Not everything that is permissible is wise (boys, dogs, eating tp and a baby in a toilet)

I was almost asleep around 11pm one night a few weeks ago when this conversation with myself was going through my head. I sat up and knew I had to write it out.  I had forgotten about it until just now, so I've come back to reassess it.  That's how my blog works.  Sometimes they flow out of me almost as if they've already been written and sometimes they take a while to take shape.  (Isn't that just a good metaphor for how God works, in general?)  I have drafts from over a year ago that may never get written and may be born in a year.  Who knows.  Alright, here goes...

Not everything that is permissible is wise.

We spend so much of our time fighting for our freedoms and causes in order to do and be who we want that I feel we forget what we're fighting for.  Sometimes we just end up fighting to have the most well-spoken, airtight argument. Fighting to win. 

Oh wait, why were we fighting again? Oh that's right, I wanna win.

I read this idea in a book once, I'll paraphrase.  It was Steven James (of course, my fave).  Imagine two ways to eat cereal (I choose the ultra healthy Golden Crisp with the mascot "Sugar Bear").  

**The 1st way, you open the box, peel open the plastic, pour the cereal and milk into a bowl and eat it with a spoon.   

**The 2nd way, you eat the box surrounding the cereal first. Then eat the plastic. Then, you move onto the cereal.

Is the 2nd way legal? Yes. Can anyone stop you? No. But is it wise?  Not sah much.  Can you even IMAGINE the stomach problems that would arise from this?  

I started thinking about this when I realized that I can't seem to respond on anyone's posts on Facebook. I'm a wimp.  I'm too worried that-even when just expressing my opinion-the poster will be so busy crafting their rebuttal they won't even hear me. It turns into a battleground and suddenly I'm wearing fatigues and my typing thumbs become swords.

WAIT! I didn't sign up for this! 

But, I sorta did when deciding to hit "enter" on a comment, which is why I've just stopped for a long time on anything that isn't surface level.  When did we become a community that gets angry simply because someone disagrees with us? Anger anger anger.  I HAVE THE RIGHT TO BE ANGRY.  Yeah...but, why would you want to be?

So I don't often say anything and I'm ok with that most of the time. It's too worrisome waiting for a reply that I'm scared will prove they've taken what I said the wrong way.  I imagine that reply, then imagine what I'd type back, then imagine imagine imagine.  I"ll just keep posting pics of half naked 4 year olds wearing puppies.  

Chill haters, he's got on undies under all that fur.  

Except... sometimes God directs me to say something, I can feel it in my very being, and I just...don't say it.  Even if it's not negative. If I can think my way around it to find how it can be taken in a negative way, I disobey.  And I hate it...

But really, y'all are grown, right?  I don't even think I give you enough credit to hear what I have to say without assuming I'm thumping the life out of you with the bible or trying to shove Jesus down your throat or judging you harshly.  So many of you don't share my views on a lot of things and are so respectful (even when I mess up.)  I'm appreciative of that.  Truly.  

Pastor Steve once taught on Ephesians 4:26-27 which is "Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil."  He focused on "be angry AND DO NOT sin."  Anger is ok. Righteous anger.  So what is righteous anger?  Ok, geez, he's going to kill me because I sort of forgot WHY this is (something to do with a greek word??), but I know he said when anger accompanies something akin to sadness, it's righteous anger.  You have to want the other person's ways to change FOR THEIR BENEFIT, not so you can be right or so you can throw the answer to all of their problems in their face.  Dear Father in Heaven and Pastor Steve...sorry, I really butchered that.  

So, here is how I become angry. The foothold. Reading word after word, quote after quote from people I barely know and crafting responses in my head and feeling proud of my view and imagining maybe changing their angry hearts and... 

ENOUGH!!!!!

What am I doing???  No offense but I have to stop reading. You have just as much a right to post it as I do not to read it, so it's cool.  I'm never going to get angry at someone for just posting something.  It's your right.  

