If Mama Ain't Happy

I have always kinda hated the saying, "If mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy." It evokes for me the image of a demanding, hard to please woman whose emotions tyrannically rule those around her. The kind of woman I never want to be. The kind of woman I know I could very easily become if I am not careful and apart from the grace of God. Lately, however I have come to understand the profound truth in that statement. I have also come to understand that really need not be an admonition to those around mama, but to mama herself.

This realization came a couple of weeks ago when my husband came home from work and made this remark, "You seem to be in good spirits!" He said it with a small measure of surprise and no small measure of joy on his face. At first I was a little puzzled. Was this such a strange occurrence? Am I not usually in "good spirits?" Before I opened my mouth to ask I thought about the previous few weeks.

To start off I was in my first trimester of pregnancy. I have not proven myself to be a real trooper (i.e. silent sufferer) when it comes to pregnancy. Secondly, this pregnancy seemed to be doing a real bang up job on my emotions, not just my tummy and my energy like last time. Thirdly, I had been pretty sick and then so had my baby. And lastly, my previously very easy going baby had entered a little fussy phase just as I had entered my weakened state. So yeah, while I would like to believe I hadn't been downright grumpy, I could concede that perhaps it had been a while since my husband had come home to find me in actual good spirits.

What was of such great interest to me was how delightfully happy he was to find me in that state. It was very curious to me. I just locked this little observation away in my heart. In the weeks that followed I began to see this was a trend. The happier I was the happier he was - the more we seemed to enjoy each other's company and the more smoothly we sailed through the little things that came our way. The gloomier I became the more sullen he became. Things became harder for both of us. I then started noticing that the same was true with my baby. When I was having a joyful day, she seemed to have a joyful day right along with me. The more tense and overwhelmed and unhappy my behavior was, the less consolable she was. I began to realize the kindest and most loving and outright best thing I can do for my family, for those I love most, and for those who love me most, is to choose joy. Just be happy. Look at the sunny side and be grateful. I couldn't believe such a small thing could have such an impact on our home. But it really did. More than a vacuumed rug, more than a delicious new recipe, more than everything being in place. Just a light-hearted, merry spirit.

That is when I remembered the old saying, "If mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy!" And no one can be responsible for mama's happiness, but mama. I have a long ways to go to totally apply this principle to my life, but I am very excited about it. What could be a more pleasant goal than learning to be happy more regularly. I am not going to resort to fake happiness, because as I have been learning, it not only isn't fruitful, it isn't necessary. As a Christian, no matter how bad things get, there is always something to be thankful for, something to really and truly smile about. That is the gift I am going to work to give my family this year. My smile.

