Weekend Thoughts

Hi there! It seems like Monday mornings are the time to get my thoughts down. Some Mondays, my thoughts are on what's ahead, like meal plan, schedules, and so on, but today, I want to share a little bit about my weekend. Meal plan hasn't been done yet, so that will be posted a little later.

We had a pretty busy yet low-key weekend. In other words, we faced the same craziness, yet nothing terribly exciting like an ER trip (like last weekend for Sophia's foot, no break, thank God) or anything like that.

Sadly, I was a first hand witness to anti-missional living on a few accounts. At the grocery store, as we were pulling out, this big guy in a big truck aggressively zipped past us to hurry and get the spot designated for pregnant women. I could see DH's mouth wanting to open, I looked at him, the kind of look that says, remember your children are here! He looked out the window and smiled at the guy and said, "Congratulations!" He looked at DH and said "There ain't no d%*m pregnant women here!" It was sad, but I loved DH's humorous chiding.

Then at the soccer fields.....sigh. This broke my heart. At the end of the game, when the coaches, siblings, parents and friends are to gather together to create a tunnel for the young stars to run through, something happened that was so unnecessary. ****disclaimer - the uses of the words attractive and unattractive will be used here, according to culturally and worldly expectations of attractiveness, and I do not wish to offend anyone by the use of the words - they are to give you, the reader, an idea of how things transpired **** a young-ish, "attractive" woman was approaching the tunnel line up with her hands up ready to form a tunnel. She looked up and saw that the person with which she would have had contact was an "unattractive" man so sidestepped and had contact with no one and left the man to have contact with no one. I tried to dash across to form the tunnel with him, to show him some grace and acceptance, but the children were running through and I couldn't get across, then it was over.

I saw how an action that lasted maybe 5 seconds could have possibly crushed another human being's spirit! Ugh! I felt so sad when I left. So sad.

A thought to ponder....was this woman, a mother of two, raised with unconditional love? Or was she raised to believe that she would be accepted only if she was attractive enough? Skinny enough? Was she raised to accept others primarily because of their physical appearance?

God has been really speaking to me lately about the power of our words and actions. I was able to see a strong example of the hurt that one simple decision (to act or speak) can hurt another person.

After all this, our church service was beautifully set up with an open mic. We were first given three questions to discuss amongst ourselves. They were about reaching out to others. The questions were a follow up to last weeks' sermon, which I didn't make it to because of Sophia's ER visit. Following that, three more questions were given to us and the mic was made available. What has God been doing in your life? How has He been at work? (this is so not verbatim, hehe) and How has God challenged you this week? One by one, people got up in front. They bared their souls and shared some very deep hurts and some praises and some encouragements. We were able to collectively pray for our church family members. It was a very intimate hour.

I shared how He has been at work in my life this week, and I was unable to come up with a way that He has challenged me (don't know why nothing came to mind because He challenges me all the time!) I did walk away feeling very challenged, though. All in the essence of this post. To actively pay attention to my thoughts and actions - to only speak words of encouragement to others. To live a life of loving others and making them feel loved and not condemned or discouraged.

Ps 19:14 May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.