Like building a castle on a swamp....

I'm going to be honest.  I want my kids to be good at everything they try.  Not because I think you have to be good at everything to be worth something, but because, selfishly, it would make my life a lot easier.  And if not naturally good at everything then at least instantly good when they are corrected.  I would take that.  Only having to say something one time.  

Michael, focus on your math homework.

Blake, pick up your shoes.

Zachary, rinse your dishes.

Parker, quit yelling.

And bam!  It would be so!  Instead, a lot of the life lessons we go over at home sound more like the swamp castle scene from Monty Python...

"When I first came here, this was all swamp. Everyone said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built in all the same, just to show them. It sank into the swamp. So I built a second one. And that one sank into the swamp. So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, and then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up. And that’s what you’re going to get, Son, the strongest castle in all of England!"

They have to do everything at least three times the wrong way before we can do it the right way.  It's like an unspoken rule of childhood.  And, to be fair, adulthood, too.

Don't eat the chocolate...you don't want the extra calories.

You do not need new throw pillows at Target...you're trying to stick to a budget.

Staying up late to watch this television show will make tomorrow morning very rough.

And yet here I sit on the couch, in front of the TV, with a carton of ice cream resting on a throw pillow on my lap.  I guess I'm not any better at being instantly good than my kids are.  

Why doesn't obedience come easier to most of us?  Is that the other side of being created with a spirit of power and not fear?  That we don't fear enough what is not good for us?  Even the most timid, the most reserved person manages in some way to rebel against His word.  

"How often they rebelled against Him in the wilderness and grieved Him in the desert!"  Psalm 78:40

I am like Israel in every way.  I turn my head from what is good over and over and over again.  I choose my way instead of His.  His path is straight and narrow.  Mine looks like the intestinal system of a cow.

But God is God, of course, in every way.  Full of power and might and mercy.  And He has not forsaken me.  

"I sought the Lord, and he answered me; he delivered from all my fears"  Psalm 34:4

 

Oh, to be answered!  He waits patiently, as I do with my own children, as we wade through bad decisions and the consequences thereof.  Until we are finally ready for obedience, finally ready to do it the right way.  

Yes, sometimes life is like building a castle on a swamp indeed.  Mucky, murky and unstable.  But we have a God who waits for us, supports us and turns our swamp into dry, solid land when we trust Him the way we should.  Amen to that, brother.  

XOXO...Kelly 

  

I still love you, Julia Sugarbaker.

When I was younger, I very badly wanted to be like Julia Sugarbaker of the TV show Designing Women.  She was stylish and intelligent and articulate and could tell ANYONE off.  What power, I imagined, could come of knowing exactly what smart and witty and righteousness thing to say at the exact right moment, to put someone in their place.  I was in junior high and high school at the time and it's not that I wanted to be mean.  I just didn't want to feel walked-on.  Does that make sense?

I remember casually sharing this desire with a pastor one day who instead encouraged me to embrace a softer tongue and work on tact instead of pride.  Her counsel was one of those turning points in your life that happens almost without you knowing it, and very much changed my perception of communication.  What I began to see was this....words have power enough of their own.  You don't need shoulder pads and glossy lipstick to wield that power.  You need grace.

"Likewise the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark.  The tongue is also a fire..."  James 3:5-6

James was very clear in his warnings...our words have power, the kind of power that once out of control is like a deadly poison that no man can tame (verse 8).  Just think about the impact of one negative word, how it spreads not only to its target but can change the whole mood of the person who said it in the first place.  

But what if that power was used for good?  What kind of fire might spread if the spark was rooted in goodness and God's glory?  What if we put God's grace first in everything we say?

Forgive me, I belong to a generation of adults that grew up alongside the rise of social media and email.  Not only did we know everything as newly graduated 20-somethings, we now had the means to express all of our well established wisdom!  Facebook, texting, emails, blogs.  We can say whatever we want and you get the privilege of basking in the radiance of our insight and opinion!

But so fixated on the freedom of our expression, we sometimes forget about grace.
Tenderness.
Intelligence.
Tact.

I still talk a lot, sometimes inappropriately when silence would be just fine but I feel like I have to ramble on with a story anyway to fill in a lull in the conversation.  Like the time I told the story of a man with a severe speech impediment at the vet's office.  He was there for his fewwet'sh yeawly check up and vakshinations.  I told this story to a room full of parents waiting on their children to get out of speech class. (I don't even know what happened.  I just started talking and couldn't stop.....)

But by and large I try to remember the weight of my words, the power behind them.  And when I am tempted to use them in a way that might be less than God-honoring, I remember how much further a soft tongue and a little tact can get you.

And don't worry.  I still love you, Julia Sugarbaker.  More than all the shoulder pads in Georgia.

XOXO....Kelly