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Friday, December 4, 2009

Good stuff all over.

God has been so generous with me lately. I have been praying for years for more grace and more gentleness. It doesn't come naturally to me to keep information under my hat just because it may not help the other person. I know that I do this very often and yet I can't seem to stop. When someone is doing something that results in them hurting themselves and/or others I feel a burning need to help them see it. Note the irony.

So God has given me two people (not even real people) that give me a view on how I can take my personality type and serve God and love people. The first is a book by Cathy Marie Hake and it is titled "Last Chance". The heroine is a woman named LoveJoy and she is a bit of a bossyboots (like yours truly) but she keeps everyone's hearts in mind when she serves up the truth. I think it would be great if I could just stop telling people what I feel that they should know until I can tell them in a way that is supportive and kind. So I've started on this journey of kindness. I gotta tell ya it isn't as hard as I thought. I believe God is doing all the heavy lifting. If he can help a vocal woman like me it is indeed proof that to Him all things are possible.

The second character is the main character from The Blind Side (played by Sandra Bullock). She is a bossy boots as well. Watching the movie was a bit like watching myself in action. What occured to me was that I liked the character. So seeing my behaviours in someone else that I considered great, gave me a bit of love of myself.

All this is very closely tied to the fact that in january I decided not to rejoin my bible group. The reason I had done this is because I knew when I do a bible study, I use the material to beat myself up. If the chapter is on greed, I find a hundred sins in my life that show how greedy I am. Ditto every other sin. I decided to lay off any book that had a workbook or questions or apply this to your life type of format. In essence no bible studies. It was AMAZING. All I read was the Christian Romances and the bible reading from mass on Sunday. You know I think I started loving myself about March/April. And that love of myself has allowed me to give the same grace I learned to give myself to others. God has led me down this path that no bible teacher, no mature Christian, no pastor would ever recommend. He knew I needed to lay off on the I oughtas and get to the Thank You Lords.

The second greatest command is to "Love others as yourself", implied in the statement is that you must love yourself.