Fix Your Attitude

Day Eight, Step 3: Fix Your Attitude

January 8, 2016

[Paul says,] "Oh! May the God of green hope fill you up with joy, fill you up with peace, so that your believing lives, filled with the life-giving energy of the Holy Spirit, will brim over with hope!"

(Romans 15:13 MSG)

Light-seeds are planted in the souls of God’s people,
Joy-seeds are planted in good heart-soil. 

(Psalm 97:11 MSG)

Enter with the password: “Thank you!”
    Make yourselves at home, talking praise.
    Thank him. Worship him. 

(Psalm 100:4 MSG)

He forgives your sins—every one.
    He heals your diseases—every one.
    He redeems you from hell—saves your life!
    He crowns you with love and mercy—a paradise crown.
    He wraps you in goodness—beauty eternal.
    He renews your youth—you’re always young in his presence. 

(Psalm 103:3-5 MSG)

Dead people can’t praise God—
    not a word to be heard from those buried in the ground.
But we bless God, oh yes—
    we bless hi mnow, we bless him always!

Hallelujah! 

(Psalm 115:17-18 MSG)

[Paul says,] "We pray that you’ll have the strength to stick it out over the long haul—not the grim strength of gritting your teeth but the glory-strength God gives. It is strength that endures the unendurable and spills over into joy, thanking the Father who makes us strong enough to take part in everything bright and beautiful that he has for us. 

(Colossians 1:11-13 MSG)

[Jesus says,] “I’m telling you the most solemn and sober truth now: Whoever believes in me has real life, eternal life. I am the Bread of Life. Your ancestors ate the manna bread in the desert and died. But now here is Bread that truly comes down out of heaven. Anyone eating this Bread will not die, ever. I am the Bread—living Bread!—who came down out of heaven. Anyone who eats this Bread will live—and forever! The Bread that I present to the world so that it can eat and live is myself, this flesh-and-blood self.” 

(John 6:48-51) MSG)

[Paul reminds us,] "We look at this Son and see the God who cannot be seen. We look at this Son and see God’s original purpose in everything created. For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank after rank of angels—everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him. He was there before any of it came into existence and holds it all together right up to this moment."  (Colossians 1:15-17 MSG)

I was not sure where all this "attitude" stuff was going. All these verses addressing attitudes, God was working ahead of my needs. At least until this afternoon. Suddenly my filters were gone. The words in my brain came blasting out of my mouth. 

"I don’t want to do this. I handled all our budgeting in envelopes the first ten years we were married – I handed it over with no transition – what a mistake – that was really stupid. We’ve done Larry Burkett’s system – twice. It didn’t take. And here I am holding the pencil – again. I don't want to do this again!”

I will let you put the emphasis on the words. I think you know where they go.

Our son-in-law, who needed to hurry to get to a meeting, tucked his chin. Our daughter, who came from the Oncology Infusion Center, sudennly got eyes as big as saucers. My husband bit his tongue. He became rigid from head to toe.

For Christmas our children gave us the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University DVD Home Study Kit and promised to walk through the study with us. Bill already started making spreadsheets. He already shared a gruesome picture of $80,000 of debt accumulated over nearly 47 years of marriage. 

We are still tithing, because we made that decision a l-o-n-g time ago – we’ve never not had enough to make, well, at least the minimum payments. We’ve given a leg up over and over. We are givers not savers. We use credit cards like cash. It’s not Bill’s fault. It’s our fault. To paraphrase Dave Ramsey, somewhere along the line we kept getting chocolate cake when we wanted vanilla because we never committed together to change the recipe.

Will someone please send me to my room and tell me I can come back to the living room when I have a better attitude? 

I’ve apologized for my outburst, but that doesn’t fix the issue or my attitude. I had a lot of trouble going to sleep, even after I talked with Bill and we agreed to him working from the computer and Jorja working on paper and then sitting down together. He finds paper tiresome, and I can’t see the big picture on the computer.

That’s a start. But it is not the last conversation. It is probably not the last outburst. This is stressful. It is not easy. We got in this mess together. We can get out. But to do so we have to work together. 

