Category Archives: Control

Peril of No Patience

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“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance…” Galatians 5:22-23

This is the list every Christian is charged to achieve, to offer fresh fruit so others can receive of the Spirit of God, His salvation and refreshing. But the ripeness of my longsuffering has been suspect. In fact, sometimes my patience is just rotten and stinks. So as I teach my sons to be strong black biblical men I’m learning alongside them to consistently cease from taking charge in my strong black woman strength and allow God’s strength to empower me to walk in patience. I thank God for that opportunity. Read more about this in my latest EEW Magazine column.

My One Thousand Gifts List

#321-330
Tabitha watching the boys
Serving with Flynn at my first funeral
The smoothness of the funeral services
The thought-provoking and Christ-centered message of the eulogy
Witnessing the lover of the Tucker family
Janice Tucker inspiring me to be a loving mom
Having a deeper love for my family and seeing how the demonstration of it has caused them to demonstrate more love to me and each other and given the children more confidence
Nate and Justus being overjoyed to see me return from the funeral
Flynn picking Joshua up from school
Leftover meatloaf and hot water cornbread

Control Yourself

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Chaos is all around us: scandals in the pulpit and throughout the pews, political unrest around the world stews, educational systems failing and folks bailing from the faith. But we don’t have to look to systems to see this; chaos meets us on our own streets with gang-banging activity (even in the suburbs), rampant drug use, bucked rolling eyes and children who otherwise despise and disrespect their parents. Yes, these unruly children may even belong to us. We can help our children abandon the chaos and prevent others from creating it when we emphasize their need for self control.

I’m not advocating hollering “Boy, you better control yo’self” while jerking the child to you or slapping an older child who you find too big to physically rule. I’m talking about systematically instituting external measures that will help shift their internal system for change that lasts well beyond the days of correcting a single offense. Getting a real handle on the self can revolutionize lives. Read the rest at EEW Magazine.

My One Thousand Gifts List

#301-310
For toothpaste to clean my teeth
No having to pay to park
A Blue Nile gift certificate that we used for dinner
Indigestion relief
Joshua telling me I’m the best mom in the world
Flynn remembering that I needed and buying me beets
Flynn getting carryout
A nice article on Nichole’s t-shirts
Loving children who love to show affection
Janice showing me what it means to be a loving mom

Failed Fight?

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The day didn’t go as I had hoped. As the mediator of a conflict, the two parties didn’t see eye to eye. At the end of the meeting one even said, “It’s not going to change.”

In another relationship I have, a woman has experienced more than her share of emotional highs and lows, always knowing when she’s doing wrong but not desiring to do right. “I don’t want to stop,” she said.

Another who sought my help to help her get disciplined rarely completed the assignments I gave her, often saying “I didn’t have time to do it.”

In each of these instances I was disappointed but I recognized that I wanted more for these three ladies than they wanted for themselves. With that I knew I couldn’t do any more directly unless they decided to want a change or the Holy Spirit unveiled their blinded eyes (2 Peter 1:9, John 12:40). Knowing that God can use me but the Holy Spirit is the arbiter of their souls brings me comfort, keeps me focused and prevents me from shunning the next person with a seemingly larger than life issue. When I have suffered long and given my best I leave the rest up to God.

How do you respond to people you’re trying to help whose actions say they don’t want your help? Do you suffer long or tend to toss them at their first sign of resignation? Please, tell me what you think.

Word Power

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Mine was a word weekend, filled with messages from movies, conversations with friends, dreams I got to meditate on long without interruption from alarms, electronic and human. And these words soothed and stretched me, made me contemplate my life, what it is and what I want it to be. Words have the power to do that.

The filling started Friday in a packed theater for the power-packed movie Courageous, the new feature film by the Kendricks brothers. I’ll give more of a review of that on Wednesday, but this film challenged my faith and made me want to make the most use of how I fill space with words. Perhaps with a more raw approach so did Higher Ground, the film based on the memoir by Carolyn Briggs that I saw on Saturday.

