Hello Dear Members!
It’s a really beautiful day here! We can see Mt. Rainier so clearly, and the sun is shining so nicely! My tulips and irises are blooming, and the birds are coming to the bird feeder outside my window by my desk. Marilyn’s cute little grandsons are outside playing with my kiddos in the dirt pile. I wish time would stand still for a while today, so that I can enjoy it for longer!
I hope you’re enjoying your days with your precious ones, and hopefully enjoying some nice weather!
I’ve been reading the New Testament with Lizzy and Josiah lately, and yesterday we came across these verses that made me think of you.
Gal 5:24-26 “Among those who belong to Christ, everything connected with getting our own way and mindlessly responding to what everyone else calls necessities is killed off for good—crucified. Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives. That means we will not compare ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and another worse. We have far more interesting things to do with our lives. Each of us is an original.”
This phrase really stuck out to me, “mindlessly responding to what everyone else calls necessities” I was remembering how my life was before I learned how to be led by the Spirit. It really was mindless. It wasn’t that I didn’t have any thoughts. It’s that I didn’t spend much time thinking about the way we were living our lives. The schedule of our church activities along with the schedule of our school-at-home activities made it so that I didn’t have to think much about what we were going to do in a day. It was mindless. I used to say, “my life ran itself.”
It was mindless because I whole-heartedly embraced what I saw everyone else doing – I was following along with what “others called ‘necessities’.” I thought it was necessary to be involved in everything happening at our church. I thought it was necessary to follow grade-level, subject-divided curriculum in order to educate my children. I thought it was necessary to provide my children with peers for friends. I mindlessly followed these things that seemed to me to be necessary simply because everyone else thought they were necessary.
You, sweet LOLACHE members, are taking the time to escape “mindlessly responding to what others call necessities.” I love how this verse goes on to describe what it is like to put off this sort of mindlessness. It says we will have far more interesting things to do than compare ourselves to one another! It says we will become originals.
The passage implies that this sort of mindlessness leads to the kind of fear that moms experience when believing that their children must be at the same level in everything as all the rest of the children their age. It leads to the fear of not doing enough school. It leads to the pressure put on children to complete assignments because of mom’s fear and comparisons to “what others call necessities”.
I’m so thankful you ladies are allowing the Lord to set you free from this mindlessness so that you can be led by His Holy Spirit toward becoming the unique expression of His character that he’s made you to be, and your children along with you! I’m so thankful that you are responding to the opportunity to ask, “What is truly necessary for us today according to Your Holy Spirit?”
Blessings,
~ Barbie Poling