These scriptures need to be in the front of my notebook. They need to be read and acted on every day over the however long it will take us to put our house in order. In spite of bitter winter pain. In spite of the heebie-jeebies anxiety brings on a moment's notice. In spite of the seasonal downward spiral into the deep black hole of depression. Yes there is help for all of that. Hopefully the combination of:

• God’s holy word buried in my heart and written on my tongue,\Western medicine’s pile of pills for pain management, 
• A yoga tape from follower of the Dali Lama who is my primary care physician,
• Exercises from the physical therapist to reconfigure the disks in my spine from top to bottom, 
• Walking every day outside, inside, or in the pool, 
• Sharing this at next week’s behavioral therapy session with my psychologist, 
• Perhaps seeing the psychiatrist to add an antidepressant to my antianxiety medication, 
• Asking you to pray for me.

Do you need to fix your attitude, too? How can I pray for you?

Revised Book of Common Prayer, Daily Readings, 2016

The Message (MSG) Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson

Financial Peace University DVD Home Study Kit Copyright © 2014 by Dave Ramsey

Wake Up From Your Sleep

My New Year’s Resolution for 2016 is to take one step at a time. I hope you will join me on my journey.

January 4, 2016

Day four, step two: Wake Up From Your Sleep.

How easy it is to become distracted and at times even lazy. I teach piano and voice lessons. However, at what cost. Time to improve my voice and piano skills and that poor flute is sitting in its case for years. In the past, I even wrote a hymn inspired by a retreat in the Swiss Alps. 

I studied for years, yet it is so much easier not to practice, not to play, not to sing, not to write – except when required by teaching.

The readings from the Revised Book of Common Prayer the last few days have encouraged me not to let my gifts become sleeper gifts. To wake them up and use them not only to provide our needed extra income, to build others gifts, but to praise God with them and for them.

Good people, cheer God!
    Right-living people sound best when praising.
Use guitars to reinforce your Hallelujahs!
    Play his praise on a grand piano!
Invent your own new song to him;
    give him a trumpet fanfare. (Psalm 33:1-3 MSG) January 2

And sing, sing your hearts out to God! Let every detail in your lives—words, actions, whatever—be done in the name of the Master, Jesus, thanking God the Father every step of the way. (Colossians 3:17 MSG) January 3

Sing songs from your heart to Christ. Sing praises over everything, any excuse for a song to God the Father in the name of our Master, Jesus Christ. (Ephesians 5:20 MSG) January 4

Step two for 2016 is to carve out time each day to play the piano, to sing 
praises, to carve out Wednesday in such a way I have enough energy to attend choir rehearsal, to begin each Sunday helping to lead worship. Even set aside time to write – words and tunes. Set a priority. Create a schedule for regular practice.

However, start with baby steps. All at once and I am sure to fail.

·         Look at the calendar. Save enough energy to go to choir practice. Plan in a nap. Stay up past my usual bedtime this one day. Can I do it? I do not know. However, if I do not try, I will never know.

·         Sing the warm ups I assign to my voice students every day.

·         Get out the scale book. Play one scale on the piano six times each day for a week, just like I ask my students.

·         Play one hymn or praise song until I can play and sing it at tempo mistake free, just for God and me.

The gifts are God’s. Wake up! How we use them is entirely up to us. Wake up! What a shame to waste our gifts through disuse. Wake up! What gifts  are rusting from disuse? Wake up! Do not let your gifts be sleepers. Wake up! Share your plan.

The Message (MSG)

Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson
Photo: Matt Malloy - Time Lapse Sunset

Follow Those Who Have Gone Before

My New Year’s Resolution for 2016 is to take one step at a time. I hope you will join me on my journey.

January 1, 2016

Day one, step one: Follow those who have gone before.

In my observation and experience, those who follow successfully become everything God made them be. I would like to become a part of that parade.

O my soul, bless God.
    From head to toe, I’ll bless his holy name!
O my soul, bless God,
    don’t forget a single blessing![1]

Bless: to praise and glorify[2]

Blessing: help and approval from God[3]

Since childhood, an important part of New Year’s Day is watching the Rose Bowl Parade. Floats made of flower petals and marching bands from across the country.

One of the things for which I bless God is the blessing of marching in parades as part of junior high, high school, and college bands. To be an active component of the group, one needed to step off on the same foot as everyone else, and then stay rhythmically in step with everyone else be it forty, ninety or three hundred. Not only remaining “in step“ but also “in line.”

A well-practiced marching band is made of straight lines from front to back and from side to side. Staying in step means awareness of those before you from beginning to the person directly in front of you. Keeping a row requires using one’s peripheral vision to maintain a straight line from curb to curb. When marching perfectly in line and row, with precise distance in each direction, the lines also create perfect diagonals. A thing of geometric symmetry and beauty.

