Once, when I was a child, I thought everyone was laughing WITH me until I suddenly realized they were laughing AT me!
Wait, that still happens to me, and it happened just last week!
(On reflection, I don’t know whether people were laughing AT or WITH me last week, but does that part REALLY matter, anyway?!)
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We enjoy publishing a letter and sending it to all our friends and family for the Holidays.
In this letter, we tell you some of the embarrassing things they (the other family members and friends) said last year!
(Yes, I take notes on what my friends and family say all year, JUST for this express purpose!)
For some reason, however, not many people talk to me much at the beginning of each year, and they seem a bit sulky. But don’t worry – it doesn’t last long!
I’m glad that YOU like me, at least!
I was looking at my husband with tears filling my eyes after I opened a glimpse of pain deep within my heart.
Andy looked back at me and . . . smirked (!)
Me: “Why are you smirking!?”
Andy: “I think you’re just PMS-ing.”
Andy laughs.
I realize he’s probably right and think, “You know you’ve been married a long time when…”
While driving to the ski hill:
Me to Andy: “Why don’t we drop off our ski boots first this time and then…” etc.
Andy: “But I always do it the same way!”
I thought, “Well, I guess that topic has now been exhausted for all time!”
I can sense a compliment coming. I wait in eager anticipation:
Andy: “Thank you for being so… nice.”
Me: (!!!)
The perils of playing board games with homeschooled kids:
I borrowed a board game from the library based on the movie “Dune.” We recently watched the movie together as a family.
Kyah: “I can’t play that board game!” she announced, frustrated.
Me: “Why?”
Kyah: “I haven’t finished reading the book yet!”
Me: “Maybe you want to play squash with me sometime, Kyah?”
Kyah: “Well, I don’t know. I’m pretty aggressive…” (Even though the wind blows her over sometimes)
Kyah continued, “And I also have martial arts, so I’m pretty busy…”
Kyah: “But I love you so… Yeah, sure.”
Andy called me when he was out buying groceries from the list I wrote for him:
Andy: “So when it says, ‘soy sauce,’ do you mean… ?” He lists 10 related items and brands.
Me: “No, when I say ‘soy sauce,’ I mean the stuff that isn’t actually soy sauce. It says ‘liquid aminos’ or something like that on the bottle.”
Andy: “Oh, ok.”
Andy: “When it says ‘noodles- mushroom’, what kind of noodles are those?”
Me: “Those are the ones that aren’t actually noodles. They just look like noodles. They’re long and thin. They’re in the mushroom section. I don’t know what they’re called.”
Etc.
Etc.
Me: “I feel better because I fasted and prayed today. It gives me hope.”
Andy: “I didn’t fast, but I did have a chicken salad sandwich from X restaurant today, so . . . that probably counts.”
Me: (?) “And why is that?”
Andy: “Because it’s not very good! I didn’t have lunch from Y restaurant!”
So, “fasting” for Andy means eating out at a lower-star-eating establishment. Well, we all start somewhere!
I offered our friend a chocolate chip cookie. She excitedly stretched out her hand to take one, but then a look of horror came over her face, and her hand hovered above the plate mid-air.
She asked with increasing trepidation, “Wait. These don’t have black beans or something like that in them again, do they?!”
Happy New Year, friends.
(May you laugh much at your ridiculousness in the coming year, too!)
God will let you laugh again
Oh, and remember!
The next time you say something stupid (i.e., today?), don’t forget to send it to me so we can laugh at you, too, next January!
You’re welcome!
Good luck!
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The first step is to be cool.
You’ve always wanted to know how to be cool, too.
And I’ve figured out how to find our inner cool!
But why do you want to be cool? It’s essential to evaluate our motives. If we are cool, then people will like us! And by “like,” I mean “like” the things we say on social media! Then we can feel important!
And this is how we know we have significant lives!
For example, in the book Deep Work, Cal Newport says that social media is popular because we agree to certain codes of conduct with our friends that make us feel important! For example, we agree to like every inane and boring comment that our list of friends says, as long as they obey the unwritten rule to also like our inane, superficial and uninteresting comments.
Cal Newport states that if we wrote the comments on a blog that we write on social media, we would have precisely 0 readers.
In contrast, people read this blog! Last week, I learned that people from 24 countries have read this blog (Seriously!). Why this level of success, you ask?
