build that frame

I started watching this great speaker this morning.




It's funny because so much of what she said matched this parenting series (calmer parenting) I'm currently listening to. Sometimes I swear God speaks soooo loudly to me.

It's funny because the main points that really spoke to me I already know but I have to be reminded again and again. It's like God giving me little nudges towards righteousness till finally it becomes a habit, a part of my character.

What spoke to me was about encouragement. Clearly from scriptures we are called to encourage one another.

Hebrews 10:24 And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.


Well what does encouragement look like? From my experience I change the most when people noticed what I was doing right . It would make me want to be what they thought and more. It was like they put up a house frame for me to then build on. I also found spending time with someone seeing how they do things,not being preached at, just friends. I think sometimes we want to do things the right way but we don't have the practical skills to manage it. Sometimes it's easier to learn when you see someone actually doing it.

On the other hand when did I decline the most. When I was going through a season of being overstressed physically and mentally. I wasn't coping with everything in the best way I could. What made it even worse was people trying to "help" me. Lots of you really should.... Some of the you shoulds pushed towards areas I wasn't ready to deal with,I don't think God wanted me to deal with. People are called to different things. I just started feeling more and more like a loser and slowly I started to believe it. I started making negative comments about myself like jokes to them. I've always made fun of myself but this was more then that. I came to a point where I felt like what was the point I can't measure up to what I think I should be and judging from what they are saying (and not saying) I never will. Toxic

I posted this song the other day on Facebook. I posted it because it reminded me of a time in my life when I felt this way. I WILL never let myself get to this point again. I've learned to encourage myself now.



My daughter has said I used to do this to her. I love her terribly I never meant to do that to her. She said because other people thought she was a bad kid. She started acting that way. She believed that crap. I think you can be a good person,truly care about someone, and be seriously misguided in how you go about "helping" them.

Thank goodness we have a pretty open relationship so she could eventually talk to me. But I still struggle with building the house for her giving her the frame to build on. It is not natural for me. It's much easier for me to preach to her,to point out the negatives. I get legalistic sometimes too. God's word has some absolutes but some of my absolutes aren't in there. It's sad that I do the very things that I struggled with people doing in my life. Ugh!!!!

Philippians 4:8 Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, let your mind dwell on these things.


We are called to notice the good but usually we dwell on the negative.


Hebrews 3:13 But exhort one another daily, while it is called Today; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.

ex·hort/igˈzôrt/
Verb: Strongly encourage or urge (someone) to do something

It's funny that during that sad sad time in my life. That I still remember some of things that my pastor's wife said to me, so encouraging. That I still hang on to some of them, some days. I still remember that day sitting around with some friends talking about what we thought each other's strengths were. I never thought of myself as encouraging and funny. It's ironic how like we often can't see our faults,we can't see our strengths either.


I think we often assume a word" spoken in love" is a negative one.


Ephesians 4:15 Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church.

No where in that verse does it say that the truth has to be a negative. In fact if you look at studies on parenting ,the parenting style with the most successful outcome is Authoritative parenting. You can read a good article on parenting styles here
http://psychology.about.com/od/developmentalpsychology/a/parenting-style.htm
The thing that really sticks out to me is their disciplinary methods are supportive, rather than punitive.

The overwhelming thing people hate about Christians is they are judgmental. I wonder how we would effect the world if the first thing we did was love vs. judge.

Romans 2:1 You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things.

It's easier to not to judge when we remember who we are. I totally berated my daughter a few months back when she burnt my counter by burning incense on it. It didn't occur to her that when it hit the bottom it would burn the counter. I couldn't believe it how could she not know!!!! Well last week I ruined our dining room table. I let a tea light burn out on the table vs putting it back in my oil burner. I didn't think how it would get really hot and burn the wood. Duh you say, well duh I agree. Sometimes I don't think and apparently my daughter inherited this trait. If I had burnt the table before she burnt my counter I think I would of had more sympathy. It would of been easy to see why. Unfortunately it isn't always easy to see the real us. Why? Well that would be another huge post.


Paul's example

1 Thessalonians 2:12 We comforted and encouraged you, urging you to live in a manner worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory.


comforting- present participle of com·fort (Verb)
1. Soothe in grief; console.
2. Help (someone) feel at ease; reassure

en·cour·age -Verb
1. Give support, confidence, or hope to (someone): "encouraging results"; "I feel encouraged".
2. Give support and advice to (someone) to do or continue something:


One test now I have for people I do not keep company with or am cautious listening to is, do I feel quitting or bad after I hang out with them.


Proverbs 10:11 The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life.

Do I give life or drain it?

Something can be right and godly true but I think sometimes we speak out of turn and discourage rather then encourage. So guilty...