Walk out of the gates. Get going!
    Get the road ready for the people.
Build the highway. Get at it!
    Clear the debris,
    hoist high a flag, a signal to all peoples!
Yes! God has broadcast to all the world:
    “Tell daughter Zion, ‘Look! Your Savior comes,
Ready to do what he said he’d do,
    prepared to complete what he promised.’”[4]

A parade has an exact and designated path. The floats and bands are staged and move out in such a manner as to keep the procession moving past those who line the streets from beginning to end. Being a part of the cavalcade not only means marching in a band that follows the drum major, but also being a part of a larger procession designed to not only to bless God but also to bless others by simply taking one’s place. Just marching step by step into the New Year and all it holds in store.

Lord, I praise you, I honor and glorify your holy name. Thank you for your help already waiting for me in the New Year. Help me know my place in the parade. Let me follow those who have served you, not because of individual abilities and gifts, but because they learned to be a part of the blessed and perfect band. Those in the scripture who are unnamed, but crossed the Reed Sea on dry land because they trusted you. Those who marched around Jericho, working together to complete your purpose. Help me walk beside those who follow your Son, not because of what he can do, but because of who he was, and is, and evermore shall be. Help me feel the rhythm, look straight ahead, use my peripheral vision, and move forward with a precisely consistent measured step. Help me step out and be a part of your parade.

---

[1] (Petersen, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002) Psalm 103:1-2

[2] (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)/bless

[3] (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)/blessing

[4] (Petersen, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002) Isaiah 62:10-12

Righteousness

There is value, great value, in living according to God’s law. Happy are those who avoid unrighteous behavior. The effect of the righteous life is one's unwavering commitment to God’s word. To be “righteous” is to have a “healthy relationship” with God, to live wisely.

To live righteously, is to live a decent life, that is reputable, moralistic, noble, principled, right-minded, and virtuous. To live righteously, is to live a good life that is virtuous, exemplary, guiltless, inculpable, innocent, irreproachable, and pure. Righteousness is doing that which is just, acting rightly or justly; conforming to the standard of the divine or the moral law; to be just and upright, free from sin.  When one lives righteously, one lives a life without prejudice; characterize by evenness.

I remember. when we did a “hunger weekend” with the youth group. On Friday night,  we went without supper and spent the night carrying everything we brought with us in large garbage bags. We moved from place to place in the church and read aloud the prophets, the psalms, and the gospels. The next morning we went to the local grocery store and gathered a box of vegetables left by the dumpster. I remember the turned up noses, the “eeww’s,” the “I’m not eating THAT.” We cleaned and cut off moldy places and soft parts and put them all in a pot with water to simmer. That was breakfast.

We went to a soup kitchen in a nearby town to help serve lunch. The smell of unwashed bodies was offensive. When a mother, in apparent drug withdrawal, brought her four- or five- year-old son through the  food line, one could see the righteous indignation on the faces of the youth group. We went back to the church fellowship hall.  We compared what we had seen and felt to the scriptures we had read. We talked about their outraged sense of justice, decency and fair play, their sense of righteous indignation.

Trusting God in different ways came out of that indignation. All of them have mentioned that weekend to us at one time or another. For some,  it helped God call them into ministry as pastors and social workers, but for all, it changed the way they viewed others.

Every day  is an opportunity to trust God in different ways. In the midst of daily life,one can increase  trust in God, confidently and faithfully, knowing one's life is enfolded in God’s attention and love.

God is a God of power, wisdom and authority, John Wesley saw over an over the spirit of bondage transformed to the spirit of adoption as we awaken to our sin. God does not force conversion on us. We must seek adoption. However it is only God who can complete the transformation.

It is God who, hearing one's cries and caring for all like a good parent, now infuses life with “heavenly healing light.” Hearts are strangely warmed, so one's consciousness is dominated no longer by sin and law, but by God’s capacity to love, heal and make new.

We have the experience of most adopted children: once we feel abandoned to the powers and principalities, but now we can count on the kindness and support of a loving parent. Once we were bound to fear, but now we are marked with the holiness and happiness of the family of God

The “good news” is the proclamation of God’s kingdom, manifested in the ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus. “Repentance” is not just a feeling of regret, but an ordering of one’s life as to be acceptable to God. Jesus himself receives baptism by John, joining this group of people who have ritually dedicated themselves to righteousness; to true religion.