1. One reason could be that I constantly write incredibly jaw-dropping, interesting facts. However, we all know that you laugh at me whenever I say something particularly insightful, so saying interesting things can’t be why you read this blog.
2. The unusual favour could be because God sometimes whispers between the words to mysteriously touch your soul, which should be the case for all of us who learn to listen to and follow Jesus- He speaks through our lives. (So no, I’m NOT saying I’m special (you Loser!) because we’re all losers -but this is good news!– remember?)
3. I am finding my inner cool. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I am cool quite yet, but perhaps that is a matter of opinion.
I prefer to assume it’s Option 3.
So yes, how do we find our inner cool? Good question. This way:
1. Think of things that cool people do!
2. Do those things.
3. Wait to be covered in cool, too!
Here’s an example from my own life recently.
1. Cool people surf.
2. So I tried surfing for the first time last week!
3. Now I’m waiting for the cool to glom itself onto me.
That hasn’t entirely seemed to happen yet. And in the photo above, for some reason, I don’t look quite as cool as those cool super dudes, but that must be the camera angle or something.
We drove to a surfing location recently, and I will have my first ocean surfing lesson soon. Wish me luck! I’ll let you know what I learn to share my insights into being cool with you!
I’m not sure exactly why, but I sense God hinting that this ancient verse below fits perfectly with today’s theme.
The market is flooded with surefire, easygoing formulas for a successful life that can be practiced in your spare time. Don’t fall for that stuff, even though crowds of people do.
My husband said that being cool is overrated. But since he’s married to me, obviously, being cool is a big part of our image! How is it possible he has never noticed that before?!
Anyway, you’re welcome!
Good luck!
“Wait, what are you doing right now?” he asked me.
I was melodramatically pretending to cry as the youth left the party.
“Oh, I’m just pretending I’m sad to see him leave,” I explained. “I made fun of him a lot tonight, and so now I’m building up his self-esteem.” The youth listened, mouth agape, staring at me.
As I’ve said before, my magnetism to youth is remarkable.
But unfortunately, we’re not supposed to make fun of millennials anymore. In fact, we’re not supposed to make fun of anyone anymore. So, at the next party, I tried to conform.
I stuffed snack after snack into my mouth in an effort not to speak.
The problem is that if we really want to do this self-esteem thing right, we shouldn’t say anything true at all. Millennials, for example, have self-esteem that is 1/4 inch thick. If we accidentally blow the truth in their vicinity, they cry or get upset. “How dare you assault me with the truth?” they retort. “Don’t you know I’m sensitive?”
And so we apologize and cower to the needs of their egos.
“You’re doing great!” we assert, every time they look up from their iPhones or get out of bed.
“I can see you are trying to do some math! You get a star!”
“You ran in a race that you didn’t even train for? You get a medal! Everyone gets a medal!”
And with all of this self-esteem and encouragement, and “Well done!” floating around, you’d think our youth would be boyoed up by all this praise and floating happily on their circumstances in life.
Of course, we all know that youth depression and mental illness are at an all-time high.
So why not try another approach?
What if we tell everyone they’re losers?
It’s counterintuitive (like all my best advice), but we can finally let our stomach fat out and relax! We can stop pretending to be someone we’re not. We can get on with enjoying the party games, popcorn and time together.
“What are you talking about?” you ask.
Well, if we could relax and let our kids relax, I think we’d have a lot more fun. We don’t have to, in fact, shield our kids from the fact that they’re messed up and that we are, too. There is surprising freedom in realizing that we are all losers.
If we are at the bottom of the pit, there’s nowhere to go but up!
Since we’ve compiled this long and sorry record as sinners (both us and them) and proved that we are utterly incapable of living the glorious lives God wills for us, God did it for us.
Hope abounds because things can only get better!
Once we stop showering accolades on each other, and accept that we are all dorks, lost on the ship we call life, the adventure can begin!
Anyone around here seen a Captain? We could certainly use some help getting cleaned up a bit, and figuring out how to work together to get all of our oars on this boat pulling in the same direction.
And so, how do we feel better?
1. We realize we are a directionless loser.
2. We find someone to help clean us up a bit.
3. We follow this person and therefore, all grow together in the same direction.
He got us out of the mess we’re in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be. And he did it by means of Jesus Christ.
And life gets a little easier!