Even if you aren't taking responsibilities for your words and quotes and ideas.   Even when you're making fun of people on welfare with E-cards and HATING the president that God says to pray for and respect (1 Timothy 1-4 and even if he is truly your enemy, God says to pray for him too in Matthew 5:44).  Even when you post pictures of aborted babies and make fun of Star Wars and post every scripture you can to back up why you should hate gay marriage.  Even when you post pictures of quotes from a group called "Democrats against Republicans" or the opposite, and prove over and over to the world why your ooey gooey marriage is making you happy, or posting pic after pic of your toddler reading Jane Eyre and The Great Gatsby and pretending to not be too proud, while the rest of us are busy digging legos out of poop and making sure our toddlers aren't putting dolls in the toilet and eating toilet paper (wow, my kids mess with the toilet a LOT).  

And who the heck KNOWS what I do on Facebook that is driving everyone nuts.  I'm sure I have TONS of people who hide me.  (I wish I could say "i don't care" but if I knew who hid me, I'd be really sad and over think it, so just don't tell me)

Ok, ok, I need to calm down.  See where this line of thinking takes me?  In conclusion... (and you can apply this to life, actual conversations!  What are those?  I remember having them a couple of years ago...I think it's when you call people and have dinner together and (gasp!) answer the phone.)

Is what you're posting wise? Does it promote the greater good or does it only promote an agenda filled with misinformation and assumptions and fear-mongering?  PLEASE be accountable for what you post.  It's so easy on FB to be the person you are not in real life because you don't feel as accountable online.  There aren't living, breathing bodies in front of you to take the brunt of your words, just pictures. If people don't agree?  Eh, delete what they say.  If they come against you?  DUKE IT OUT, IT'S FUN!  But, then you start liking it and worse, getting used to it.  

We were never meant to like it.  

(Psalms 37:8, Proverbs 15:18) 

And even if you take all of the scriptures out of this post, even if you don't believe in the God who breathed these words into existence, take the message anyway.  (In fact, the same can be said about the book of Proverbs, but I shant compare myself to Solomon).  

Is what you're reading when you get on Facebook wise? Does it promote the greater good or does it only promote an agenda filled with misinformation and assumptions and fear-mongering?  You can look away, ya know (Courtney, I'm talking to you)...

We're both accountable.  Posters and readers.  Let's seek wisdom.  Let's love our Facebook neighbor as we love ourselves (Mark 12:31)

I am the main culprit here, let's make that clear.  If no one else gets anything from this, I will because I know I can't make you believe this, but when a blog comes out of me like this, I have no problem not taking credit because IT'S GOD.  I think in the future we'll be able to look back at when Facebook became really popular and it'll have a name...an age when blah blah blah happened and society quit caring as much for one another and quit having human contact.  The Nah Nah Nah Boo Boo Age or something.

I really do (obviously) like Facebook and think it has proven to have so many positive traits and there are so many ways to actually KEEP in contact with it, it's just limitless.   But, I have to ask myself, why am I on earth?  My answer is to glorify God. 

(http://www.gotquestions.org/purpose-of-life.html is a good resource for finding your purpose in The Word. Better than I can do here.)  

So, when I use words, decide to open my mouth, type out a response, I need to ask myself is this glorifying to God?  

How we chose our new daughter's name

I saw the meaning of the name before I saw the name. I'd never considered it. But it kept creeping up. No names were sticking and I kept saying it out loud and asking Isaac what he thought (he loved it). I asked mom (she loved it). They LOVED it. I LOVED it. It felt...right.

I just knew on Easter and announced it to the family.

After months of loving the meaning I thought it meant something like "grace" but I was wrong. There are different meanings to this name, but what I wrote down was "freedom" and "peaceful". I saw this AFTER we'd decided on her name.

The meaning "freedom" really stuck out. Mere months ago, after two years of searching, the chains fell off and I found freedom. From everything. From my past, from assumptions, from issues I STILL have, from me. Freedom has been such a part of my journey and I accidentally named my daughter something that means "freedom"? On Easter? Really, God??? Sometimes He blows me away...

Suddenly all worries of "will this name get crazy popular because it could get trendy?" became ridiculous. Who cares? This is her name. My daughter.

We will welcome Willow Gracen in late summer. 

