When Emotions Overtake, Grace is Essential

Our family is blessed with a wide range of personalities. Sometimes I think we would make a great cartoon.

We have weepily emotional people, very quiet people, passionate people, can-do people, volatile people, whiny people, oh we have it all. The difference in our personalities is the axis upon which much of our relational growth turns in the little universe that is our home.

How do quiet people deal with those given to loud outburst? How do logical people handle emotional reactivity? How do deep-feeling people process apparent insensitivity?

Not always well, I'm afraid.

As I try to help our children (and myself!) learn to live with others, I've noted several recurrent themes.

First and foremost, God created each of us the way we are for a purpose. Yes, of course we are sinners, and not all of our behaviors are aligned with God's will for our lives. But there is a reason some are quiet and others loud, some logical and others emotional. We talk a lot here about the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:12-27).

At the same time, we were created to love, and love means I think about other people first, and myself second. It means I work on learning self-control so that I can be free to serve instead of wrapped up in my own "stuff" or a prisoner to my personality.

My heart's desire is to see others with God' eyes, as beloved children. It is not always easy, what with His kids being sinners and all. And I don't do a great job all the time remembering that He has eyes for me too.

One of my children is a very emotional person. In so many ways I can relate to this child's struggles. I too am, at heart, deeply emotional.

One of the things that frustrates me about myself is that I can be logical, I can plan what the "right" way to respond to a situation would be, but in the moment I find that sometimes I react differently.

For example, when the fire started and I knew we had to evacuate, my mind went blank. I had no clue what to take. When my children get hurt I stay very calm and rational, so I would have thought that I would be clear-headed in this scenario. But I wasn't.

Fast forward 6 weeks. We are safe, our farm is safe, thousands are homeless including many of my friends. I have so much to be thankful for. I fuss at my children for silly complaints, reminding them that their friends have lost everything.

Then my laptop dies. Dies a horrible, forever, "it's a brick" death. And it hadn't been backed up since the morning of the fire. Guess who complains? Granted it was silent in-my-head complaining, mostly sorrow over hundreds of lost photos, but it was complaining nonetheless.

After a few minutes of silent woe, I grasped my hypocrisy and selfishness. I was so ashamed.

It's so very true:

For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate.
~ Romans 7:15 ~

There are so many aspects of my life in which this is the case. I go through seasons of waking in the night in the midst of drowning anxiety about "not practicing what I would like to do." I become deeply frustrated with the emotions that well up and seem to obscure the truth of who I am in Christ.

Yet in the midst of negative thoughts about myself and should-haves and could-haves, two verses relentlessly squeeze their way into my consciousness:

It was for freedom that Christ set us free...
~ Galatians 5:1a ~

Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
~ Romans 8:1 ~

Quite simply, when I am worried and anxious about my own "performance" not only am I not clinging to grace, I am also forgetting to focus my eyes on Him and others, instead of myself.

So if you have met me in real life you know... I can be moody. I forget important things, to my chagrin. I don't do the things I want to do and it grieves me.

I am a sinner saved by grace, and that grace means I am also dancing. I am dancing in the heavenlies, while still here on earth, because no mood can eliminate the truth that I have been set free!

photo by adam piggott

For Such a Time As This

I walk across the yard and there is no hiding it. My boots' crunch on crisp grass and soil loudly accompanies my travels. It is so dry and hot here. So many, so very many, things dying.

Yes, the rain was a joy and a blessing and how we soaked it up! But an exceptional drought takes a long time to recover from. It almost seems like it was a dream.

And yet...

By the road a wild lantana... completely untended, never weeded, never watered... it still lives.

Not just lives, but thrives.

This glorious burst of color, this force of life in the midst of drought and heat and death... it is no anomaly. The lantana survives and thrives because it was made for this.

Its roots were made to withstand dry soil. Its leaves were made to withstand scorching sun. Its flowers were made to bring oh so much joy to the heart of this parched farm mama.

I am captivated by the intricacy of the flowers, the incredible variation from stalk to stalk. I find myself on my knees shooting up in order to capture the stunning blue of the sky.

When I look back down I am moved by a tiny spot of red on brown.

Tiny sprinkle of color on dirt and weeds.

Life amongst the lifeless.

O God, You are my God; I shall seek You earnestly; My soul thirsts for You, my flesh yearns for You, In a dry and weary land where there is no water. ~ Psalm 63:1 ~

All photos by Patti Brown

When Things Just Don't Go Right

This morning as I was sitting at my computer counting ticket sales for our daughter's upcoming theater performance, my husband called from the back door, "There's a dead kitten back here."