Spiritual people, for example, those who know that they are losers because they desperately need someone to clean them up, lead them and help them all row in a similar direction, tend to struggle a bit less frequently with their mental health.*
So stop building up people’s self-esteem! Trash them instead, knowing that this is the best way to build them up! They’ll (eventually) feel better!
You’re welcome!
Good luck!
Blogpost Footnotes
*Of course, many people within the church struggle with mental health, and research is based on averages.
When we were five years old, we thought everyone was laughing AT us until we suddenly realized they were laughing WITH us.
Remember that?
Well, that happened to me recently. I’m unsure which side of the laughing AT me/ laughing WITH me continuum I ended up on. But at least my rear end isn’t THAT sore from the fall.
This story starts, like all good narratives, with dog barf.
So after the dog… ahem… expelled his undesirable digestive remains (well said?) . . . we looked around at each other, wondering what to do next. We were enjoying heartfelt gut-level sharing. I guess the dog wanted to join in in his own way.
We only had a few minutes left together and desperately needed time to pray together, to invite God into the messes of our lives that had been unearthed.
Thinking that we won’t have time to pray, I fetched paper towels to clean up the mess the dog had unearthed. Someone pleaded with me to stay. “Let’s pray together while we have time,” he said.
At another’s brilliant suggestion, I quickly covered the dog’s mess with paper towels, and we stood in a circle, sharing hearts, tears and compassion.
“Don’t step in the dog barf on your way out!” I called cheerfully.
They genuinely thanked me for the reminder, side-stepped the soaked paper towels, and left with a wave and a smile.
Years later, our dear friends complimented us about that meeting.
“Recently, we were learning about the levels of friendship,” they explained. “There are friends that you dress up for. You wear a corset under your sparkling dress to ensure you look as good as possible. You enjoy an evening with them and then put your feet up. Your stomach fat and your real selves come out later.”
Who needs another “See how great I look when I suck in my stomach” kind of friend?
“Then,” she continued, “you have the friends who invite you onto their couch when you are crying and simply move the laundry hamper to the floor so there is room for you to sit down. These are true friends.“
I teared up at her warm assessment of our friendship.
I was about to hug her, but she was still speaking.
“And you guys took it to a whole new level. We come over, and you just suggest walking around the dog barf”. The others in the room stared at us, mouths agape, not wanting to ask for elaboration. I didn’t blame them.
But yes, a compliment . . . right???
And so the secret to a healthy relationship? Get real. We get real because we want to be authentic.
1. Authentic in how we REALLY look. For example, we don’t use the “Make me look better than in real life” filters on our Zoom meetings. (Have you SEEN that function? It’s AMAZING! I WANT to turn that filter off but wow! Do I EVER look better!) Give me a break! We are all a work in progress, ok?!
2. Authentic in how we REALLY feel. For example, maybe we ask our friends to clean up the dog barf later. What we just unearthed emotionally or spiritually is a lot viler and should take precedence.
3. Authentic in our RESPONSE to our friends. We are humans clothed in the limits of time. We can clean up the dog’s barf or clean up you. Which do you prefer?
So, let’s get real.
And if that sometimes means standing around dog barf, so be it.
As a dog eats its own vomit, so fools recycle silliness.
This saying doesn’t quite fit this post, but it perfectly fits in another, less profound way. Let’s go with a partial fit today and move on. There is someone at my door ready for a cry.
Lord, teach us to order our values to reflect your heart more accurately. After a moment of stillness, consider asking God where your life may not be aligned with the upside-down priorities of the kingdom of God. Maybe He is asking you to stand around the dog barf, too!
After gabbing it up with my teenage daughter as they waited in line that day, the stranger grabbed my arm and whispered, “You did a great job with her. She is so kind. Well done, Mama.”
After I picked my ego up off the floor, where it has been the last two decades, trampled by societal expectations for a productive life (Hint – Homeschooling is not a candidate in this employment contest), I pinned my self-esteem back onto my chest, and thought, “Yes! You are right! She IS amazing!”
But the thing is, she didn’t come out of the womb this way
Even after 10,893,231 conversations in which I turned blue in the face and explained how to fit into society (i.e. NOT by wearing pasta in our hair when in a restaurant), she STILL wasn’t that easy to be around.