We must not substitute rituals for Christ-centered faith. Instead, we should enter into  a life of rigorous discipline of study prayer and good works. True religion is a matter of the heart and is characterized by Spirit-inspired joy, holiness, and peace. To John Wesley, these were the irrefutable marks of the kingdom of God.

I encourage you to choose a short passage of scripture that stops or strangely warms your heart. Meditate on those words. Write them on a card and keep them  with you. Write them, with soap, on your mirror. To meditate on God’s word literally means to mumble or utter it under the breath.

Romanian Orthodox Chant - Psalm 1,2,3 at Putna Monastery

by danteselu•5 years ago•195,274 views

www.sfantulioanrusul.ro Psalm 1,2,3 at Putna Monastery, Romania 

God's Righteous Servant. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.defendproclaimthefaith.org/gods_righteous_servant.htm

 "An outline of a Bible-school curriculum". (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.archive.org/stream/outlineofbiblesc00peas/outlineofbiblesc00peas_djvu.txt

Reflecting on Our Faith - UMC.org, http://www.umc.org/site/c.lwL4KnN1LtH/b.2310045/k.4A66/Reflecting_on_Our_Faith.htm

(accessed January 14, 2013

Kim Hill - Psalm 1 Uploaded on Apr 30, 2007 Call to worship based on Psalm 1 Visit us at www.phillycgc.org

“righteous.” equitable." Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged. Merriam-Webster, 2002. http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com (14 Jan. 2013).

Monday, January 14, 2013

Psalm 1, 2, 3, 4, 7

Isaiah 40:12-23

Ephesians 1:1-14

Mark 1:1-13

Daily Readings from The Voice, the internet web site of CRI/Voice, Christian Resource Institute, a global and ecumenical ministry dedicated to providing biblical and theological resources for growing Christians. www.crivoice.org Readings based on the Revised Lectionary of the Book of Common Prayer.

The Wesley Study Bible, New Revised Standard Version, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2009. 

Valusoft 10418 Living Word Bible (Google Affiliate Ad)

BrylaneHome Plus+Size Living Heavy-Duty Steel Cane (METAL) (Google Affiliate Ad)

Daily Readings, Monday, October 22, 2012

Psalms 25, 9, 15
Song of Songs 4:1-5:1 (replacement for Apocryphal reading)
Revelation 7:1-8
Luke 9:51-62

What I learned today:

I have named my enemy: Chronic Pain. The one place agony cannot touch is my soul (or heart) the place where Christ resides.

I can hide my soul from the pain by choosing to rejoice wholeheartedly rather than grumble and complain. Grousing and complaining will allow the enemy through the gates.

I do not have to meet the pain. God takes care of my enemy. I can expect and be full of confidence that God has it covered, so I can put down my sword.

He just expects me to trust and wait in anticipation. (Well, that is not so easy now is it!! But wait, He tells me how…)

While I am waiting, my role is to be sure to keep my heart pliable and teachable. I must not let pain - the enemy - harden my heart. I must not let pain - the enemy - make me selfish and self-centered. I must not let pain – the enemy – change my focus.

When I choose to worship God with all my heart and soul I am not focusing on the pain. 

When I choose to pay attention to the ways God is working in my life, I am not paying attention to the changes pain is making in my body.

When I choose to remember and share what God is doing in my life today, I look outward, not inward. I can choose the pen over the sword!

I pick up my pen and write to tell someone to look for God, not out there somewhere, but right here in the midst of the pain. One can wade through the stagnant places. One can muck through the grime. One can revisit the way it was before the pain. One can bathe in the flowing fountain of Living Water. God can wash one's soul, and let the blood of Jesus describe the past.

I can stay in the present knowing God sees me as beautiful. God sees me as perfect and perfected. Because of Jesus, my walk is blameless. I may enter the holy of holies. Because of the Holy Spirit I may dwell there, in the high places, instead of leaping into a pit of despair.

I will choose to make a vow, and follow the oath even when it hurts the worst, by speaking the Truth from my heart to yours. Live in The Truth that allows one to tell abundantly of the joyful place where one lives while God is out there, dealing with the enemy – pain.

Was I chosen to live in pain? Does it matter? The only flaw in me is choosing to wallow in my pain. If I choose instead to let God worry about the pain, He seals my heart.

