I LOVED the Focus on the Family Super Bowl ad starring Tim Tebow and his Mom.
If I hadn’t heard all of the uproar and controversy before the game (like this, this and even this), I would have thought it was OK but the pre-game anger and objections made it absolutely WONDERFUL!
Where was the controversy? Where was the heavily right-leaning advocacy?
Nowhere in site, that’s where!
Instead, all we saw was a loving Mom telling us that she cares for her son.
Nothing wrong with that. Nothing at all.
I loved it. I laughed and laughed and laughed.
I wasn’t laughing because I thought that somehow the right had pulled one over on the left, I wasn’t laughing maliciously at all. If the tables had been turned, the conservatives would have been just as quick to judge and condemn.
I was laughing at human nature, that innate capacity we have of making judgments based on the most tenuous evidence.
We’ve all done it and we all do it.
Whether it’s a person who makes a bad first impression on us, someone we work with that we’ve never taken the time to get to know yet have formed an opinion about or that televangelist whose forty-plus years of ministry we dismiss because of a five minute snippet of them we once saw, we all make rash, uninformed, incorrect assumptions and judgments about people and situations.
The Focus on the Family Super Bowl Ad has reminded me to stop and take a breath before I pass judgement and make sure I make decisions based on actual facts, not my own imagination.
How about you? Have you ever got upset or indignant about something only to find you didn’t have your facts straight?
Being a blogger/tweeter you meet the most interesting people and Nancy Rosback aka @poemsandprayers aka the writer of Just Say The Word is one of them.
Nancy has been a great encouragement to me and I am very glad that she has written a guest post for me.
I’ll let Nancy take it from here:
since i am writing a post for peter’s blog, and peter is a preacher. i thought i might be fun to talk about preachers.
not that i know a whole lot about them, but, i have wondered what it would be like to be a preacher in a church.
i would think that different churches would make the job different, and yet there must be things that all preachers can relate to.
i can just imagine what the talk would be like with a few preachers sitting around a table having lunch in a conference room. commiserating with one another over coffee and dessert about the funeral one has to speak at, while another is talking about all the june weddings coming up. on the other side of the table there would be the sports talk of the season.
but, really, i wonder about the job. having one’s faith and job be the so intertwined. the expectations of so many different people being tied with my faith beliefs. i just can not help but be curious how this is actually done. for one, preachers can’t just get up every sunday and take in a sermon. though, i would think that they might like to. but, noooo! they get up and do the sermon and then have meetings after that. they are expected to talk about their job at any time in any place, and expected to be a walking talking faith machine. nobody is like that. it reminds me of how comedians are expected to always be funny. anyway, that is what i imagine it might be like.
i know that at high calling blogs, they talk about faith or spirituality in the workplace. but, with being a preacher, that is probably not an issue. yet, maybe it is, maybe it is just like any other job when it comes to faith and spirituality….maybe even harder.
I believe a lie
I believe a lie.
Lots of them actually.
It seems odd to be able to say that rationally – but it’s true.
I wrote a few weeks ago about how I’m not OK and some of the responses to that post have encouraged me to share this with you all.
- I believe the lie that I ‘can’t’.
- I believe the lie that I’m a failure.
- I believe the lie that I’m no good at anything
I believe lots of lies.
You may wonder why I believe the lies if I know they’re lies.
I know. I am too.
The problem is, these lies have become ingrained in me over decades. Years and years of accepting the lies have buried them so deep in my subconscious that they are some of my most strongly held beliefs, underpinning who I think I am.
Just trying to think that something I do is anything but a failure is alien to me and shakes me to my core.
I don’t remember ever doing anything that I have actually thought turned out well. I mess everything up. All the time.
Most days I cook dinner for eight people or more and it stresses me out every day because every day I feel like I spoil the meal in one way or another. Too much seasoning, too little seasoning, overcooked or undercooked – one way or another I ruin it.
No matter how much they say they enjoyed what I made, I can’t shake the feeling of failure.
