Sometimes I get angry at a friend. We butt heads about a situation, and I feel justified in my wrath. I mean, they were definitely wrong. I am right, and as such I need to let them know, and probably everybody else. I pause.
Some days my children drive me absolutely bonkers. Okay, most days. I want to scream the roof off my house, and tell them all the ways my life was easier before they became a part of it. Yes, I love them, but in my frazzled state I feel justified to vent about the frustrations I face on the daily. I pause.
When my husband is wrong I love that I’m right. Just being honest. And a part of me wants to rub it in his face a little bit. Just a little, so he can keep it in the back of his mind in case I mess up sometime. Haha. When he does something exasperating I want to run to my friends to tell them all about it. Maybe I want to run to Facebook and tell the whole cyber world. I pause.
As a nurse sometimes my patients are not easy to get along with, and in my flustered state of mind I may want to lash out with a bad attitude. If they are the cause of their own plight I might especially wish to speak my mind. But is that out of a true desire to help? I pause.
When people disagree with me, oppose me, or wrong me I want to hit back. Not so much as a defensive gesture to protect myself, but as a selfish way to prove I’m right. You’re wrong. Nanny, nanny, booboo. I pause.
I don’t so much care if people think I’m a talented writer, although that is kinda nice. I don’t care if I’m the prettiest, skinniest woman in the room. It doesn’t matter if others think I’m a great wife or mom based on the small sliver they see on social media, but I do desire to project this. Kindness.
As a friend, employee, wife, and mother there’s one thing I want them all to know, and in fact never doubt. I want them to see I’m a lover of Jesus, not simply a bearer of the title Christian. See, the thing is when you love the Lord your God with all your heart something crazy happens. It doesn’t happen overnight, but kinda slow like so you know it’s gonna stick. When you love Jesus with everything you are it shakes life up, and it pours off the stuff that isn’t pleasing in His sight. So one day you look up and you realize, “hey, I’m living for the Lord. Like really living for the Lord.”
When you love Jesus it transforms every interaction you have. You desire to be a better parent because you know you’re the best example they have of their Savior. You strive to be a better spouse because you know happy, healthy marriages not only please the Lord, but they’re long-standing when built on His principles. You season every interaction with salt, and you shine a light cause it shows people just what God can do! He can change a life. He can reshape personalities. He can heal past hurts and make all things new. So you act like you’ve been redeemed, and you react like you’ve been forgiven before too.
On the day I pass from this world and friends and family attend a funeral service in my memory I pray that they wouldn’t simply say she was a good this or that. I just hope they’d say, “she sure did love Jesus.” I would pray that everything I am whether a writer, nurse, wife, mom, or even Rodan + Fields consultant would be driven and controlled by that thing that I really want people to know about me. That I love Jesus.