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Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Starting from Scratch

I went to sleep last night as Mama to two fresh-faced, blue-eyed boys I could carry at the same time and somehow woke up as Mom to one 195 pound man-child who towers over me and one near-teen who whips us all at Boot Camp on Kinect.

Or that's how it feels anyway.  I blinked, and they're almost grown.  And almost gone.

Life happened, and I let myself focus on the dailies instead of the forevers.  I've been more caught up in the doings of life than the impact of living life together.  Somewhere along the way, I lost track of what being Mom is all about.

All to soon, I am in danger of waking up to morning bear hugs being replaced with the occasional call home from college or boot camp.

Thankfully, God has a way of yelling at me when I ignore His whispers.  He has been known to use a 2x4 to get my attention.  This one came in the form of an article from Preparing the Soil.

At first glance, Janet's thoughts on giving her children her "Best Me" felt like warm fuzzies.  Oh, what a nice little list of ideals!  (I fully admit to having intermittent bouts of masquerading as Captain Obvious.)  As I read the explanations behind the warm fuzzies, I realized I talked to my boys about these characteristics, but I failed to LIVE them out on a daily basis.  And not just with my sons, but my husband also.  If there were remedial spouse & parenting classes, not only would I be in the class, but I'd be the one in the corner wearing the dunce hat of old.  Just saying.

I read the article, prayed the article, re-read the article, and decided to share the article with my family in an attempt to give them my "Best Me" as a promise to salvage the time we have left.  So I went to work in Photoshop typing it up all pretty to present to them as a nifty flip chart.

All that time absorbing and then regurgitating Janet's words paid off.  That's when God smacked me upside the head with a fistful of conviction followed by a swift kick of urgency in the rear.  The warm fuzzies are the Fruits of the Spirit from Galatians 5:22-23.  Hello!  Captain Obvious has left the building.

So here I sit in My Bare Garden completely void of the Fruits of the Spirit.  Well, that's not exactly true.  I'm sure if you looked hard enough you could find some puny remnants of love and joy and maybe one or two more.  But trust me, patience, self-control, the REALLY hard ones, not so much.  And not even enough of the aforementioned to give them a second look.

My goal for 2012 is to study each of the fruits in Scripture along with other resources, get out of the way, and let the "Holy Spirit produce this kind of fruit" in my life.  It will be dirty; it will be messy; it will be painful; it will be grand!  (I'm sure someone will have to remind me of that last statement at some point.)

This blog will be my gardener's journal, a means for me to share what I'm learning, my struggles, my failures, and eventual successes.  I hope to post weekly; it may be more or less; and occasionally be totally irrelevant.  (Captain Obvious' friend Sergeant Random takes over frequently.  You were warned.)

Full disclosure, I have killed every plant I have ever tried to grow.

This will truly be an Act of God because there is nothing in me that could begin to cultivate all that I long to be to my family apart from the power of the Holy Spirit.

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2 comments:

  1. Well I'm inspired!! Sounds like a wonderful start to me! Can't wait to read more as the weeks and months pass! :)

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  2. Thanks, friend! Hold me accountable!

    ReplyDelete