I love Christmas time!! I love the whole season! It's such a happy time, full of joy and childish wonder and suspense. . . I LOVE it!
Because we have such a huge family, we don't have just one Christmas. We have several. We have a Christmas with my brothers and sisters, one with my parents, one with our close family friends, one with Sal's adoptive parents, one with my dad's mom, and one with my mom's parents, plus our own here at home. So we literally have seven days of Christmas. . . we're working on 12, LOL! I'm sure we'll get there soon!
I LOVE CHRISTMAS TIME!!!!!!
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Thursday, December 11, 2008
A lesson in humility
I just so totally had my behind handed to me on a platter - and by a kid!
Here's the thing. Some punk kid spit on Nick at the playground. I have recently had a HUGE problem with other kids being mean to my kids and encouraging them to do things that are clearly wrong (i.e. one kid told my sons "I hate your mom and I want to slap the s**t out of her"). Not the same kid that spit on Nick, but anyway.... so I lost my temper when they came busting through the door telling me that some kid spit on Nick.
I threw my shoes on and stomped out there. He was on the basketball court with several other boys, one of them a young teenager. I started yelling and screaming at him that he better not ever spit on one of my kids again and so on. All I was really accomplishing was making myself look like a hysterical fool. The teenager finally came up to me and said, "Uh, Ma'am, I don't mean to get in your business or anything, but you really shouldn't be talking to a little kid like that."
I told him, "Well, thank you for your opinion but you can just stay out of this!"
I stalked off after making sure that the kid was clear on what I had said.
But even as I walked away, I felt overwhelming conviction that what I had done was very wrong. At first I tried to justify to myself why it was okay, but I knew that I had lost control, and made a mockery of Christ's Name, which I carry. I came home, cried, prayed, read my Bible, and asked forgiveness. Sal called and asked how close dinner was to being ready, that he was very hungry. So I began immediately preparing dinner in a mad flurry, but I couldn't dismiss the feeling that I needed to seek forgiveness.
I couldn't leave the house with the stove on and in the middle of dinner preparations, so, even though I felt cowardly by not going over there myself, I finally decided to just send Mercy over there with a message, because I didn't want to "let the sun go down" on my anger. I told her to tell them that I was sorry not to come in person, that they were welcome to walk over to my house if they wanted to so I could talk to them in person, but if they didn't want to, that Mercy could tell them what I wanted to say.
They didn't come, so she told them that I wanted to say that the young man was right in what he said, and that I was sincerely sorry for having lost my temper and said things out of anger. And I told her to say to the young man that I think it was a very honorable thing for him to be able to stand up for a kid to an adult that he doesn't even know.
Do you know what his response was? He told Mercy to tell me, "You are forgiven. And may Jesus bless you."
Can you imagine how foolish and childish I felt? That I was proven to be a child, and he was proven to be a man of God, and he had to be the example that I should have been....
I feel so humiliated, and very humbled.
Not to say that I'm thankful for having lost my temper and acted like a moron, because I most certainly am not. I am ashamed of my behavior, but I do thank God for this opportunity to be humbled, because I know that He opposes the proud, but that He gives grace to the humble.
I definitely am in need of some of that grace.
Here's the thing. Some punk kid spit on Nick at the playground. I have recently had a HUGE problem with other kids being mean to my kids and encouraging them to do things that are clearly wrong (i.e. one kid told my sons "I hate your mom and I want to slap the s**t out of her"). Not the same kid that spit on Nick, but anyway.... so I lost my temper when they came busting through the door telling me that some kid spit on Nick.
I threw my shoes on and stomped out there. He was on the basketball court with several other boys, one of them a young teenager. I started yelling and screaming at him that he better not ever spit on one of my kids again and so on. All I was really accomplishing was making myself look like a hysterical fool. The teenager finally came up to me and said, "Uh, Ma'am, I don't mean to get in your business or anything, but you really shouldn't be talking to a little kid like that."
I told him, "Well, thank you for your opinion but you can just stay out of this!"
I stalked off after making sure that the kid was clear on what I had said.
But even as I walked away, I felt overwhelming conviction that what I had done was very wrong. At first I tried to justify to myself why it was okay, but I knew that I had lost control, and made a mockery of Christ's Name, which I carry. I came home, cried, prayed, read my Bible, and asked forgiveness. Sal called and asked how close dinner was to being ready, that he was very hungry. So I began immediately preparing dinner in a mad flurry, but I couldn't dismiss the feeling that I needed to seek forgiveness.
I couldn't leave the house with the stove on and in the middle of dinner preparations, so, even though I felt cowardly by not going over there myself, I finally decided to just send Mercy over there with a message, because I didn't want to "let the sun go down" on my anger. I told her to tell them that I was sorry not to come in person, that they were welcome to walk over to my house if they wanted to so I could talk to them in person, but if they didn't want to, that Mercy could tell them what I wanted to say.
They didn't come, so she told them that I wanted to say that the young man was right in what he said, and that I was sincerely sorry for having lost my temper and said things out of anger. And I told her to say to the young man that I think it was a very honorable thing for him to be able to stand up for a kid to an adult that he doesn't even know.
Do you know what his response was? He told Mercy to tell me, "You are forgiven. And may Jesus bless you."
Can you imagine how foolish and childish I felt? That I was proven to be a child, and he was proven to be a man of God, and he had to be the example that I should have been....
I feel so humiliated, and very humbled.
Not to say that I'm thankful for having lost my temper and acted like a moron, because I most certainly am not. I am ashamed of my behavior, but I do thank God for this opportunity to be humbled, because I know that He opposes the proud, but that He gives grace to the humble.
I definitely am in need of some of that grace.
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