Welcome to No Fear Friday. I day when you can get a dose of grace from the Lord and reality from me and my flaws. I hope that by being transparent, it will help you face fears long held inside and allow you to live a life of Freedom from Fear through Christ's saving grace.
It took me a little while to get this post started. I was wrestling with a huge issue that came up this week with my Mother-in-law. Frustration came to a head on Wednesday and I blew up at her. I was right (not sure why I had to write that.....) but the whole time I was thinking about it and talking to my husband about it, I had this voice in the back of my mind saying, "but what does she think? She thinks I am wrong and she thinks I am a bad mom" and worse I kept thinking "what is she going to tell others about me and this fight?"
My husband is a very wise man. He has asked me on many occasions "Why do you care?" I shouldn't care but I do. I want everyone to think I am a great mom and the best wife and a wise parent. I think we all do. Do you? Do you then wonder if this is what others say about you?
The problem with this kind of thinking is it then makes you second guess your decisions because you are worried about what someone else thinks about it. This will eventually lead you to make some very poor decisions because they were based on fear instead of confidence. After I slept on it, I think maybe I needed this crisis to finally say the same thing my husband has been saying for years..... "Why do I care!" I have decided that that kind of fear will not help us to raise the kind of kids I know the Lord wants us to raise. So I am saying, I don't care what others think about my decisions. I will continue to do what the Lord wants and has put in our hearts. (This by no means means that I shouldn't make sure I am not hurting anyone with my attitude or being hurtful in the process).
I also need to give myself a measure of grace to fail at times and not beat myself up so much or care what others think about my rules, etc. The Lord is the one I have based my rules on so it really shouldn't come as a surprise when the world may not agree with them.
These small trials all work me like clay and get the hard parts kneaded out of me. If I let Him work me like clay, I will eventually be fired into gold.
I only have one person to answer to at the end of the day and that is the Lord. He is the one I should be saying the 'What does He think about how I did today?"
Always being renewed,