Ephesians 4:29 Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their NEEDS, that it may benefit those who listen

Proverbs 18:21 The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit

Romans 12:10 Be devoted to each other with mutual affection. Excel at showing respect for each other.

Philippians12:10 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.

Conceit noun -
1.A favorable and especially unduly high opinion of one's own abilities or worth

Dead give away that you might have a problem with conceit.... "We love you too much to let you stay this way. " attitude. You are sooo far gone ,you can't even begin to see your own issues.

ambition –noun
1.
an earnest desire for some type of achievement or distinction, as power, honor, fame, or wealth, and the willingness to strive for its attainment: Too much ambition caused him to be disliked by his colleagues.
2.
the object, state, or result desired or sought after: The crown was his ambition.

1 Peter 2:17 Show proper respect to everyone


We can learn from our kids or people we might consider "beneath us" in knowledge. After all aren't we called to be like little children.

Matthew 18:2-3And he said: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven here fore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

humble

–adjective
1.
not proud or arrogant; modest: to be humble although successful.
2.
having a feeling of insignificance, inferiority, subservience, etc.: In the presence of so many world-famous writers I felt very humble.
3.
low in rank, importance, status, quality, etc.; lowly: of humble origin; a humble home.
4.
courteously respectful: In my humble opinion you are wrong.


My daughter says she feels really disrespected when I preach at her. I find it really hard to not because I care so much about her. I want to blurt out all I know and how some of her choices could really hurt her. I know a lot of the you should's come from a heart that cares but am I being wise? We are called to love first above everything else. Love God which should make us a good example not a perfect one that is reserved for God. No one believes you anyway when you act or say you don't struggle with the same stuff we all do. Then love each other the way we want to be loved.
So back to those tapes ,I might need to play them over and over again just to drum it in my head build that frame!!!!

Change

I wonder what the world would be like if we could really see into people's hearts, see motives not just what we perceive on the outside. A lot of the time what we see is a result of our conditioning (What we are familiar with, have known) and that conditioning determines our attitude and behavior towards other people.
Interesting, isn't it? We project our own undesirable or desirable thoughts, motivations, desires, and feelings onto someone else. Take a person who has been lied to a lot, or they themselves are a liar. They are much more likely consider the possibility that someone else is lying to them than someone who hasn't been lied to, or lies themselves.

I've been thinking about this lately. Chris and I have been talking about this.

That some of the times that I've hurt or misunderstood people or people have hurt or misunderstood me, it's false projecting. It sucks and I'm so sick of the fallout. Then there is also the flip side that sometimes when I think a person couldn't possible want to hurt me, they are choosing to.

Over the years I've learned some clues as to when a person is a "mean" person. Mean people never apologize (thank you Beth Moore. Love her!), they always try to make it seem like you're the problem. Big clue: you almost always feel worse when you are around them. I've had to distance myself from people who feed off of others failures. Sometimes presented as help "I do" or "you should".. Chris likes to say "Don't should on yourself" because most you should sharings are poop. Usually these people can't see the forest for the trees. I love how Jesus put it in Matt 7:3-5

3 “And why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own? 4 How can you think of saying to your friend, ‘Let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye,’ when you can’t see past the log in your own eye? 5 Hypocrite! First get rid of the log in your own eye; then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend’s eye."

So so so guilty of the above scripture!!! I wish I wasn't, but I do it. So I don't think "mean" people are always mean, usually we're all a mixture of both. I just find sometimes it's so toxic it's better to let go. Sometimes "help" can really mess things up.

Smile at the world and it will smile back.

My husband has the thickest skin ever. Seriously, he doesn't sweat any small stuff. Even when it's big stuff, he gives people the benefit of the doubt. I'm not sure if that is the result of his growing up, or personality, probably both. Me, I know I look for the bad first. I have plenty of reasons to be looking for people trying to hurt me, mostly from my childhood. At this point in my life though, I have lots of reason to believe people are well intended towards me. I have lots of beautiful people in my life. Reality is most people are just like me, a bit self absorbed ,but well intended. Just not always managing to do those good intentions all the time.


I've been putting some things from recent time through that filter of intentions and things are looking differently. It's much easier to understand where someone is coming from when you look at all you've known of them not just one instance. Not what I THINK I know of them. People are really too complicated to just peg them, the way we all do. But actually knowing them, which is tough even long married couples struggle with misunderstandings. So odds are most times, I just need to give people the benefit of the doubt.



I want to live according to truth not make mistakes based on emotions, false conclusions.


The problem is for me it's hard to train my mind, my character, to choose. I keep trying and there is growth, at least I"m to the point I can sorta see the "log".

Change is good, no matter how small the increments. :)

I"m so grateful for all the people who have imparted things in my life so that my life changes for me,for my family,for future family.