100 Things

1. I am really tired.
2. I am almost always really tired.
3. Pregnancy has never been my friend.
4. I am disappointed that my first three things sound like complaints.
5. I try to white wash my complaining by passing complaints off as statements that sound like complaints.
6. It looks like we will have a bad storm tonite.
7. I am from Oklahoma, but I have never seen a tornado in person.
8. I like storms now.
9. They used to scare me so bad I would get sick to my stomach.
10. My baby is sleeping.
11. She is a very sweet girl.
12. I had P.U.P.P.
13. That fact is what make me think I should do a list like this.
14. I love clocks.
15. I love my husband.
16. I have never been very good at fixing my hair.
17. This is harder than I thought it would be.
18. I love lists.
19. I mean I really, really love them.
20. When I was a kid I used to spend hours in my room making lists of names.
21. I am kind of a loner, but I love being with people I am close to.
22. I am mad that I worry about ending sentences with prepositions.
23. I mean who really cares.
24. Something weird just happened to my computer and erased the last several lines I had written.
25. I can't remember what they were exactly. Oh well.
26. I love the country.
27. I like the city, too.
28. I am always very eager for the next big thing.
29. My husband is good at tempering that quality in me.
30. He is very good for me.
31. I hope I am good for him.
32. I am very, very shy.
33. I am fine with that and I wish others would be too.
34. I have read that shyness is a form of self-centeredness.
35. At first I was offended, but now I am willing to admit it may be true. Partly.
36. I pray that I will be able to turn my back on self-centeredness.
37. I absolutely adore Corrie Ten Boom.
38. Once when I was in a hospital in Italy God miraculously revived and sustained the battery in an iPod I was using.
39. You don't have to believe me, but it is true.
40. I never make statements like that.
41. I want to be a really good mother.
42. Selfishness will be my biggest obstacle.
43. I still miss my Aunt Debby.
44. I believe in heaven.
45. I hate going to Sam's.
46. I hate waiting.
47. I love getting packages.
48. I guess were are all the same like those last two.
49. I love kindred spirits.
50. I haven't met one in a long, long time.
51. I had a great time in high school and college.
52. I wouldn't go back to either even for a day.
53. Dogmatism in little things annoys me.
54. Making big things out of little things annoys me.
55. I desperately want to do what is right.
56. I am afraid of baring my soul to others.
57. I wish I could find Savong Donovan.
58. Misty Sargent is one of my heroes.
59. Not that I have lots of heroes.
60. Basically just her and Corrie Ten Boom.
61. There are a whole lot of things that I could have done a lot better, but not a lot of things I would do over.
62. The only thing I can think of is that I would have stood up for Angie Wacek back in seventh grade.
63. I am so weak.
64. I was a regional spelling bee champion in sixth grade, but now I have a really, really hard time spelling.
65. I don't like country music as much a I used to.
66. I rarely miss home anymore.
67. I hate putting lotion on. It takes forever.
68. I hate being criticised.
69. I hate being misunderstood.
70. I just deleted the last two things I wrote because they were too embarrassing.
71. I hate TV, but I watch it a little everyday.
72. I do worry a lot about my family.
73. I hate having to explain myself.
74. I have been too hard on my husband.
75. I want people to think the best of me and my motives.
76. That is what I think of when I think of the golden rule.
77. I love relaxing.
78. I kinda like cooking.
79. I don't like things that are really complicated.
80. Except movie plots.
81. I wish I could remember how to make snow flakes.
82. I love hearing birth stories and engagement stories.
83. I hate listening to glory trips.
84. I don't like being one of a number of multi-tasks.
85. I don't like multi-tasking.
86. I love garlic.
87. I waited tables for over two years and it wasn't good for me.
88. I am overly considerate of service personnel.
89. I love the taste of red wine and would love to drink it every evening like Europeans supposedly do.
90. Other than that I am not at all impressed with Europe.
91. I was treated very, very well when I spent a week in a hospital in Italy.
92. My baby is waking up.
93. She is a very good baby.
94. I hope her brother or sister is just like her.
95. I am 13 weeks pregnant.
96. I am very, very happy about that.
97. I just started learning Latin with Rosetta Stone.
98. It is really fun.
99. My brother got it for me.
100. I love my brother.

Real Virtue?

Realness. The virtue of choice for me and most people my age. But is realness really so virtuous? I am beginning to wonder. It is definitely more virtuous than its obvious opposite, phoniness. Originally, I think it was a reaction against phoniness that brought "realness" its current prominence. I am coming to believe that it is something else that has allowed this quality to remain so popular and esteemed. It makes a perfect mask for sin. Think about it. I can behave in a lazy, unfriendly, foolish, inconsiderate, hurtful manner and if I pass it off as being "real" I am praised rather than criticized. How delightfully convenient. Not only that, but if I am really good at it I might even convince myself and then I get to be proud rather than ashamed of unseemly behavior. I am coming to realize that this is a major pitfall for me. It shows up most in my life through complaining. I would rather complain that put on one of those fake smiles I have been taught to despise. But are those my only two options? Must I choose between complaining and being fake? As a Christian I know the answer is certainly not. So that brings me to my New Year's Resolution of sorts. I aim to seek by the grace of God to stop complaining. I pray that He will help me to replace my complaints not with a skin deep, painted on smile, but with all the joy and gratefulness that befits one whom Christ has brought from death unto life.

A Prayer

Father~
Please don't let me be blind to my sin. Please don't let me be comfortable in my sin. Please don't let me despair in my sin. Thank you, thank you, thank you for Christ's victory over my sin.

Love For Example...