I can talk and write from the abundance of His mercy. As Jesus did, I cry out to God in my Gethsemane of pain, and I know that the cost is paid. God will hear my cry. In His mercy, I can feel the touch of the Spirit moving gently around my pain, honoring those who walk beside me. In His mercy, he provides abundantly.

When I seek God in the pain, God provides protection. God provides opportunities to sow the seed of righteousness. God provides a home away from the isolation and selfishness. God provides hope and expectation. God provides protection. God provides a wealth of ink for my pen.

Selah. Deo Gloria.

Obedience

AN OPENING PRAYER

Lord God our Father, through our Savior Jesus Christ you have assured your children of eternal life and in baptism have made us one with him. Deliver us from the death of sin and raise us to new life in your love, in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

THE OLD TESTAMENT READING:                                   Ezekiel 31:1-6; 10-14  

The Allegory of the Great Cedar

Spoken by the prophet Ezekiel to the pharaoh of Egypt

^31:1-6 In the eleventh year, on the first day of the third month, God's Message came to me: "Son of man, tell Pharaoh king of Egypt, that pompous old goat:

"'Who do you, astride the world,
   think you really are?
Look! Assyria was a Big Tree, huge as a Lebanon cedar,
   beautiful limbs offering cool shade,
Skyscraper high,
   piercing the clouds.
The waters gave it drink,
   the primordial deep lifted it high,
Gushing out rivers around
   the place where it was planted,
And then branching out in streams
   to all the trees in the forest.
It was immense,
   dwarfing all the trees in the forest—
Thick boughs, long limbs,
   roots delving deep into earth's waters.
All the birds of the air
   nested in its boughs.
All the wild animals
   gave birth under its branches.
All the mighty nations
   lived in its shade.

 ^10-14Therefore, God, the Master, says, "'Because it skyscrapered upward, piercing the clouds, swaggering and proud of its stature, I turned it over to a world-famous leader to call its evil to account. I'd had enough. Outsiders, unbelievably brutal, felled it across the mountain ranges. Its branches were strewn through all the valleys, its leafy boughs clogging all the streams and rivers. Because its shade was gone, everybody walked off. No longer a tree—just a log. On that dead log birds perch. Wild animals burrow under it.

  "'That marks the end of the "big tree" nations. No more trees nourished from the great deep, no more cloud-piercing trees, no more earthborn trees taking over. They're all slated for death—back to earth, right along with men and women, for whom it's "dust to dust."

(This prophecy was spoken one month before Jerusalem fell)

PSALM:                                                                                      Psalm 92

A Sabbath Song

 ^1-3 What a beautiful thing, God, to give thanks, to sing an anthem to you, the High God! 
   To announce your love each daybreak, 
      sing your faithful presence all through the night, 
   Accompanied by dulcimer and harp, 
      the full-bodied music of strings. 

 ^4-9 You made me so happy, God 
      I saw your work and I shouted for joy. 
   How magnificent your work, God! 
      How profound your thoughts! 
   Dullards never notice what you do; 
      fools never do get it. 
   When the wicked popped up like weeds 
      and all the evil men and women took over, 
   You mowed them down, 
      finished them off once and for all. 
   You, God, are High and Eternal. 
      Look at your enemies, God! 
   Look at your enemies—ruined! 
      Scattered to the winds, all those hirelings of evil! 

 ^10-14 But you've made me strong as a charging bison, 
      you've honored me with a festive parade. 
   The sight of my critics going down is still fresh, 
      the rout of my malicious detractors. 
   My ears are filled with the sounds of promise: 
      "Good people will prosper like palm trees, 
   Grow tall like Lebanon cedars; 
      transplanted to God's courtyard, 
   They'll grow tall in the presence of God, 
      lithe and green, virile still in old age." 

 ¹⁵ Such witnesses to upright God! 
      My Mountain, my huge, holy Mountain!

Establish your people, O Lord, in the way that leads to righteousness, so that we may with confidence come into your presence and sing your praise; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

THE NEW TESTAMENT READING                                    2 Corinthians 5:1-10

 ^1-5For instance, we know that when these bodies of ours are taken down like tents and folded away, they will be replaced by resurrection bodies in heaven—God-made, not handmade—and we'll never have to relocate our "tents" again. Sometimes we can hardly wait to move—and so we cry out in frustration. Compared to what's coming, living conditions around here seem like a stopover in an unfurnished shack, and we're tired of it! We've been given a glimpse of the real thing, our true home, our resurrection bodies! The Spirit of God whets our appetite by giving us a taste of what's ahead. He puts a little of heaven in our hearts so that we'll never settle for less.

