Sorry to those of you who have been waiting for my Sunday Stirrings post to go up. If you are a follower of Fruit Inspection you may remember earlier this week when I mentioned that my house was still fully decked out in Christmas attire, so I finally took everything down this afternoon. It took a while, but YAY, that’s over and now I can move on with life in 2010.
I answered a couple of questions this week about Sunday Stirrings, so let me just say again that anyone and everyone is welcome to join us in our weekly reflection on how God is moving in our lives. No invitation necessary. Mr Linky is super easy to use, and even if you don’t have a blog, feel free to post a comment about what is stirring in your heart. Other FAQ’s can be answered here.
I don’t know about you all, but my lesson this week came in the form of forgiveness. More specifically…forgiving myself.
I thought about naming this post “Hormones” and then trying to figure out if they are truly God’s creation or simply Satan’s tool of destruction. Probably both. At least in my house.
To say that I was irritable and short tempered this week would be an understatement. Think Godzilla with the cruel sarcasm of Perry Cox and that’s what my kids had to endure this week.
I’m not proud. It was a disgusting display.
But seriously, what is it about PMS? It’s like having an out of body experience. The voice of reason is still there. It’s in shock, but it’s there. It’s saying, “What are you doing???? Have you lost your mind????” Unfortunately I can’t hear it over the ranting and raving of a woman gone completely mad.
Then it’s over. Like flipping a switch. And I look around at the destruction. Fear in the eyes of a child. Tears in another. What have I done? Why can’t I stop??? And why does it seem to be getting worse as I get older, instead of better???
I ask all these questions to the Lord in prayer. I beg for forgiveness and wonder why He would bother to give me another chance. The next day I’m still wrestling with it. “Please forgive me”, I say again.
I talk to my mom. The guilt is eating me up. That night before bed, “Lord, I’m sorry.”
Then I thought of the words I read once by Beth Moore. She was devasted by a sin she committed and repeatedly asked God to forgive her. She read one day in Luke chapter 5 and God spoke to her heart. “Beth, my child, you have an authority problem. You think you can do your part, which is repent. You just don’t think I can do My part, which is forgive.”
I never thought about it that way before. By continuing to ask forgiveness, it’s like I didn’t trust God to hold up His part of the promise. And even though I’m still not sure what to do with all the guilty feelings I have over what happened, I do know that God is faithful. He has forgiven me. Now, I just need to forgive myself.
2 Comments
Beth just said in our study tonight we often think: “If (such and such) is forgiven, then that will make it alright. And it’s not alright.”
But, forgiving will not make the ACTION alright…. forgiving makes YOU alright.”
And for what it’s worth, I think PMS is just a state of ‘less filtering’. It’s all the stuff that would normally bother you, it’s just that you normally have a better filtering system. :) Kinda has a way of amplifying the small stuff.
Like Jess said “forgiving will not make the ACTION alright..forgiving makes YOU alright.” I find when I keep saying things that are not alright to think about the fruits of the spirit. Which ones do I need to use in this situation? How would Christ act toward this person? Proverbs 12:18 brings out the tongue can be like a sword, if we speak without thinking first. Thank God for his forgiveness.