LIVE A LIFE OF NO REGRETS!!: FILTERS

Quote from "Stepping Heavenward" by Mrs. E. Prentiss

"She says I shall now have one mouth more to fill and two feet the more to shoe, more disturbed nights, more laborious days, and less leisure or visiting, reading, music and drawing.

Well! This is one side of the story, to be sure, but I look at the other.

Here is a sweet, fragrant mouth to kiss; here are two more feet to make music with their pattering about my nursery. Here is a soul to train for God; and the body in which dwells is worthy of all it will cost, since it is the abode of a kingly tenant. I may see less of friends, but I have gained one dearer than them all, to whom, while I minister in Christ's name, I make a willing sacrifice of what little leisure for my own recreation my other dear darlings had left me. Yes, my precious baby, you are welcome to her time, her strength, her health, her tenderest cares, to her lifelong prayers! Oh, how rich I am, how truly, wondrously blest!"

Saturday, May 16, 2009

FILTERS

My four year old daughter was either born with no filter or it's very underdeveloped. Going in public places is always an adventure. Today while grocery shopping she discovered a girl with a piercing in her chin area and was appalled! But did she whisper her despair, oh no, no. That would be far too "polite". She loudly says "Mom, mom that girl has a nail stuck in her face! Mom, Mom, did you hear me? She has a nail STUCK in her FACE!!". Okay, once again we have "the talk". The bad thing is she's not ever truly being mean but stating the obvious LOUDLY! Like the time a friend had food delivered after the baby and she was so surprised at the size of the gentleman she let the whole house, uh, I mean, the whole neighborhood know that he was rather large. And in case anyone missed hearing her state it, she repeated it until everyone, including him, heard. I yi yi. Of course, we're all giving her the "eye". You know what I mean. The "be quiet until I have a chance to explain to you" eye. With the older kids, they get the eye signal or the shaking hand to the throat signal to stop while you're ahead quite well but then there's Emily who doesn't understand why if it's the truth...you just don't tell it. It was while pondering this that I realized my filter may be clogged. I mean, if it's He's the Truth, the Way and the Life, why not just tell it. See, my filter isn't totally clogged because I don't mind sharing Him in the food pantry ministry with strangers who come for food and we pray for. I don't mind sharing Him when it's easy or convenient either. BUT, my filter seems to struggle when I'm in a hurry, have an agenda to accomplish or just don't feel like it! So, I'm praying that my filter gets changed or cleaned quickly and that when the Holy Spirit prompts me to share....I share Jesus with all. Because if it's the Truth why not just tell it; and maybe, just maybe, like Emily I'll let the whole neighborhood hear too, who knows?