The POINT is that homeschooled kids are often well-adjusted because:
(1) Parents KNOW what is going on, in terms of that naughty behaviour we would rather not deal with, but that we have to address because we are spending 10,000 minutes (almost all the time) with them again this week,
(2) Parents can’t ship them off on a bus every morning, even BECAUSE they know what is going on (They would say “Thank God” if they would go on a bus SOMETIMES), and,
(3) Parents are confronted day after day, hour after hour, minute after long minute some days with the FACT that they are spending INORDINATE amounts of time with unsanctified humans.
Worse, parents are confronted with the reality of OUR need for sanctification, and this is humiliating for us. So, we run to God and beg for help on our knees BECAUSE we are ALL such desperate losers. But the sweat and tears of our prayers eventually sanctify our kids BECAUSE they receive this message of grace through our lives, as God sanctifies us.
Translation: We ADMIT we parents are losers, and then we gently reveal the truth to our child that she, too, did the wrong thing again when she smacked that kid on the head with her firetruck because she wanted HIS cupcake too.
But this grace in our lives, this deep understanding of our need for forgiveness, softens our speech a little.
do not provoke your children . . . by the way you treat them
And this broccoli seasoned with the melted cheese of our own desperate need for forgiveness becomes a food our kids can swallow.
And we both grow a little more today, our plant’s roots grasping a little more of the water that truly satisfies, and so fruit in our lives and our kid’s lives will begin to grow.
It’s a law of nature.
So let’s not allow ourselves to get fatigued doing good. At the right time we will harvest a good crop if we don’t give up, or quit.
And when they compliment you again for having kind kids?
You can sit back, relax, take a sip of a cold summer drink and know that the path of life you chose was a good one, which is bearing fruit in your life, too.
Pick some fruit from the tree of your life and enjoy it today.
Well done, Mom and Dad.
God sees your investment in your kids. His praise that you followed His lead is the food that truly satisfies. Nothing good comes without sweat and handing over our fears to God.
How are you choosing to invest your life?
What if people HAD to love you?
I figured out what my family REALLY thought about me lately, and it was a bit of a shock.
Here’s what happened.
We were reading an excellent book together as a family.
Caveat: Before you get the wrong idea of us all drinking hot chocolate and stringing popcorn and cranberries by the fire as we each take turns reading aloud together, singing a song between each chapter, aka Little House on the Prairie style, no, it wasn’t like that. It was an audiobook played in the car during our day-long drive to visit extended family. The book just helped us not to want to kill each other.
Setting the mood.
Anyway, the book was excellent. It was called Jesus Revolution. I would highly recommend it*. We all got into the story, and even the child we initially had to bribe to listen to the story with us asked for more!
At one point in the book, the author, Greg Laurie, is described as having something like “deep spiritual depth and a bit of an unpredictable, crazy personality. You never knew what he was going to do next.”
My husband looked at me sneakily out of the corner of his eye, smirking. “WHAT???” I asked. “What are you smirking about??”
“Oh,” he replied, looking away casually, “just something said in the book.”
“What??” I protested. “I’m not…!” And then he laughed, and there was a muffled chuckle, I think, from the back seats.
So I guess my family thinks that his personality describes me!
Hmmm. . .
But that’s okay because my family HAS to love me.
What do I mean, you ask?
Well, we homeschool them, so we read to them from books that say things like this:
Most of all, love each other as if your life depended on it.
Then, we go to a church where they read the same stuff.
At church, they HAVE to love you, too! If you find people who don’t love you there, find some others to love. You’ll find true believers who promise to love you no matter what your personality – even the “unusual” ones – whew!
So we can finally relax and have fun.
We’re loved!
And this reminds me of what we did last night. I bought a gift for my family – well, sort of. Okay, yes! I did buy it for myself and pretended to give it to the family!
It is called The Adventure Challenge. You scratch off an “Adventure,” and then the family HAS (Yes, teens, that word is “HAS”) to do the Adventure together. Last night, we strung out yarn as an obstacle course through the basement, and we had to go through it as fast as we could, being sprayed in the face with water each time we accidentally touched a string.
It was fun.
And my superhero outfit? Yeah, I am wearing a bathing suit over the top of my leotards. And yes, the big “S” on my shirt WAS made a spur of the moment. It helped me go faster!
I even got first place!
Before any of the others went, I was ranked first, that is.
So relax! Make your teens do fun and crazy stuff with you! If you’re unsure how, try making “fun” a prerequisite to “food,” for example! They’ll thank you later (Okay – maybe MUCH later).
