This past Sunday, our pastor talked about tending the garden of our spiritual journey. One of the application points he made was for us to think about what we wanted to cultivate and what weed we needed to pull as we headed into next year. It definitely got me thinking about areas in my life that could use some tending.
One area that I would like to cultivate is joy. Not that I am unhappy or discontent, because I am extremely thankful for my life. But…the day to day grind gets under my skin and suffocates my joy. Limited sleep, never-ending housework, grumpy kids, long days…the weight of a thousand different frustrations overtakes me.
Instead of the snippy words and grumpy attitude that I have a tendency to fall into, I want to choose joy. When it’s 4:30 in the afternoon and Parker has asked to watch a show for the fiftieth time, I want to choose joy. Instead of my kids thinking it’s normal for Mommy to have fits of irritability on a regular basis, I want to choose joy. Rather than blaming my behavior on my situation, I want to stop, remember the impact of my actions, and choose joy.
Easy to say, hard to do.
One area I need to weed is in how I use my words. Sometimes it comes out when I am irritable and frustrated, and I get short with Ben or the kids. Other times, I get sucked into the gossip “black hole”, where I start to judge other people’s actions, without knowing their true motives. Even this past weekend, my words got me into trouble at our church’s Christmas program.
Madi and Parker both sang songs with their class; for Parker, it was his first year to sing “on stage”, and not surprisingly, he did great. They brought all the 2 & 3 year olds up on stage and then some sat down on the risers behind all the other kids and some found their way to front and center.
Parker was a “front and center” kid, which was nice because we could see him…until another kid decided he wanted to be even more front and center. He came and stood basically in front of Parker and grinned at the crowd for the rest of the song, blocking our view of Parker doing the hand motions to “Away in a Manger”.
In any other situation, I would have thought this was funny, but since he was standing in front of “my” kid, I admit, a little crazy stage mom attitude started to rear its ugly head. I started making snarky comments under my breath to Ben, who was videotaping the whole thing. Things like, “Why won’t that kid move?” and “Brother, he is ruining it for Parker!”. Afterwards, Ben helpfully pointed out that the kid’s parents could be sitting in front of us, that Parker could have been one of the kids sitting in the back, and that I was being inappropriate…stopping me in my tracks.
Because, if I had looked at the whole stage, I would have realized that very few of the kids were fully visible and most of them weren’t even singing. If I had been more worried about Parker’s experience rather than my ability to see him, I would have noticed that he had a blast, especially when he clapped at the end…pure joy plastered his face.
Not my proudest moment, and it is permanently recorded as background noise on the videotape. Nice.
So…that’s my assignment. Grow joy…and pull out weedy words. Good thing a garden isn’t grown in a day…
— Post From My iPhone
Rach – I hear ya. The grind has been getting to me too, lately. It’s a different grind then yours, but it’s still tough to remember to have joy. Sounds like an excellent sermon…
And somewhere, there’s got to be a mute button, eh? 🙂 Love ya!