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Starring: a dad, a mom, a son & daughter-in-law, a daughter & son-in-law, another daughter & son-in-law, 1 teen, 1 grandson, 3 granddaughters, 4 dogs, and a whole lot of love.






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Thursday, February 16, 2012

Joyce Meyer Strikes Again

Yep. Her advice for "enjoying everyday life" bit me again. This time, it was in the form of a 2 part message on jumping to judgement. The lesson was to stop reacting to any situation right away, but instead take some time to seek how God wants you to react.

I thought I learned that lesson 2 weeks ago. We received a voice mail from the lunch lady at school informing us that we had "a situation" to discuss. Of course we assumed it was Z because if there's going to be "a situation" in the school cafeteria, he's not only going to be involved, but probably be the ringleader.

After talking to the lunch lady, I found out it didn't involve Z at all, but rather K. She'd already left for school and I sat fuming about her punishment and I couldn't believe I'd have to wait 7 hours to deal with her. I even text Z and instructed him to "tell her she's in big trouble when she gets home." He text back, "No. I don't know what she's done, but it serves no purpose to upset her at school."

I hate it when teenagers show more maturity than I do.

Over the course of the day, I calmed down and did some praying. Miraculously, by the time she stepped off the bus, I was in a state of mind to have a rational conversation with her and we together came up with an appropriate punishment that suited the offense, as opposed to my original idea which was to ground her until the lunch lady retired.

So as I listened to Joyce Meyer yesterday, I arrogantly nodded my head and agreed that being slow to react worked for me 2 weeks ago and I pompously pictured myself teaching those who hadn't yet learned what I'd already mastered.

A mere 5 hours later, a series of events happened and I totally blew it.

My downfall started when our daughter, A, who is just weeks away from turning 16, asked if she could turn our mini-van around in the driveway. What could go wrong? Three minutes after walking out the door, she returned sobbing and telling us she hit the brick post beside our house. I stopped and prayed so that I would react appropriately. I started yelling, threatened to use her youth group fundraising money to pay for the damage and then posted what she did on my Facebook without asking her permission.

Fifteen minutes later, while my husband and son worked on our demolished bumper, I turned around to see 3 of our barn cats involved in some sort of mating ritual. I stopped and prayed so that I would react appropriately. I ran stomping my feet wildly toward the cats loudly yelling about having a daughter who totals our van in the driveway and cats who desecrate our garage.
I bet our neighbors love us.

Three hours after that, I walked into the kitchen to witness one of my family members lick the peanut butter off of a knife and then dip the licked knife straight into the jelly jar. I stopped and prayed so that I would react appropriately. I flew off the handle and gave an over detailed account about germs and left the room with a dramatic sigh of disgust accompanied by my infamous eye roll.

When I said before that my downfall began with my daughter asking to turn the van around, I was wrong. My downfall began when I gave Satan a foothold with my arrogant attitude about having already mastered a lesson that I'd only begun to even try to work on. And my family paid the price when they had to put up with my explosive reactions.

I've since asked for my daughter's forgiveness. She was gracious enough to not only forgive me, but to allow me permission to share the story on my blog as an example of my mistake, not her's.

As for the cats, no apology necessary. And as far as I'm concerned, same goes for the person who defiled the family jelly jar. There are some behaviors that deserve some immediate stomping of feet and lessons in the growth of bacteria.

That leaves me with what to do about Joyce Meyer. Clearly, her lessons have the potential to stir up some trouble for me and in the grand scheme, my life is actually going smoothly right now and for the most part, I'm living in peace. But I'm a work in progress and I obviously have a long way to go, so I turned an episode on this morning. Her message began with how we need to bless people who treat us badly.

Oh, he** no. I'm not going there today.

*Click*

1 comment:

  1. Heh. I have to laugh because whenever I hear a message like Joyce's, then I know what is coming up next in my life.

    Learned that the hard way.

    ReplyDelete