Your kids are loved, too!
And that was the message of the Jesus Revolution book, actually. It was about a bunch of crazy hippy kids who were overcome, in some cases literally, by the love of God. That love overflowed to others and transformed a nation (Even Time Magazine did a cover article about this movement on June 21, 1971).
So go ahead and be the real you, whatever that looks like.
They HAVE to love you!
Blogpost Footnotes
* If bribing your kids to watch a movie with you is less expensive than bribing them to read a book, the movie Jesus Revolution can be rented here.
She rejoiced.
It happened!
She danced in the field that summer morning, praising her maker.
What He promised, quietly, with a whisper of love, that He would guide and comfort, HAD materialized.
Here is what happened.
At the women’s gathering that day long, long ago, this good mother poured out her heart to another.
The tears racked her body as she openly shared her fears.
Generational problems pursued her family. Her grandmother, grandfather, father, mother, sister, and auntie bathed in the pool of these problems. None of them had figured out how to get out of this pool, dry off, to dance in that grassy place in freedom.
They all felt like they were drowning instead.
How would her relationship with her daughters differ from what was experienced by every other family member?
The despair of this situation overwhelmed her.
They bowed their heads, these two women, and prayed together that day so many long years ago.
And God spoke, in the recesses of this desperate mother’s heart, a strategy and plan to walk in freedom, step by step, to carve out a new path from the dysfunctional road all her family member walked.
I’ll put it as urgently as I can: You must get along with each other. You must learn to be considerate of one another, cultivating a life in common.
And she was joined in marriage to a man who also longed to walk a new path, the one that Jesus walked ahead of them and beckoned them to follow.
And they did.
And years later, when their first child leaves home, they look back with a cool drink and remember the pain and branches across the path of the road they followed Jesus on. They remembered their hair and clothes full of the pieces of branches, yet their hearts grew larger each day as they learned, through following Him, how to love a little less selfishly, and pour more of their lives out on the other.
And He healed their union, their diversion from the path the others in their family travelled, with a different destination.
Their relationships with their children were healthy.
Not perfect.
Each member of this small family worked through and argued past, chopped chunks off each other, as a sculptor does to a piece of art.
But their path led to healthier relationships.
This couple celebrated the new lineage of increased unity that bonded their family, as they were all refined by this artist, Jesus.
And they danced together in that grassy meadow, this small family, for something new had risen from the depths into life.
Does anyone dare despise this day of small beginnings?
Blogpost Footnotes
*Also known as “God”
As you know or can presume from the style and classiness of these posts, I have excellent taste.
Ahem.
And I hesitate to point out, most reluctantly, that in this post, the exact BRANDS and style of clothing I was wearing were noted for interested readers! (I mention that cautiously and with true humility, of course.) In this post, I describe the fancy hat collection I am developing for use in my old age.
So yes!
I CAN EASILY advise on how to look good!
So, HOW do we look VERY GOOD at church, you ask? Great question! I’m SO glad you asked! Ahem!
First, set aside your pride and go ahead and have a big ‘ol ugly cry at church. Seriously! I describe my own (rare) undignified moment here.
You’re welcome.
But wait, wait, you ask, “How does ugly crying make us look good?” It seems the opposite would be true! You hang on my every word, waiting to discover how to lock and seal this seemingly disparent advice into a philosophically coherent indisputable argument.
I’ll explain.
The more we air our neuroses (sorry for the analogy, but it’s like flatulence), the less we smell bad! Seriously! Now, you know that I never even like to MENTION the word flatulence, as described here. However, the analogy fits SO perfectly.
When we hold in, er- what SHOULD be aired – the inside of us smells terrible, though the outside has no odour. Okay, this analogy MAY be breaking down a bit, but you get my point, I think? If we HOLD IN our neuroses, and pretend everything is okay when it isn’t, the inner neuroses pick away at us, and the rotten stench that all of us carry around with us festers there, though often we are the only ones who can smell it.
(If you think you always smell good, have you ever wondered – “AH! What IS the meaning of my life?” – JUST before you fall asleep? If so, that’s a case in point. You are more messed up than you let on, too!)
So, let out the uglies! A little cry at church is just the thing. You’ll find that people who love you bring you a Kleenex and a pat on the shoulder.
They may not be able to help you much, but they genuinely want to, which counts for something.
