February 13, 2011
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Grow Up!
I had the tv on a few nights ago. There was a man in the hospital and two of the doctors treating him were his daughters. They were step sisters. Two of many children this man had fathered in a number of marriages. At the hospital with him, was his current girlfriend who was younger than his two doctor daughters. The younger of the two had just about had it with her father. She was rude to him and ruder still to his girlfriend. She was constantly complaining to her older sister. In a scene towards the end, the older sister asks the younger sister, “Can’ you just be happy for him?” The younger sister gasps, “How could you even ask that after all he’s done to us…..ect, ect, ect.” And then the older sister says, “You know what? I love you, but you need to grow up.”And yes, God spoke to me through the tv again… and He told me to take that sentence to heart. “Christina, you need to grow up.” I have a streak of immaturity that I need to outgrow, some selfishness and pride I need to be purged of. And here is the childishness: I get mad at people when they don’t do what I think they should do or when they don’t treat me how I want to be treated. I am an analyzer, a thinker, a (secretive) debater. I can give a million reasons people should act and think and respond the way I think they should act, think, and respond. And God called me out on it. He brought to mind three situations that had occurred that I had presumably decided gave justifiable means for me to be just straight up mad about. He told me that this world did not revolve around me and my feelings. That my human Christina reasoning was not the measuring stick for whether or not people were acting correctly or incorrectly. He knocked me down a few notches. And can I tell you how I felt? Sure I felt ashamed and a little ridiculous, but more than anything I felt relief. Slapped with the reminder that I am not God. I am not the center of the universe, I am not the judge of peoples hearts or actions. This left me feeling like a huge load had been lifted off my shoulders. I could breathe deeper. I felt freedom. Freedom to just live. To let God be God. To take people with a grain of salt and bucketload of grace. How people treat me, how people respond, what people are thinking of me, or my husband, or my children, is between them and God. And my life, my heart, my thoughts and feelings are between me and God. I wish I could share this in a way that would leave you feeling the way I did. I wish that I could ensure it would make a real difference in the spiritual part of you – but I know that kind of enlightening can only come straight from God to you. But I pray to Him that He will do that very thing for each person that reads this story. That He would set you free from the resentment, frustration, and anger that can leave you feeling utterly defeated.
I also wish that the enlightenment I had received would have been a forever changing moment for myself, but unfortunately it was not. Just this morning a situation rubbed me the wrong way, and I was mad for a minute or two. Later at home, my husband (who had been across the room) told me that he could see frustration all over my face from where he was standing and I wasn’t even looking at him! And as if that’s not bad enough!… I am mad at him for telling me!!
I guess like most things in this journey of Christianity it is going to be something I have to walk out. It always seems to start in my heart and through time works its way out into my actions. But thank you, thank you God that I do not have to perform for Your love and acceptance. Thank you that Your feelings for me never change and that You are with me in this every step of the way even when I feel like I take more backwards that I do forward.
“work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.” Philippians 2:12&13