With a heaviness I put on my boots and went out to view the tiny little body, somehow escaped from her chicken wire safe space, and loved on just too much by our over-eager Great Pyrenees puppy. As I fetched the shovel I shook my head thinking of how much death is part of our life on the farm.

What I had anticipated as a relaxing first week of school vacation has proven to be an exhausting week of ill-health and crisis. Nothing has gone the way I expected, from my body's functioning to our family's schedule to blogging here.

We all have weeks like this, sometimes even years. Maybe it's just a string of things that don't go right, but sometimes it includes great loss and tragedy. And in the middle of it all there is much temptation to despair.

There is a peace when things are in order, not only in the physical realm, but also in our minds. And when that order gets rifled through, it is sometimes hard to hold on to serenity.

I confess I have had my moments this week. I would love to tell you that I have had perfect self-control and was able to turn peacefully to the Lord for all my needs, but the fact is there have been a few tear-filled sessions.

I want to share with you a few things I have done this week that have helped. To be honest, I write this mostly so I can look back at it when another week like this hits me. It is so hard sometimes to remember what to do when you are in the middle of a crisis.


Sleep

I have changed the sleep rules this week. Half way through the week I stopped setting my alarm. Blessedly, it took only a few days of oversleeping for my internal clock to be reset. This morning, without an alarm, I woke right up at 4:00am.

I also have been napping whenever I feel tired and am at home. Most of the time I just lie down on the couch so the children have easy access to me (and yes that means the naps have been interrupted, but it is still extra sleep). A few times I actually laid down in bed.


Water

I have discovered that I am chronically dehydrated. This has led to several health problems that are quite annoying. When I am home I am setting a timer for every hour, and drinking an 8oz glass of water standing right there in the kitchen. When I go out I am taking a bottle of iced water with lemon to make drinking more appealing.


Lots of Salad

This may sound silly, but I have been craving and consuming huge amounts of salad. I believe it's my body's way of helping me restore internal balance. I never get a heavy feeling after eating a salad like I do after many other meals. To keep my protein levels even, I add bits of meat or cheese or sunflower seeds.


Prayer

Yes, of course I have been praying, but sometimes when you are so low you find it hard to know how to pray for yourself. In these moments I reach out to others and ask for prayer. There is tremendous grace in God's allowing others to intercede for us. Perhaps it is part of His design for us as a body. I rarely struggle to pray for others even when I am struggling to pray for myself.


Be Obsessive About Bible Time

With so much on my mind this week, there have been several mornings when I have allowed myself to become distracted before getting in the Word, and my time of study has suffered. My peace has suffered too. There is nothing like the living and active Word of God to put everything into perspective. I want to start my day with right thinking, not distracted by my worries and to-do list, or by the current bad news online. Penny at Living Above Ministries recently wrote a great post about this... What Do You Open First?.


Let Go

This one is the hardest for me. This week I have had to let go of a number of things I had planned to do, including blogging. It is very hard for me to do this without feeling guilty and like a failure. Yet I would be the first to encourage this very thing in anyone else. Sometimes the person I have the hardest time extending grace to is myself.


How about you? When you run into one of those weeks, what do you do to make it through and remain peaceful?

Sisters before the throne of grace...

They gather on my couches and chairs, second Thursday of each month.  We sit and visit, gathering one by one from homes far and wide.  Down paved roads, dirt roads; from town, from farms, coming from family to be with sisters.

The chatter quiets as I begin to talk.  Asking for needs.  One by one they speak, a circle tracing their words.  Sharing joys, pains, loved ones, struggles, illness. 

My pen scratches on the paper in my hand... names, needs, hopes, fears.  The circle completes.  We bow our heads.

Heads bent, eyes closed, we keen out our sorrow and hopes to our almighty Father.  Women joined as sisters in Him, we come before the throne of grace for His children.

Tears, almost always tears.  We feel the urgency.

Yet always, always thanks.  We praise the One who gives and takes away.  We know He is our only hope.

Sisters we, bound together by a ribbon of love given by our sweet Lord.  Heads bowed, hands open to offer what is not ours, to receive that which is nothing but a gift. 

Grace.

Written in participation with the The Gypsy Mama's 5 minute writing challenge.  This weeks prompt: "the women."  

photo credit: Anita Patterson

Compassion, Not a Report Card

I didn’t think I was a legalist.

I just thought I was disorganized, selfish and overcommitted.   I was trying really hard to be a good girl, to be a good Christian, and if I could just get organized... read my bible harder... pray more...

Until the day, not too long ago, when I was sharing some struggles with my prayer partner and she reflected, “What strikes me is your observation that you feel like you have a long report card and you are failing in every area.  That is not how God looks at you...

I'm guest posting at SomeGirl's Website today.  To read the rest of Compassion, Not a Report Card, please click on over and join us there!