Just Be Faithful

Posted on April 30, 2012 by Rhonda J. Smith

I want to send out notes, thinking of you and thank you, and buy gifts whenever I feel moved. I want to cook elaborate dinners, take the boys to the park every sunny day and not yell at them at all. I want to wear fancy suits, sharp shoes and give a dollar to those needy passersby. I want to rise early daily, mop my floors weekly, have a getaway monthly, take a longer trip quarterly and plan the family trip to wherever we want to go in the world.

But sometimes I send up prayers and give oral thank yous, make lists of gifts, cook what’s easy to fix, spend some sunny days indoors or in the backyard, say ‘please forgive me,’ wear what’s in my closet, give a nod and ‘I’m sorry’ to most needy passersby, get up whenever I can get the body to rise, spot clean and vacate to another room or another world in books.

Sometimes you get to church at 11:45, have just enough clean plates for the dinner meal and have to tell the raw truth when they ask you how you’re doing. That strong black woman mantle is too heavy to carry and nobody should expect you to carry it anyway. “Now, a person who is put in charge as a manager must be faithful” (1 Corinthians 4:2). God only asks that we are faithful, that we do the best that we can—truly our best—and if that is less than our best in another less busy or less lean season of our lives then that is the best for now. And that is always enough, at least in the eyes of God, the only ones that matter, and for that I am thankful.

My One Thousand Gifts List

#551-560
A nap
Completing my book proposal
Supporting Christen by attending her play
Flynn being a hands-on dad, including today bathing Nate and Justus
Flynn cooking
Forman Mills having good deals
A productive and stress-free day
God’s grace for getting the boys and me ready for church
Christen’s faithfulness in helping me
Flowers and a card from Tabitha

Friday Feature: Roundup Fourteen

Posted on April 27, 2012 by Rhonda J. Smith

Here are a couple of links from the blog Food Renegade that my BFF Nichole hipped me to; they support what I wrote this month about knowing what’s in the food you eat (see my posts on trans fats in Lawry’s Seasoned Salt and soy):

Decoding Labels: McCormick’s Pure Vanilla Extract

Dangers of Soy

You Have the Sunshine

Posted on April 25, 2012 by Rhonda J. Smith

What Do You Think? Wednesday
When you have no human place to go you always have that spirit place, that place where you should travel first, right to the feet of Jesus. And this is where I found myself Monday night in my bed in tears with fist hitting my pillow after a day of blowing my nose raw, rallying boys for meals and away from melees, encouraging them to complete work, getting mom more ice cream and on and on and on. On this night, two days after spending the night in the hospital with my newly discovered asthmatic 2 year old, three days with scattered sleep and three days without a shower I cried out to God, told Him I was tired and I didn’t want to be sick and that I was spent from giving and giving and giving and what did I have? I just wanted to get some rest and eat some choice foods and I had none of these. What do I have?

Like only God can, with His infinite wisdom and considerate care for my needs, not just my wants, He said so gently, “You have the sunshine.” I immediately thought about the scripture that says God shines the sun on the evil and the good when Jesus was telling His disciples to have mercy on their enemies because He does (Matthew 5:44-45). I didn’t know what that had to do with me. So he repeated, “You have the sunshine” then somehow I knew God was saying I had something bigger, something better, something more than rest and choice foods that my weariness had me longing for. I had a magnanimous blessing that I could never get for myself. If I could see the sun, I had life. I am living and breathing enough to give me another chance to live life, to make it better, to take a shower, eat choice foods and sleep. I have sunshine (even when it’s tucked behind the clouds).

Remember, your days may be gloomy but you, too, have sunshine, a reminder that we are still here and have another chance to make life better.

What was a word God gave you, perhaps directly, through another person, in the Bible or some other reading, which gave you the perspective that you needed?

The Primacy of Marriage

Posted on April 23, 2012 by Rhonda J. Smith

Living this life can be tough. We all have so many responsibilities that seeking to manage them all indeed is more than a full-time job. Juggling several responsibilities often leads to a high level of stress and can cause us to handle issues out of their proper order just to get them done. For recovering strong black women, who have traditionally made things happen their own way, following another’s design for order may not be something we are inclined to want to do. But God has an order for all things, including marriage, and expects us to follow. I am so grateful God has continually impressed on my heart the importance of marriage though I have stumbled at times with putting it first. Read more of what I have to say about the primacy of marriage, for married and single women, in my latest EEW Column, which begins below:

I wake up rushed many days, having slept longer than I wanted, keeping me from having a few hours alone before the children arise. On these days we rise within 20 minutes or so of each other because I have stayed up late hanging out with my night-owl hubby. This wasn’t always the case. While I worked hard in some areas to have a strong marriage, like seeking to be gentle in my speech, I was a stickler about going to bed at 9 p.m., well before Flynn wanted to call it a night.

I wanted to be able to wake up at 4 a.m. to have half the morning to myself to pray, study the Bible, clean the house and help my husband get off to work. I would spend the rest of the day pouring into the children and in the evening I was too wiped out to talk much beyond children updates, let alone have regular physical intimacy with my husband. Though my husband and I have always been good friends, I knew there was a level of closeness we didn’t have and I knew it was because we both had opted for me to rest from being so tired from giving to the children. Even on this “small” scale we, without even being conscious of it, were allowing the children to pull our marriage apart by putting their needs above our own.

Maybe you can relate to this because this happened to your parents or is happening to you. Most of your hours are spent doing for the children, carting them to this practice and that program, assisting with homework and engaging in the everyday life of nurturing children. Yes, our children need us, but we can’t put our children before our marriage, be that marriage to a spouse or, for single women, to God. And when Christian marriages are torn apart, the Kingdom of God is torn apart. Read more at EEW Magazine.

My One Thousand Gifts List
#541-550
Editing an article for a website
Skinning and seasoning chicken with amazing quickness
Flynn grocery shopping
Being able to iron Flynn’s clothes for church
Justus lying on my chest after nursing
Justus holding my finger, leading me to the den and not wanting to let go
Great, clear direction from God
A fast and informative blog post
An interview on the Chocolate Pages Network
Kamil picking up and babysitting the boys so I could go to court

Friday Feature: Still Finding Soy

Posted on April 20, 2012 by Rhonda J. Smith

Soy is promoted as the most versatile food around. There is soy milk, soy meat, tofu and other variations of it for meat substitutes. But while the soy industry is promoting the bean, even speaking of the supposed health benefits of it, we hear little of how this food negatively affects the human body’s endocrine system. I wrote about the dangers of soy last year, at which time I had to eliminate a number of soy-laden foods from my cabinets and grocery list. I thought I had purged them all but my vigilant son has taken to reading labels and found eight items in our home that we had missed. I share them with you today to give you a primer list to help you in your ingredient reading quest:

Canola oil cooking spray
Hash browns (frozen)
Waffles (frozen)
Pancake mix
Chicken nuggets (frozen)
Whole grain bread
Salad dressing
Children’s vitamin supplements

Like last week, this post is to encourage you to take charge of your health by reading ingredient labels so you know what you are eating. If you don’t understand what you are reading, take the time to look up the ingredient, call the company and search websites like mine to see if someone has already done the research you need. Whatever way you are able, take charge of your health so that you will be as fit as possible to do all the work that is possible to build the Kingdom of God.