, another gum resin, was an ingredient in anointing oil. It also served as a perfume, a burial spice, and as a medicine. Myrrh was often used as a local anesthetic, including in postnatal care.

What gifts would you bring the Christ child? If you knew that you were going to meet the King and Savior of the world today, what would you offer him? It’s something to think about, isn’t it? The truth is, we have that opportunity every single day.

We can offer the Christ child material gifts. Certainly, He no longer needs that gold, frankincense, and myrrh, but as the source of all good things in our life, including money, we can give some of it back as an offering to Him. We can donate both to the Church and our neighbor.

We can also offer Jesus spiritual gifts. He has given us all that we are. He wants all our love in return. We are instructed to love God with all our heart, all our soul, all our mind, and our neighbor as ourselves. What keeps us from doing that? What do we hold most valuable in our lives? Are there parts of ourselves that we hold back from God? Attachments we simply can’t let go of? Things we aren’t willing to give up, even when God asks us to do so?

It’s a lifelong process, and the vast majority of us will never achieve perfection, but each time we make a choice to deny ourselves and love God and our neighbor, we are taking a step in the right direction and we are offering ourselves. Every time we choose to trust Jesus even when it seems impossible to do so, we lay a gift at his feet. Each time we use the gifts (talents) He has given us to make the world a better place, we give Him a present.

Like the wise men of old, we have the opportunity every day to lay our gifts before the Lord. What will you give Him today?

- Patrice Fagnant-MacArthur
http://spiritualwomanthoughts.blogspot.com

He Loves Me!

I’m very easily excited.  My family will attest to this with a resounding “yes” and a dramatic head-nod.

The smallest things delight my heart.  And to me, they’re not so small.

Like when God painted a breath-taking heart in the sky right after my 3 year old whispered “I’m so happy Jesus lives in my heart” {unprompted} from the back seat of the car…

{isn’t that just crazy gorgeous?}

Like the fact that garlic grows curly for a while before it straightens up and forms a bulb.

Or like the fact that pretty green leaves turn a ravishing red year after year after year.

And like the fact that crusty crabs from the bottom of the ocean that wash up daily, get devoured by the seagulls and get trampled on my unnoticing feet…

could be so phenomenally beautiful.

{pay no attention to unmanicured, dirty nail}

I don’t know about you, but these seemingly trivial things simply point to one thing.

How deeply, thoroughly, and outrageously well we are loved by our Creator.

Think about it for a minute.

He could have chosen to paint this world in shades of gray.

But he chose vivid color instead.

He could have made one type of flower…one species of animal…one form of boring, tasteless nourishment for our bodies {think sludge through a straw}.

But no.

We get to enjoy a plethora of colors, shapes, sizes, a myriad of scents, flavors, and textures.

Why?  Because he loves us with a radical, passionate, extravagant love.  And because he created us to appreciated beautiful things.

Garlic.  Clouds.  Leaves.  Crabs.

Yup…they spell L-O-V-E to me.

 

{and I haven’t even touched on the whole baby Jesus, God incarnate, gift of life thing yet.  Wow.  Now that’s love.  Lavish, outlandish love.}

 

by Joy McMillan, Simply Bloom

Investing Our Time

Needs. We all have them. Some have the need of transportation, or finances – others have the need of child care. What about those who have no husband or a husband who travels all of the time? They need someone to help them fix things up or help them with yard work. There is the mom who could use someone to fix meals for her once in awhile as she cares for a child with disabilities or the family who has no relatives nearby and just needs friendship and a support system.
 
What are your needs? Do you feel like they are being filled?
 
God tells us in Hebrews 10:24, 25  “And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.  Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another – and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”
 
To me that means being there for each other – being there – physically. Giving up of yourselves and your time.  It seems to me that it is so much easier for people these days to say, “I’ll pray for you” than it is for them to actually move to action themselves. It’s easier for them to talk to you and ask how it’s going than it is for them to give up their own valuable time to help in some way. And if there are people giving and making efforts; a lot of times it is for some big “cause.” The church can often make the mistake of looking outward to helping “others” rather than looking inward and helping its own.
 
I’ll give you an example.
 
When we first moved into our house we had A LOT of yard work to do. Living on an acre, we still do.  One day shortly after our move we asked some men and friends in our church to come and help us shovel some rock that we were having delivered. We offered to provide lunch for everyone. We must have invited over 20 men. Two came to help. 
 
We live in an area where the closest family members are five hours away. People who live near family don’t know what this is like. You have no one to count on for childcare, no one to help when you are sick and still have to manage to get your kiddos off to school or make their lunches, no one to help when your husband is out of the country and you are “manning” it up on your own – no one but the friendships you have made. So if those friends are busy with their own lives – that leaves… you guessed it – no one.
 
I’m coming to find out that giving up of your time is more valuable than almost any other resource you can give someone. It is one of the most unselfish, loving things you can do. To be there for those you love.  Make the efforts to invest in others. If someone is in town and it’s not a convenient time for you – so what! Let them come over and show them you value them and the desire they had to see you. If someone is celebrating a holiday all by themselves – invite them over or better yet – drive or go fly to be with them! Give up your time and finances to invest in them.  If someone is having a birthday and they live hundreds of miles away, figure out a way to show him or her how special they are by coming up with something clever that you can do over the miles. I have a friend who had everyone important to another friend of hers take their pictures with a heart and a birthday greeting. She put them all together and featured them on her blog as a birthday surprise for her friend. Now THAT is clever, and loving! Someone else I know flew in his wife’s parents for her birthday!
 
Time. Invest of yourself into others. We’re all busy. But maybe we’re so busy because we’re trying to do everything by ourselves and have no one to help us. Maybe if we all started leaning on each other and investing into each other we’d find things would go a little bit easier in our lives.
 
I’d like people to invest into me and my family a little bit more. I’d like to see my kids invest into others as they grow up. It brings out the richness of life.  Everyone wants to be loved – everyone has needs. What are you doing to help fill those needs in the lives of those around you?
 
~ God has been teaching Dionna how much He values her giving out of what He has given to her. She is the Editor/Founder of Emphasis On Moms – http://www.EmphasisOnMoms.com

The Energy of a Hug

I have always been a hugger. I love hugs and how they make me feel on the inside. I never really thought about what it was that a hug gave me emotionally until one day recently when my daughter put it all into perspective for me. She told me that she needed some energy and she came to me with arms wide open and encircled my waste, giving me a huge, long hug. When she felt better and had a smile on her face, she went on her way, saying, “I have energy now!”

Hug = energy. That is so true! I know how much a hug can fill up an empty tank that I have on days when I’m feeling blue, low on self-esteem, or just “blah.” It also makes sense why, when my husband and I are having an argument or a disagreement that I tell him that I really need a hug at that moment. It’s because I feel low and need something to refuel and recharge me. That “something” is a hug.

I think hugs are more powerful than we realize. They can give someone the motivation they need to go on, they can encourage a heart that has been bruised and battered, and they can heal. A hug is a powerful energizer!

As a mom, there are so many days where our energy can get low, we can get stressed and we struggle with feeling tired or overwhelmed. Have you tried giving or getting a hug to help you get through those days? I encourage you to do just that. My daughter taught me that a hug can go a long, long way.

~ Dionna Sanchez (madetomom@yahoo.com)