02/22/12 ok i hear you

ok, i'm sitting here getting more and more irritated.  there's a person that is standing across from us, the other side of the aisle - literally, talking and talking and talking.  she has a loud voice.  i cannot see her, don't know her name or who she is, but i now know all about her pink eye potential, her aspirations to work in a place with less hours, how to toss a ball, etc. etc. etc.  
i got up and went to the bathroom, sat in there for i think maybe 20 minutes - concentrating.....
i went to the break room to make my soup for lunch.
i come back to my desk and there is the voice.  still going on.
i have my headphones on and they are nowhere near drowning out the voice.
now.  i didn't get a lot of sleep last nite, and my head hurts, and i am irritable, i know.
so i'm trying to ignore this voice.  but it's difficult.
just about the time i think, i can either tell my mgr, or go speak to her myself
(the last time i did that there was quite an incident between me and another person, so i hesitate)
so i look at my email inbox and there is todays devo from Lysa TerKeurst's blog which says:

A few weeks ago two of my kids were having a growth opportunity. If you’ve been hanging out here on my blog for a while, you know ‘growth opportunity’ is the phrase us TerKeurst’s use for a ‘fight.’

It’s like when people say pink is the new black. Growth opportunity is the new fight.

Anyhow.

Back to the two kids who love each other but didn’t like each other very much in the heat of the moment.

I pulled out my proverbial soap box, got my hand positioned just right on my hip, and told these two youngin’s to look outside the window of our home. Outside our home exists a world of people who may or may not be nice to us. There are no guarantees.

But inside this house… (I turned the two children toward one another) … there are certain guarantees.

Since the day I birthed you, which by the way was excruciatingly painful but that is a topic for another day, I have preached one sermon about the words spoken in our home. It is a simple sermon. Before you part your little sweetheart lips to speak, you must ask yourself this question: Are my words kind, necessary, and true?

If the answer to all three parts of that question is yes… proceed ahead.

If the answer to any part of that question is no… stop the words from coming out.

Does that mean there is no room to address the hard issues with one another? No. But it will always be done with a spirit of kindness using only words that are necessary and true.

I then ushered these precious ones outside to a bench in my front yard and instructed them to figure out their issues between the two of them. But they were not going to bring words into my house unless they were kind, necessary, and true. Thank you very much. Have a nice time on this cold little bench on this cold little day.

Be sure when reading that last paragraph to do it with the mama attitude. I’ll wait right here if you need to go back and re-read with attitude.

So. There are these Scripture verses in James that I’m considering tattooing on the palm of my hand.

Well, maybe not the needle kind of tattoo… maybe just a henna thingy.

But think of how handy it would be just to flash my palm up in the midst of my people’s growth opportunities with this verse in bold ink: “With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My people, this should not be,” (James 3: 9-10).

That same chapter of James goes on to read, “For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice,” verse 16.

Have mercy. I do not want disorder and every evil practice to be invited into my home. And if ugly words are the key that opens the door for all that evil mess, than by golly I will do everything with the power of Jesus in me to tame tongues. My tongue. Their tongue. And even my dogs’ tongues if I suspect they’re having some issues with this.

And all my Jesus girlfriends said, Amen!

He's messin with me today!

payback for the two pints of icecream i ate for dinner last nite, i'm sure!