Lessons...

I haven't been consistent in my Bible reading lately. It's taking a toll on me. I know that I feel SO MUCH better when I dig into it! I'm so behind - I'm working on February 21st right now - but I'm staying with it and trying to get back into it.

This is going to be a little hodge-podge today. I'm just going to share some things that really, really spoke to me from my Beth Moore study, So Long, Insecurity. I am loving this study!

* "Be careful who you covet. Be careful how you judge. Be slow to size somebody up and think you know all about her type. She's not so different from you. Nobody's unbreakable here on this planet. Only the dead don't bleed when they're cut. We all fear that we aren't who we are pretending to be. The more careful we are about what we're protecting, the more driven we tend to be by fear."

I don't know about you, but I tend to size a person up just by looking at them. I know her type. Eddie and I were invited to a couple's house for dinner not long ago and I was so anxious before I got there that she wouldn't like me because I knew how she would be. What? What right do I have to put words in someone else's mouth? Ugh! Working on that...

* "Don't ask if that's okay with them. Here's the real question: is that okay with you? You and I are going to have to come to a place where we stop handing people the kind of power only God should wield over us. Change will not come easy. Old habits die hard. But we can make the radical decision to rewire our security systems."

In the last weeks of my pregnancy, I vocalized to a friend that I was feeling overwhelmed about thinking about J's "birth day." I didn't want people to come to the hospital. I didn't know how long it would take to deliver him and I planned to nurse him immediately afterward and have some "family" time and I was worried that people would be overly anxious with how long everything was taking. I did not want people in my hospital room while I was laboring. (Ate my words on that BIG time. We had a ball hanging out in my room. The nurse anesthetist is my best friend. LOVED that epidural.) The friend, after listening to my whining, looked at me and said "You're worrying too much about what everyone else thinks. Who cares how long it will take? They'll be at the hospital because they wouldn't have it any other way. Stop worrying about them!" She's my friend that has a tendency to knock my back down to size sometimes. I wish she'd do it more often. She lives in reality a lot more than I do. And I do worry WAY TOO MUCH about other people.

* "No one solitary think on this entire planet has the power to secure everything else."

Think losing weight would fix things? Then it would be your hair. Think a hair cut/color would change the world? Then it would be your clothes. Have you ever read If You Give a Mouse a Cookie? We have the whole series in case you've missed out on that one.

So those are the BIG things that I've been thinking about this week. When I've had time to think, anyway....I have a little boy who doesn't like to sleep from about midnight to five AM. If you'd like to come up and spend the night so that you can have a turn putting his pacifier in his mouth at ten-minute intervals all through the night, be my guest! We'd be happy to have you! :)