I know my feelings are a lie and I struggle against them but when you believe you are doomed to fail at everything, how can you convince yourself that you’re not going to fail at believing you’re not a failure?
Couple these negative feelings with clinical depression and life can be pretty tough.
One day soon there will be a victory post on this blog. One day I’m going to be able to tell you how the grace and love of God have brought me through this – but not today.
Today I’m close to being overwhelmed. Today I’m still struggling, but that’s OK.
I can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel yet but I know it’s there and I’ll reach it eventually – and you will too!
If you are reading this and can identify with any of what I’m saying then hang in there with me. There is hope. There is something positive in the future.
Hold on. I’m holding on. Hold on with me.
Please.
In the days since the earthquake in Haiti, there have been thousands of incredible and heartbreaking pictures flooding the internet and our TV screens of the devastation and human suffering in that country.
On January 19th, CNN published a set of photo’s on their website which painted a stark and disturbing picture of the state of the country both in terms of the buildings and infrastructure and by way of the state of the newfound poverty and desperation of the people there.
I invite you to go look through the pictures before reading the rest of this post but I will warn you in advance, some of the pictures are VERY disturbing and sickening and you should not visit this link if you find pictures of death and disease too emotionally, mentally or physically disturbing.
I do not have the words to describe what I see in some of those pictures. The human toll of the earthquake is incredible. The latest estimates I’ve seen put the death toll at over 150,000 – although how it’s possible to accurately measure such numbers in a situation like that is beyond me,
One picture though really stood out to me. Second to the bottom of the sixth page, lies a photograph of a man apparently crushed to death by a falling building.
Now, I know nothing about this man but it seems to me that he had a strong, muscular body – and it’s probably not too much of a stretch to think that he was proud of his strength and muscle tone.
It’s most likely that nobody knows how this man came to be inside the building that ended his life. Maybe he ran in to rescue someone. Maybe he had been upstairs and hadn’t been able to get downstairs and outside in time. Maybe he was asleep. There are so many possible reasons why but there’s one fact that remains:
No matter how strong he was, no matter how fast, no matter how fit and healthy, he was no match for the deadly power of a collapsing building.
You see, no matter how hard we work, how much we try to be healthy and maintain our strength and vitality, we are, ultimately, frail, helpless beings. We are no match for the power of the forces of nature. We are tiny compared even to the things we build ourselves.
We are mere specks on this huge planet, which is itself a tiny speck in the universe, which is itself small compared to the immensity of Almighty God.
In life, the man in the CNN picture may have been a hero, he may have been a teacher, a great man but in death he has reminded me of a truth that I too easily forget:
I am only as strong as I give God permission to be in me.
What I think of as strength is insignificant in the grand scheme of things. It is only when I humble myself and allow God to work through me, to be strong IN me that I truly have any strength at all.
7To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 8Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.10That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
How about you? Do you have an inflated opinion of your own strength? Do you try to do things in your own strength and fail? How easy do you find it to humble yourself enough to allow God to be strong in you?
For some creative ways to give to the relief effort in Haiti, check out Jason and Kevin’s blogs.
Sunday thoughts – January 31st 2009
A very quick thought today:
The need in Haiti is great… very great. There is no doubt that we need to help the Haitians but don’t forget about the rest of the world.
The needs in third world countries didn’t get instantly fixed. There are millions around the world still dying of starvation, thirst and disease.
Please don’t forget them. Haiti may be getting the most air-time and may be at the center of our attention but it’s just one of many places where your help is urgently needed.
Check out places like WorldVision.org and Compassion.com to find out how you can help.
If you don’t know Helen Mignon, you’re really missing out!
If you do know her (and you may know her as HelenAtRandom or maybe the writer of Random Musings) you will know that Helen has a wonderful heart and an amazing desire to love God more deeply and serve him more fully.
