Beth Moore rocks my world

I am so blessed to be in a weekly Bible study program called Community Bible Study, aka CBS. This is an international program, and I HIGHLY recommend finding this in your area and attending if you are able. A few weeks ago in class, we were discussing the fruits of the spirit. Our leader asked us to think about what fruit we needed to work on. One lady spoke about how she was always working on self control with her family. How she was generally a pretty patient person, but God had showed her that she needed to have more self control with her children and husband. This hit me right between the eyes. Another woman spoke about the same thing. She said that God had been showing her that being a wife and mother was her job and that she had to work harder on self control with her family. Wow... again.

Before this, I had always thought about self control as a physical thing. Like diet and exercise. And trust me, I could use a big dose of self control in that area too. But as those wonderful women showed me, self control goes farther than that.

How about I use a little self control in the mornings when my kids decide it is time to get up at 5am? Some mornings I huff out of the room making as much noise as possible because I think my husband should be up if I have to be.

Hello, Sarah. You are a mother to two small children. That is your job. Show some self control.

And what about showing some self control when you speak to your kids? Don't get irritated when Jackson has said "momma" about 168 times before it is even 7am. SELF CONTROL.

So needless to say, I've been working on the self control. And as per His usual, when God is working on something in me, he gives me a bazillion reminders. I read this on Beth Moore's blog this morning.

"My devotional time this morning was spent on the subject matter of anger. I thought to myself how life offers one opportunity after another to get hopping mad about something...or, more often, toward someone and what kind of price we pay. What kinds of words we say. Proverbs 16:32 (NET) says, "Better to be slow to anger than to be a mighty warrior, and one who controls his temper is better than one who captures a city." Let's quit blaming our hormones and our husbands and our workplaces and just bring our anger problems before God. Let's tell Him what we're mad about, repent for our reaction to it, ask Him to tend to us, heal us, free us. And, if the situation or relationship continues to be irresistibly, understandably infuriating, may He teach us how to refrain from sin in our anger until we can be loosed from it altogether.
For those of us who don't have one of those monumental, overwhelming reasons to be angry and we're just temperamental, irritable, and summarily lacking in self-control, sometimes it's just the matter of making a choice. As my grandmother used to say, we can get glad in the same clothes we got mad in.
Or, then again, we could just change clothes and see if that would help. One way or the other, it's time to get over it."

See that part right there in red? Yeah, that was straight to me. Thanks, Beth. I needed it. I don't have any reason to be angry. I am just easily irritated. And as Beth said, I can make a choice to not be that way. And I choose to do that, one situation at a time.

Sarah's Simple Pleasures

-The smell of hot pavement after an afternoon thunderstorm.
-Family dance parties
-When my hydrangea starts having blooms
-A clean house
-Cuddles from my sweet boys
-When Jackson tells me he loves me, for no reason at all
-The way Kyle smells
-Swimming
-Warm days at the park
-Spending an afternoon with my mom
-Pedicures
-Gardening, and being able to harvest
-Finding an unreal bargain
-Fresh, clean, sheets on the bed
-Open windows
-Summertime drives at dusk
-Waking up to birds chirping
-The smell of the beach & sunscreen
-Cooking something my family loves
-Fresh cut grass
-Someone commenting on how cute or well behaved my kids are
-Making silly plans for the future with Kyle