I love finding things that have been lost. Today I had just such a joy. I found a little packet I made filled with all the letters, trinkets, and mementos from my courtship with Ron. I haven't seen it or had any clue where it could have gone in almost three years. My mind believed it to be gone forever. My heart held out hope, as hearts are known to do, that somehow someday it would resurface. Much to the delight of my inner dreamy, mushy girl, my heart was right! I have spent Afton's nap reading all those sweet, sweet words and remembering those sweet, sweet times. I would never cheapen a love note by sharing it publicly, but there was something in my little packet that I do want to share with others. It is a quote on love that I found in a most unlikely place - a book on religion in ancient Mesopotamia. Strange yes, but there it was in the middle of one of most boring books I have ever read part of, the best description of the emotion of love that I have ever heard. I read it just before Ron and I fell in love. I wrote it on a napkin and tacked it to a cork board in my room. When I moved out to get married I tucked it away with all my love letters, forgotten until today. It describes my feelings for Ron now as accurately as it did back then:

"Love for example, innate and irrational, it irresistibly pushes each one of us toward "another", someone in whom we obscurely sense a sort of enrichment indispensable to our lives, a necessary complement to ourselves, whom we must seek out and obtain regardless of all opposition."
~ Jean Bottero, Religion In Ancient Mesopotamia

T.H.I.N.K.

My tongue is most definitely, when left to its own devices, indeed, a deadly poison. Poisonous to me, to those around me, and most heart-breakingly to those I love most. In God's grace I am at least aware of this and have long desired that in Him I may someday find it in full compliance with the "law of kindness". One of the best tools God has blessed me with in this quest is a little acrostic I learned in college: T.H.I.N.K.

On a small side note, acrostics and other such practical tools are powerless idols apart from a reliance on the grace of God and the righteousness and sacrifice of Christ. I am so thankful that sanctification is God's work. He has started it and he will finish it. Praise be to Him! Still, Christians using practical means as they seek to submit to God's ways in no way diminishes the fact that it is God working in them to will and to do his pleasure. On the contrary, it is an evidence that such work is taking place. My point is that while sanctification, like childbirth, is truly miraculous, it is also very practical. I believe that practical human tools that help us grow in obedience are a tremendous blessing when used in faith and with the understanding that there is no righteousness apart from Christ.

Anyway, back to T.H.I.N.K. Thinking before you speak is easier said than done, but that is an entirely different subject. Supposing you actually have remembered to think before your words are unleashed, this acrostic is meant to help you decide what is worth saying. Things that are worth saying are:

True
Helpful
Inspiring
Necessary
Kind

It is not perfect, but it has been very, very helpful to me. I have learned, though, that most of my sins of speech have not come from being unable to discern what is worth saying, but being unable (unwilling?) to discern what is not worth saying. If I turn T.H.I.N.K. on its head I see there is a lot to be learned about what is better left unsaid. Things that are not worth saying are:

Untrue. I ought not say things I know to be false or partially false. I ought not present as facts things I only think to be true. In fact things I only think to be true may be better left unsaid all together, or stated only as hopes or concerns to my Heavenly Father or to a close and trusted love one.

Hindering. If something I want to say will make it more difficult for my hearer to lead the life the Lord has assigned to him then I better not say it.

Demoralizing. There is no place in Christian speech for the intentional or careless crushing of another's spirit. Complaining, even commiserating, is a big demoralizer that often masquerades as compassion or sympathy.

Non Value Adding. The "N" in T.H.I.N.K. can be very confusing. When I think of "necessary" in terms of life and death then very few words can pass the test. Fire! and Duck! are the only two that come to mind right now. But I think "necessary" is best understood as "value adding". Necessary words are words that actually contribute to the hearer's knowledge, understanding, or enjoyment. Knock, knock jokes can be "necessary" in a car full of bored children. Saying "It's cold." in a room full of shivering adults is an example of something that is not necessary. Inane statements made solely to hear my own voice, to draw attention to myself, or to fill silence add no value to the conversation and are truly unnecessary -- not worth saying.

Unkind. There is not much to elaborate on here. I shouldn't say things that are unkind. I know what kindness and unkindness are. Seeking a specific adult definition would just be me looking for a loophole I can use to slip in words that I know better than to say. Recognizing kindness and unkindness is child's play. Living day to day in kindness takes nothing less than the dying to one's self and dying again and again.

There is much more that can and should be said about the the Christian and her tongue. This is just a little something that has helped and continues to help me. Taming the tongue has been one of the fiercest battles of my life. It is Christ's battle win.

The Prayer of St. Francis

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

where there is sadness, joy.



O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek

to be consoled as to console;

to be understoood as to understand;

to be loved as to love.



For it is in giving that we receive;

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;

and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.