Does Your Reflection Show Your Love?

I avoid the mirror.

It's a habit from when I was a teenager and deep into my eating disorder. I still have a distorted view of my body (I see fat where there isn't any) so the habit is still there. It might be a little amusing to watch me spend time in the bathroom and only look in the mirror once or twice.

I need this.

I know a lot of people feel that children reflect their parents' parenting. (Sometimes I hope that's not true because my son is a typical 3 year old!!) This morning he parroted something that I didn't like to hear. Jonathan (18mo) dumped out a baggie of crackers. This is typical for him and his general age group (just an FYI to new parents: 12mo-24mo is a lot of dumping) I asked them to pick them up and put them back in the bag. As I walked away to get some water I hear Franklin say, "It's you fault, Jonathan."
I froze.
He wasn't being ugly about it. He was very matter of fact. I calmly asked him to repeat what he said to make sure I heard right (this was before coffee...I mishear all sorts of fun things before coffee) He did. I did.
My heart broke a little bit. Is that how he hears me? Have I said that to him? Maybe he heard it on a show... Is he a reflection of how much I love them?

2 Corinthians 3:18 says Our faces, then, are not covered. We all show the Lord's glory, and we are being changed to be like him. This change in us brings ever greater glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. (NCV)

The King James puts it this way:
But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.

We're supposed to be a reflection of God's love. Just like we want our children to reflect our love for them. Sometimes, especially on Facebook, I see so many Christians being downright hateful. Jesus loved everyone. He didn't APPROVE of everyone, but he sure loved them. I think that we forget that sometimes. Loving someone and showing them the love of Christ isn't the same as showing them approval of their behavior...but it's hard to be loving and condemn someone to hell in the same breath (or comment box).

Linking up

I Don't Have Faith In Myself

This morning I was lying awake (I do that) and thinking about all of the things I wanted to get done today. I kept thinking "I can't do everything" and trying to prioritize. At one point I thought, "Why don't I have faith in myself to get it all done?"

That's when it hit me.

Source

Duh. Trying to have faith in MYSELF is why I haven't been able to succeed.

I'm not supposed to have faith in myself to get things done; I'm supposed to have faith that God will give me the strength and tools to get things done.

By trying to focus on faith in myself I was basically telling God that I didn't need Him and I'd figure it out on my own.

Yeah...you can see how well THAT'S going!


So if you've been trying to figure something out and feel like you're hitting a wall...stop and pray. I have a bit more peace about the situation knowing that *I* don't have to be in charge! That's my prayer for you: Peace.

It's pretty clean...right?

If you walk in my kitchen right you'd think it was clean. It's not spotless by any stretch of the imagination...but it's mostly clean. Cluttered...but clean. (Did I drive that home yet?)

Yeah...so not my kitchen.

I was in the middle of patting myself on the back for being able to wake up to a clean kitchen...and then I got into the freezer.

The freezer handle (it's the drawer kind) is sticky. It's probably jelly (the boys love jelly). If you look under the stove there's a small toy/dirt collection. I don't want to talk about under the fridge!

So I got to thinking...isn't life like that sometimes?

We think things are fine as long as we don't dig deeper and don't really evaluate ourselves. If we stay on the surface and just "get by" we're convinced that everything is just fine. It isn't until we take a good, hard look at ourselves that we realize we still have dirt in the corners and messy areas that need to be cleaned.

Today I'll be cleaning hidden areas...both literally and figuratively. What areas will you be cleaning?