 ^6-8That's why we live with such good cheer. You won't see us drooping our heads or dragging our feet! Cramped conditions here don't get us down. They only remind us of the spacious living conditions ahead. It's what we trust in but don't yet see that keeps us going. Do you suppose a few ruts in the road or rocks in the path are going to stop us? When the time comes, we'll be plenty ready to exchange exile for homecoming.

 ^9-10But neither exile nor homecoming is the main thing. Cheerfully pleasing God is the main thing, and that's what we aim to do, regardless of our conditions. Sooner or later we'll all have to face God, regardless of our conditions. We will appear before Christ and take what's coming to us as a result of our actions, either good or bad.

THE GOSPEL READING                                                           Mark 4:26-34

Never without a story

 ^26-29Then Jesus said, "God's kingdom is like seed thrown on a field by a man who then goes to bed and forgets about it. The seed sprouts and grows—he has no idea how it happens. The earth does it all without his help: first a green stem of grass, then a bud, then the ripened grain. When the grain is fully formed, he reaps—harvest time!

 ^30-32"How can we picture God's kingdom? What kind of story can we use? It's like a pine nut. When it lands on the ground it is quite small as seeds go, yet once it is planted it grows into a huge pine tree with thick branches. Eagles nest in it."

 ^33-34With many stories like these, he presented his message to them, fitting the stories to their experience and maturity. He was never without a story when he spoke. When he was alone with his disciples, he went over everything, sorting out the tangles, untying the knots.

COMMON PRAYER UNCOMMON PAIN

Assyria was an example for Egypt, and both were examples for Jerusalem to not pierce the heavens with a swagger, or one ends up useless and alone. The Psalmist reminds us good people grow tall in God’s favor and flourish. Paul encourages us to pay attention because all behavior has consequences, not only in the life, but in the life eternal. Jesus, himself, wants us to understand and seek God’s kingdom. He untangles and unties the knots so we can share our experiences to help others understand the urgency of respecting and following the law of love. 

Until we moved from Texas to Florida, the tallest trees I saw were the poplars that lined the north side of our back yard. The small birds nested there. They were a windbreak for our play space and the rest of the backyard. They weren’t good climbing trees because the limbs were weak and too closely spaced. I always knew when I disobeyed my daddy, the new growth near the bottom of the tree made the best switches. 

If I strayed into the vacant lot next door; or if I crossed the street, yards and alley to the railroad tracks; or even rode my bicycle further away than around the block - I knew I would be out taking limbs off the tree. Sometimes, depending on the character of my disobedience (how frequently or recently I had been counseled on the dangers my small rebellions could bring to myself or others) I might be sent back to find “a better one.” I know now my daddy ;was pushing down anger praying for wisdom and prudence. Me, I was just picking switches.

For me, worse than the switching were the questions that came when I finally found the right switch. Why was I being corrected? Did I know the danger I was placing myself in? What kind of example I was being for my younger sisters? “Silence” was never an appropriate response. “Everybody else” didn’t make any difference.

Then, I was sent to my room to “think.” When I was prepared to answer for my mistaken behavior – usually when I regained control from sobbing out my disappointment of myself. Daddy was always waiting with a hug and a consequence that included accountability. We talked about how God felt when we disobeyed. We talked about His joy, patience, and loving kindness. There was “I love you,” promises, and taking all the switches to the burn barrel.

Today obedience is taking medications as and when prescribed. Today obedience is stretching and going to the gym to walk in the water and ride a stationary recumbent bicycle. Today obedience is eating as directed by my doctor for weight loss and wellness. Today obedience is listening for God’s general and specific instructions for my life in ways that will deliver justice with mercy. Today obedience is living with joy through and beyond the pain, anxiety and depression. Today obedience is never being without a story that will shine light into the darkness.

A PRAYER FOR GOD’S BLESSING and SENDING OUT INTO THE WORLD

Keep, O Lord, we beg you, your family the Church in your unwavering faith and love, so by the help of your kindness we may proclaim the Truth with boldness, and have a habit of managing your justice with kindness; for the sake of our Savior Jesus Christ, who lives and rules with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen