Choices

We face a myriad of choices every day, opportunities to make a difference,  good or bad. After my last rant, I didn’t want to let anger, even what I think is justified, to take control. Yet, with the turmoil going on in our country, it’s hard not to feel frustrated and judgmental with others’ choices.

One thing I can always rely on is God. He will guide me, whether I ask or not!

This morning my devotions listed  Psalm 27 1-2,13-14, reminding me faith in God is my first choice.

The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the protector of my life: of whom should I be afraid? I believe to see the good things of the Lord in the land of the living. Expect the Lord, do manfully, and let thy heart take courage, and wait thou for the Lord.

This scripture has appeared every time I’ve faced hard times, reassuring and encouraging me not to give up or fall into despair.

The next devotion reminded me of how I should live my life, regardless of my circumstances and the choices others make.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

where there is sadness, joy.

Oh Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;

to be understood as to understand;

to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving we receive;

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;

and it is in dying we are born again into eternal life.

St. Francis of Assisi

Yes, Lord, make me an instrument of your peace, a light in the darkness leading others to You through wisdom, discernment, patience, and faith. Amen.

Ghosts

Photo by Ajay Kumar Singh at Pixabay

Four a.m. I tossed and turned, fighting against a returning earache and the bursitis in my hip. The usual nighttime ghosts jumped on my vulnerability, rehashing current and past mistakes, driving all hope of sleep away. 

I rose, shuffled out to the kitchen and made coffee. As I reached for my devotions, I remembered an old post. The words written six years ago fit. 

From May 20, 2012:

My tormentors strike when I am most vulnerable, early in the morning while I am still hovering between sleep and wakefulness. They go after the old wounds that have never healed, re-writing the original story, embellishing the worst moments, digging deeper into the tender flesh. These demons have many names: Heartbreak and Betrayal, Fear and Anxiety, Should Have, Could Have, If Only and What If.

That night the rerun was a misunderstanding between a former co-worker and myself. Both angry, we stopped speaking. I made a few attempts at reconciliation, which she spurned. If we met on the street or in a store, she turned her back and walked away.

The Great Accuser entered, followed by Guilt. This judge and jury accused me of allowing Jealousy, Pride and Selfishness to thwart my efforts at reconciliation. I had rejected Apology and Forgiveness and fell into step with Stubbornness and Fear.

Staggering from these blows, I rose, went to my reading room and snatched up my devotional, God’s Little Lessons on Life for Women.  I flipped through the pages to Forgiveness.

Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: Though our sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool. Isaiah 1:18.

Once our sins are forgiven, we must not pick at the scars. Forgiven sins stay forgiven.

A white veil dropped in front of my eyes and I was transported to a place filled with hundreds of other Believers. Before me stood the Gates of Heaven. 

Filled with jubilation, I turned to the woman standing next to me, arms outstretched, ready to embrace her. My former co-worker stared back at me. My arms dropped to my side.

The Holy Spirit spoke to us. “You have been washed clean by the Blood of the Lamb and none of the pettiness and imperfections of your previous lives matter.”

Our heartache, resentment and fear vaporized. We embraced, joined hands and walked together into Paradise.

The veil dissolved, and I was back in my room.

One by one Guilt, Fear, Heartache and Betrayal backed away. They lingered in the periphery, hopeful, waiting, searching for another opening, another chance to attack, but my faith held them at bay. They will come again, but these beautiful words comfort me.

The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the protector of my life, of whom shall I be afraid? Psalm 27:1.

Are you haunted by ghosts at night? If so, what lifts your spirit and sends your tormentors away?

It Made Me Angry - Justifed or Not?

My husband and I watched the movie, The Wind That Shakes the Barley, the story of two Irish brothers working for the IRA during the Irish War of Independence in the 1920s. The brutality of the period  made me angry.

After the film ended, I imagined suitable punishments for those who committed such horrendous injustices and senseless cruelty.

It was hours before I could let the anger go.

Later, after some thought, I realized the movie sparked flashbacks of the abuse I suffered from my ex-husband. I no longer have panic attacks, nightmares, or curl up in a ball in a corner, but the anger still simmers. I vowed to never, never let anyone abuse me or my kids again. Seeing brutality executed on others causes the same knee-jerk anger as if it was being done to me or a loved one.

Part of that is justified. After all, Jesus exhibited righteous anger when he turned over the money changer's tables. However, I discovered my error during my morning meditation and scripture reading.

Acts 16: 33: “These things I have spoken to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you shall have distress: but have confidence, I have overcome the world.”

Mary Marrocco in, Living Faith, added this: “He conquered the world by going toward it, not running away from it; by receiving all the violence, cruelty, and hypocrisy the world can spit out and not giving it back. Rather, he gives back love, peace, and forgiveness. Truly, this is the way our world is conquered.”

My fault lay in desiring revenge instead of justice.

This reminded me of another story.

A man stole blankets from a missionary hostel in China. When the theft was discovered, the woman proprietress went about her daily chores unfazed, even cheerful.

One patron, a Chinese man, asked her, “Are you not angry that the man stole your blankets?”

She shrugged. “He must need them more than we do. Besides, God will provide all we need, even more blankets.”

The man, astounded by her faith, converted to Christianity and became a minister.

God sees everything, and one day the perpetrators of hate and violence will stand before Him and answer for their sins. The judge in me rejoices at that thought, but the penitent wants God to forgive me of all my wrongdoing.

God forgives all sin, and we should also forgive the sinner, but that doesn't mean they, or us, should escape the consequences of our actions. According to our laws, prison is the consequence for harming someone else.

The next time my anger rises, I'll seek prayer first, trusting God will guide me as to when to take a stand, when to put up a fight, and when to stay on my knees. Only then do I have a chance for peace in this broken and brutal world.

Parameters and Patience

Our Brittany pup, Cooper, is stretching my patience, the chewing, the digging, the nipping. Our list of repairs is growing. The lower siding of the house has chew marks. The lawn has various sized holes. The woodwork in the hallway bears teeth marks, and the lining in the bed of the truck is now hanging in strips on one side. Sigh.

Often he is too excited, jumping, nipping, and grabbing our clothing. Other times he is the sweetest pup, loving, obedient, and fun to have around. 

After a particularly bad afternoon, I lost my patience when he tore through the house smearing mud on our off-white carpet. A quick peek out the door confirmed the source, a huge hole right off the patio. When I tried to grab him and subdue him so I could clean his feet, the free-for-all was on, which pushed several of my buttons. When things settled down, wise words came to mind. “A dog’s bad behavior is usually the fault of the owner.”

Guilty. Our training book emphasizes, “You cannot leave a pup younger than one year unattended.” Period. I was doing other things rather than watching Cooper in the yard. He got bored, and the hole was the result. Who’s fault was that?

This morning, I vowed to take a different approach. After re-reading the how-to-manual on puppy obedience, I reapplied the experts’ advice. You can guess the results. I enjoyed the interaction as much as Cooper did, one of the big reasons we wanted another pup. We wanted the joy of companionship and the pleasure of doing things with him. I was amazed how quickly he responded when I kept my cool and used persuasion instead of force. (Hmm, works that way with other things in life too.)

So, once again, I learned a life lesson from my dog. Patience, coupled with firmness, more than music, soothes the savage beast. At least the savage eleven-month-old Brittany.  I can see applications in other areas of my life too. Anger and resentment only leads to more anger and resentment, and certainly contributes to problems.

With Cooper, when he wants to jump and nip, I do what the experts suggested. I tell him “off” and turn my back. He stops. He’s not getting the attention he wants and stops his unwanted behavior. After he calms down, we interact again.

Psychologists say it also works with naughty children. I’ll even stretch it to include misbehaving adults, as long as they aren’t wielding an ax. Then, I recommend running.

Humor aside, I can see laying down parameters, then turning my back on inappropriate behavior, resuming interaction when they can respond in a respectful manner. This also would improve my attitude, reduce my anxiety, and lesson my tendency toward anger. It will take practice and some self-control, a good thing.

Now, if I can just remember all of this when Cooper, or a cranky driver, push my buttons….

With God, anything is possible.

Healing

 “We each carry a certain amount of pain from our very birth. If that pain is not healed and transformed, it actually increases as we grow older, and we transmit it to people around us. We can become violent in our attitudes, gestures, words, and actions. “ Richard Rohr from, The Inner Witness.

This statement makes sense, and it is the reason why it is so important to forgive those who hurt us, not so much for their benefit as for our own. After enduring seven years of abuse from my ex-husband, I often reacted with anger when I felt threatened, natural under the circumstances, but certainly not healthy.

Through numerous counseling sessions, I worked through the pain, the fear, and the anger. Then, my counselor dropped a bomb. Forgiving was the next step. I tried, struggling on my own until God showed me how in a vision. He transposed His face over my ex-husband. Immediately, my anger dissipated. I felt weightless and joyful. Colors seemed brighter, no longer tinged with the grey of depression or inflamed with anger. 

Forgiving didn’t mean forgetting, or staying in the abusive relationship, it meant not hating him, not holding the pain in my heart and projecting it onto others. 

Richard Rhor’s statement explains the trend in our society to be judgmental and hateful to anyone we disagree with. If we already carry pain inside, and life adds more, then we become overburdened and lash out.

We can’t fix others, but by healing our pain, altering our reactions to the violent attacks of others, not replying in kind, or nursing resentment, we can make a difference. The ripple effect would encapsulate our families, our workplaces, our communities and eventually spread out to cover the entire world. We would have the tools to practice the soft prophecy I wrote about in a previous post.

Gandhi proved none violence can make huge changes, if enough people practice it. But it is so hard to not reply with anger when attacked, especially if that attack is not justified. The angry comments on a social site, the rude driver, the ill-mannered woman in the checkout line, try our patience. Even though we may not openly react, we often seethe for hours, sometimes days after the event. It festers, limiting our tolerance in other situations. If we add in major crises and trauma, our tolerance collapses. 

If we follow the example in my vision, seeing God in everyone, perhaps we can be more compassionate. It would be a start. After all, Jesus initially called only twelve disciples, and through their faith, they changed the world.

I See Trouble, Lord, I See Trouble

Image courtesy of  Naypong, at FreeDigitalPhotos.net 

The world is terrified of ISIS and their cruelty, and that is justified. However terror is close to home as well in the form of our own brothers and sisters in Christ. Have you witnessed the animosity Christians have against each other? I am not talking about the Spanish Inquisition or the religious persecutions in England where Christians burned other Christians at the stake. I am talking right here, right now, in our own time, our own country, our own neighborhood and church.

I've seen different sects go after each other’s throats over differences in dogma, even small differences in service preferences. I've witnessed heated debates over trivial interpretations of scripture, one word verses another, while the original meaning remains intact in both translations. One church believes they are right and everyone else is wrong, and some are willing to go beyond verbal abuse to physical violence, even to the point of killing. All in the name of Christianity. One woman confessed to me that just seeing a cross caused her to weep with fear. How far from Jesus’ example we have fallen? He must be weeping right along with this poor woman.