(picture from a bracelet that Zoe is making)

What also got me was the description of a Willow Tree.

"Willow trees are known for their grace, flexibility and resilience". 

Resilience. "an ability to recover from or adjust easily to or change" Yes. I want that for all of my children.

I imagine... the branches swaying beneath whatever the wind throws at them but never breaking. Resilience.

I imagine... the lyrics "loves like a hurricane I am the tree. Bending beneath the weight of your wind and mercy" 

Resilience.

I imagine... gracefulness. A dancer, maybe? A painter?  I can't wait to see.

As for Gracen, it's my mom's favorite name and it seemed to fit the meaning so well.

Freedom. Peace. Resilience. Grace.

The meanings of our kids' names are very important to us (not that it has to be for everyone).  Zoe is "life",  Asher means "happy and blessed."  Now Willow with "peaceful and freedom." If we had to sum up the legacy of our childrens' names in a sentence, it would be:

A happy and blessed LIFE full of peaceful freedom.  

Shut me up

As with all my blogs I started writing about one thing and ended on another. That is my writing flaw on anything longer than one paragraph. Flow...continuity. 

 Bear with me.

I realized today that I need to grow thicker skin. That means taking what people say/write (in response to me especially) sift through it for useful info and throw out the rest.  After-all,  that person has just as much of a right to say/write what they do as I have. I just need to learn to hear/read it and then move on.

But I'm a weenie.

While some people thrive on debate and heated conversation, I wither.

Sometimes I KNOW I should post something, even if it's sort of silly, but am so scared of how people may take it that I don't do it. Even when I'm just trying to be funny.  Even when I feel God is saying "write."  

It's why I try. I SWEAR TO YOU, readers, I try to only post as the Spirit leads.

Because either way if someone even politely disagrees I'm a sweaty, heart pounding MESS hoping and praying I respond in a respectful way that makes my Heavenly Father proud and makes the reader not feel attacked in anyway. I don't want to be proud of my wit, I want respectful conversation.  I usually end up having the conversation in my head while taking a shower and feel pretty proud of how I could have responded.  Yeah.  

So imagine when people are just jerks because they can be and argue for fun. I become a mess. Thank goodness I don't deal with that very often. 

But sometimes God calls us to be the unpopular voice of truth. I gotta be honest. I hate that calling. I don't want to be that.

The good thing is, though, that when I know my words are given by the Spirit at least I can be confident, no matter the lash back, I was meant to say/write those words.

I'm on Facebook a lot (as you know) and so I have times when I feel like I talk about God too much or I get scared that I'm shoving him down people's throats.  Both feelings one should NOT ignore.  In the midst of those feelings,  I need the reassurance that NO MATTER my feelings, I don't live by those. I live by the Spirit's urges and nudges. If I didn't know that, I could never post anything.  So, that is why I try really hard to post as the Spirit directs.  

(Let me say here, I don't give readers/responders enough credit. They're grown, they can ignore/hide me if they please right? But I have a certain responsibility to live the Word of God for those not reading it. I don't take that lightly)

It's not just the spiritual stuff but the daily goings on in my life. Is what I'm saying glorifying God in my life? Can people see the joy of the Lord that is within me in the midst of my Facebook post about morning sickness and Asher peeing off the porch and Zoe slamming her bedroom door and sobbing because I didn't listen to her "right"? 

 I hope so.

I miss the mark. Probably more often than I know, but we all do that. As we listen to His leading we'll get to know His voice and it'll be harder and harder to push it behind the voices of people, the media, Facebook, twitter, mom groups, evangelists, my own Pastor.

None of the above is my God, yet I've made them that -probably at points all- in the same day.

Lord, forgive me.

Help me.

I want my life to be a bright shining beacon for the lost. And not because of what I'm doing but bc of what You're doing in me. YOU ONLY.

Be. My. Words.

Invade my life.

Please.

Because I'm not strong enough to fight off technology and my fears. Sometimes. Most times. Always?

Be my strength.

Be my response.

Shut me up so I can speak only what is important.

I don't want to be yet another person in a long line of white noise.