Vera Farmiga in Higher Ground, picture from the New York Times

Higher Ground detailed the coming to Christian faith story of Corinne, a woman who meditated on words, created images with them, wrote songs, felt alive and free with them. It was others who tried to control her with words and the Word, the Bible itself. When we don’t know for ourselves the freedom found in the Word, bondage is a guarantee. With the Word at our disposal, we, like Corinne, search for something more, something better and turn out bound and empty, discovering what we had was exactly what we needed. When our faith is true, the Word, Jesus Himself, has penetrated our being and given us all we need. Though I love words, I recognize they have no writing power for good and no effect on me for bad when I am filled with the Word and subject to Him.

My One Thousand Gifts List

#251-260
Sitting in the big chair and feeding Justus a banana
My husband’s diligence in getting the car towed and repaired
Christen’s gratitude for me reading to her and her having more gratitude
Justus’ language explosion
Tabitha calling to ask if we needed her to pick up something for us from Target
The labor cost being the lowest at the mechanic we chose (and this was the mechanic Tabitha told us about unsolicited and the only one we could get in contact with)
Not paying as much as initially anticipated to get the car out of the impound lot
Listening to, advising and praying for a friend in distress
Nicole’s heartfelt note about her view of me as a wife, mother, minister and friend (Proverbs 12:17)
My hubby speaking sweet desires to me

Cultivating Contentment

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Usually, I murmur and complain about the same things: the children being children; my husband working late; me being a married single mother most days; and me not having enough time to do everything I need or even want to do. I even occasionally employ the joy-killing duo when other stuff doesn’t go my way. Maybe this sounds familiar to you, you too busting into a dissertation about your children’s failures, parenting disparities, unmopped floors and bushy eyebrows. Last week was ripe for murmuring and complaining, but I didn’t pick from that tree. Instead I created a tree of life:

“The tongue that brings healing is a tree of life…” (Proverbs 15:4)

I didn’t consciously create that tree last week, though I had practiced planting for months. I had gotten tired of hearing myself fuss when I already knew what that child was going to do, that my husband’s schedule was our current reality and that I rarely get to do everything I want or need to do. God had shown me that interruptions to my plans are the moments I was supposed to get. I have to take those moments, teach in those moments, grow in grace in those moments, laugh and understand that no one would die in those moments, except my flesh, if I let it. So I had worked hard at having a ready response for my children’s predictable behavior, celebrating my hardworking man, joking about the layers covering dirt on my feet and rejoicing that my hair still grew. Each day when my husband asked me how my day was, “It was good” easily entered my mind and fell off my lips. While last week tired me out, I shared with a friend that I was not weary. And at the end of the week I declared “This was a good week.” I noticed then that I had not once murmured or complained about my situation. I rejoiced that I had learned to be content.

“…for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.” Philippians 4:11

This verse came to my mind this morning after God told me to strive for contentment. I had just experienced the greatest feat of discontentment in my life—a whole week without murmuring and complaining, even under the guise of sharing the busyness of my week—and this God commands me. I was perplexed, my party crashed and there was no more celebrating until I examined the verse and noticed the phrase ‘whatever situation.’ I sensed God telling me to prepare for ‘whatever situation,’ any that I had yet to encounter. There would be new situations coming. I had conquered the usual ones, but there would be more to test my contentment. Just because I had learned to be content in certain areas did not mean that I had arrived. No one arrives until they see Jesus face to face. I look forward to that day but until then I have to go from contentment to contentment, continuing to learn to be satisfied with the moments that come my way and knowing I can do so—not in my strong black woman strength but only that which comes from Jesus (2 Corinthians 3:18; Philippians 4:13).

My One Thousand Gifts List

#231-240
Christen helping me with the boys on Sunday morning
Christen watching the boys while at her play rehearsal
God keeping us safe on the highway when our car stopped in the left lane
Kyle and Saretha coming back to wait with us on the highway until the police arrived
Kyle and Saretha driving us to Andrina and Floyd’s
A friendly and helpful police officer
A hard working husband
Getting home safely through about seven inches of snow
A warm house
Andrina and Floyd bringing us home