Make me look good

I melted down on my children this morning while trying to get out the door. This is a fairly common occurrence in our house. There are only three mornings a week when we have to be out the door by a certain time, and those three mornings are my least favorite times. I almost always resort to yelling at my kids who inevitably take eons to eat breakfast, think it's funny to hide on me instead of get dressed, and who have to fight me every time I say they have to wear a toque and mittens (it's January in Alberta, so this means they fight me EVERY morning).

Before the holidays, I read about dashed expectations in Donna Partow's Becoming a Vessel God can Use. She hit really close to home when she observed that all too often, her own joy evaporated because of selfish expectations.

Selfish expectations? What's that now?

I'm starting to realize that's exactly why I freak out at my kids (and my husband, but we'll save that for a later date). In the getting-out-the-door example,  it's because if we are late I take it as a reflection of my parenting abilities. It makes me look bad and I don't want to look bad. I want to look organized, put-together and efficient. Really it boils down to my own selfish expectations. I expect my kids to cooperate in the mornings so we can get to where we need to be on time in a presentable fashion, which makes me look good. In Partow's words, I am expecting my kids to minister to me. It only follows that with these kind of expectations, I am setting myself up for disaster every morning.

It is becoming increasingly obvious to me just how often my motives are selfish ones. Sure, getting to preschool on time is good for my daughter too. But I'm not yelling at her in the morning because I'm afraid she might part of her class time. I'm yelling because I don't want to look like a parent who can't get out the door on time.

Mark 10:43-45 (NLT) says, "among you it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must be the slave of everyone else. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others...". *Sigh*. Nothing about being a slave sounds particularly appealing.

Suddenly having the attitude that I am here to serve my husband and my children doesn't happen over night. This is definitely a work that I am not going to accomplish on my own.  But I truly do desire to be a more selfless person. Especially if it means I can drop my daughter off at school without all the lousy drama.

Donna Partow's Vessel Takeaways (Christmas version)

The women's small group I attend through my church recently wrapped up Donna Partow's "Becoming a Vessel God Can Use" study. I would recommend this study to any woman. Partow has a blunt, truthful way of wording things and offers practical ways of becoming more God-centered. Plus, the lessons are short making completing it each week quite manageable.

As anyone who has completed any kind of study knows, as soon as you are finished and you put the book on your shelf, everything you just learned dribbles out your ears. At our Christmas potluck a couple of weeks ago, a woman spoke about how she wrote out a list of things from the study that she wanted to focus on over the Christmas season when most of us are vulnerable to missing the point by becoming too busy and distracted. With my family arriving tomorrow, I thought this was a great idea.

Here is my top-ten list of (Christmas) takeaways...

1. Instead of focusing on all the great things I am going to accomplish or have accomplished this season (like cute xmas letters, and awesome gift finds), focus on the great things God wants to accomplish through me. Seek opportunities to give back and serve others. In other words, focus my thoughts on the fact that the season is about the glory of God, not the glory of me.

2. I am responsible for the choices I make this Christmas. God is responsible for the results.

3. As I spend time with family and friends over the holidays, ask God to help me remove the labels I've given them. God hasn't labelled them and he doesn't hold things they have done (real or imagined) against them, so I shouldn't either.

4. Instead of longing for a new Coach purse, long to know God better. Ask God for the gift of faith and peace over the holidays, instead of hoping for more stuff.

5. Instead of quarrelling with God about how he made me every time I compare myself to someone else (whose baking is better, or whose house is more perfectly decorated, or who got a new Coach purse...), ask God to help me love and accept myself exactly as he specifically made me.

6. Don't allow myself to become so absorbed and wrapped up in the busyness of the season that I miss the joy my children and husband bring to it. Ask God to adjust my attitude from expecting them to do things for me. Towards my husband and children, ask God to help me be thoughtful but not moody. Helpful but not bossy. Thankful but not critical.

7. Don't allow myself to become so absorbed and wrapped up in the busyness of the season that I don't spend some quiet time honoring God and thinking about the baby Jesus who was born. The Christmas season shouldn't be about filling my life with more commitments, more activities, and more stuff, but about celebrating and reflecting on the birth of Jesus.

8. Ask God to help me let go of the expectations, hopes and dreams I hold for how I want this Christmas to be, in order to make more room for him.

9. Seek to be filled with a joyful, forgiving attitude over the holidays. Instead of expecting the people around me to provide these things, or a Christmas show or carol, look to God to provide them.

10. Listen for God's voice and act as he directs.

Merry Christmas.

Herding cats

I was thinking the other day about how before I had kids, I would stand firm about not to doing anything "Christmassy" until December 1.

Now Christmas seems to sneak up on me towards the end of November despite my best efforts to hold it off. Does this happen to anyone else? At the start of November, Christmas still seems so far away. But suddenly at the end of the month it feels like I will never get everything done. Like as soon as I turn the calendar over to December it's pretty well all over. I can't believe we're into December. Happy New Year everyone!

I've spent the last week making to-do lists, writing a family Xmas letter, getting photos developed to make into mini-albums for grandparents, making calendars for parents, buying the ingredients for a bake-off, buying containers and tags to put the baking in, planning our annual ugly holiday sweater party, making a Xmas gift list, writing a letter to Santa, decorating the house, shopping, cutting up school photos to put in cards, and of course writing out Xmas cards. Oh the cards. I feel like we send out a ridiculous number of cards. The result of moving towns every three years and having a large family. And EVERY year I make the same mistake: I buy 36 cards thinking I can pare down our list to under 50. Then I end up having to develop more photos and buy more cards when I run out. I really AM a slow learner!

All this business and December is just beginning! At first I enjoy these activities, but then they start to overwhelm and frustrate me. I start to feel like I'm racing around trying to herd cats.

The holiday season is a pretty good representation of my life in general. I create a lot of busy work for myself. My husband complains that I can never just sit. Upon reflection (prompted by the book Becoming a Vessel God can Use by Donna Partow), I really do seem to run through life aimlessly but at a frenetic pace. The result is that I am pretty much at where I was 3 years ago, even 6 years ago! I might get promotions, or accumulate more stuff but I have the same complaints about not knowing what I should be doing. How I should be passing the time. Donna Paltow has given me a clue and it has reflections of Rick Warren's A Purpose Driven Life, so I've picked that one up to retread over the holidays. The resounding message is that discovering your God-given purpose for your life will drastically simplify your life and give it more meaning. As the Christmas season ramps up, this appeals to me more than ever. I just hope that in my excitement and anxiousness to discover what my purpose might be, I don't get discouraged and frustrated If things aren't immediately clear. And let's face it, they rarely are.