Whoever you are, you can be sure to learn a lot from Helen and I’m honored to have her as a guest blogger today:
Waiting Room Reflections
It’s two in the morning, and I am in a room I don’t belong in… It is dark, except for the light from one bulb, shining over a desk. A few people pass by the big window and wave kindly. A security guard peaks in the window. A transporter walks up to him and whispers in his ear. The guard waves at me
My feet were hurting ,and swollen and, in the interest of treating myself like the friend as I said in my New Year’s Resolution, I asked myself what I would do if I were standing there with a friend whose mom was taking tests in the hospital this late and her feet were that swollen. My answer was to try the door of the closed office to see if it was locked, and suggest she sit down. So I did. Open the door and sit down I mean. I don’t actually talk to myself as if I were a separate person, though I think it works for me as a literary device.
I am amazed by the friendliness and gentleness of the transporters. When my daddy was at this hospital 17 years ago, they threw him around as if he was made of bricks. They handle my mom like she was a Faberge egg, and she has about seventy pounds on him. Don’t tell her I said that. Please. AND, they wouldn’t let me follow HIM for his tests, and HE was dying….
I am amazed by how this hospital has changed over 17 years. It’s like it has grown. It has grown in wisdom. It has grown in compassion. The very Spirit of this place is different. Ten years ago I was afraid to let my mom go to this hospital, for fear of her being treated like daddy was, and me having to lurk and hide to comfort her while waiting an hour in a hallway for a test, and perhaps another to be returned to her room. There is no waiting anymore. She goes right in for her tests, and transporters move her from cart to table and later from table to cart as gently as if she was as precious to them as she is to me…They flirt with the seventy three year old woman to cheer her, asking her which of them is more handsome. She tells the dark haired man he is the better looking, but the other seems smarter… She always liked men with dark hair.
So much has changed in seventeen years. I look at the mirror above the desk, and I see eyes which accept. Accept what, you ask. Accept whatever the next moment is offering. Accept happiness as it is offered, and that sorrow will one day come no matter how long I can avoid it. Accept that happiness and sorrow, loss and gain, are as often out of my hands as they are in my hands. They are different eyes from the ones I tried to will to look less scared, less vulnerable, seventeen years ago. I miss my youth sometimes, but not this part of it. I miss being an optimist. I don’t miss feeling like I had to grab on with both hands to hold onto who I loved, and still feel them slip away…
I have always believed in a person’s ability to grow and change. It is part of life. But institutions, such as a hospital? I am amazed. I am pleased. I am a better person for having witnessed this growth and change.
Contentment
Today, I’m guest-posting over on the Make A Difference To One website on the subject of contentment.
In this day and age, here in the west, the word ‘contentment’ does not sit very well with us.
We have learned to not be content with what we’ve got but to always strive for more, to always want what’s bigger, better and newer.
Unfortunately, this can spill over into our relationships with our spouses. Rather than being content and learning to find satisfaction with who are married to, we constantly try to define what the ‘perfect’ spouse should be like and we then get frustrated, disappointed and disillusioned when our partners don’t fit the mold we’ve created.
Nothing reminds me of this more than a comment my first boss made to me.
I was eighteen, had just left school and was working in an office with two guys who were both in their forties. Every so often, one or other of my female friends from school would drop by to say hi. One day, my boss was being particularly flirtatious with one of these girls and I asked him about it later.
His response to me was, “When I was eighteen, I liked slim, blond, eighteen year old girls. Now I’m forty-something but my tastes haven’t changed. I still prefer slim, blond, eighteen year old girls.”
What a sad statement for his wife. This man’s wife is very attractive but she certainly isn’t eighteen any more. A couple of decades and two children later she’s probably not as slim as she once was – and I don’t think she’s ever been blond! So when describing the type of woman he likes, her husband, the love of her life, describes someone completely different to her.
Now, I’m sure he loves her and treats her well but, by his own admission, when he looks at his wife he sees someone who is not his ideal woman. I dread to think what might happen if his ‘ideal woman’ came along and made advances toward him.
His situation is not unusual – but there is a solution. Visit Makeadiff21.com to read my suggestion.