You see, at church, God COMMANDS others to love you. Now, granted, NONE of us are that good at loving others, but some have figured out how to channel a morsel of God’s love for us through their arms into compassion.
These are the people we can be honest with, and -no surprises here – they have already taken their turn in the ugly seat.
They are not surprised by your big cry!
And somehow, expressing what we feel is enough to keep the evil dragon at bay for a while.
Knowing that someone is praying for us helps too.
Add a little time with the Father to ask Him a bit more about WHY we were neurotic freaks at church last week and He gives us the Kleenex that is the softest kind that dries all of our tears because His Kleenex is fragranced with hope.
At church, they will read to you from a book, and it may say something like this:
And this will put a bounce in our step and hope in our hearts.
We’re not as neurotic as we thought!
Well, we are if we dig deeper, but that’s for next Sunday.
The point is, we’re not sucking in our guts anymore, pretending our way through life.
‘May it be the real I who speaks. May it be the real Thou that I speak to.’
Whatever we bring to the light can be healed.
Whatever we hide infects us, rotting away at our insides.
So let’s let our neuroses out!
And maybe after we’ve let out some of the uglies, we may shift the direction of the ship we are sailing a little closer to true north.
And as we go about our week, we’ll find we are starting to smell better!
We’ll look better, too, through God’s eyes.
When I was a child, I learned of a true story of a married couple fighting about
. . . wait for it…
whether the toilet paper roll should go on THIS way
or THAT way.
It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what they were fighting about had nothing to do with toilet paper.
They were fighting about control.
Unfortunately, even WHAT they had control over, at this level of debasement, ceased to have meaning. They just both needed THEIR WAY. It sounds a bit like hell on earth, and in fact, it is.
A fictional demon character states his goal of hell on earth this way: “All the healthy . . . activities . . . which we want [them] to avoid can be inhibited and nothing given in return. ..”
CS Lewis in Screwtape Letters
As a young adult, I had seen many relationships that ended up this way.
I wanted to learn how to have healthy relationships, so I prayed I would be transformed. I asked God to make me a perfect person who could find a perfect spouse and we could live happily ever after. But in God’s frequent way, He did offer one key
not in a flash of deep, fervent prayer, but by using real life to sanctify me.
This path was a more painful route.
Here’s what happened.
I was journaling one day, and in that season, I tended to journal about my problems to process them. I felt God asking me to journal for another 10 minutes after I would have normally finished journaling. And God asked me to do this every time I journaled that season. At first, I didn’t know why I was doing this, but I obeyed. And very soon, a painful pattern emerged.
I had many unrelated problems that I was journaling about, but each situation had the same root that caused frustration, anger, or irritation.
Control.
Everything I was upset about ultimately boiled down to “How can I get my way?”
Ouch.
Now, I am from a good, Matriarchal Italian family, and let’s say that I knew how to choose my friends and boyfriends so that I could get my way. For example, when I was a child, my dad, in despair over his inability to live harmoniously with my mom, once asked for advice. “How do you and your friend Amy get along so well?” he asked. I effused the wisdom I had intuitively gleaned from 10 years of watching my female relatives and responded with this sage advice: “Sometimes, I let us do what Amy wants.”
I liked having my way all the time.
Here’s the kicker – In that season as a young adult after examining my journaling, I realized that I had to CHOOSE to give up a good thing for me – getting my way almost all the time – for a BETTER thing – having a CHANCE at having a healthy marriage.
And I must stress that it was NOT EASY for me to not have my way all the time.
More often than I’d like to admit, it’s still not easy to lay down my way when Jesus speaks softly to me, directing me and showing me a better path. However, I want to trust Jesus more fully because He longs for me to soar into my fullest potential.
And somehow, this continues to be the place where, against all expectations, I flourish.
Our human desire for power is never to be underestimated. Our compulsive desire for control is never to be swept under the rug. Our fleshly desire for influence, ascendency, and dominion should never be ignored. If you don’t know that you hold a sword in your hands, you will wound someone. And the one who becomes wounded may be you.
Christine Westhoff in Reframing the Prophetic
God, help us to have the wisdom to exchange what we cling to for something better, the gifts You long to give. Help us to unclench our hands long enough to receive Your gifts.
You’ve observed . . . when people get a little power how quickly it goes to their heads. It’s not going to be that way with you.
Jesus Christ (the guy almost 1/3 of the world claims to follow) in The Message
Restoring Life 