This is a picture of my reusable shopping bags.(not all of them) I can tell you where each came from. Three came from my sweet friend, Andrea. One came from my sister-in-law. A couple came from the hospital where I had Jasper. And all the rest I accumulated over the years from Doula functions and breastfeeding awareness, and other such things. They are a real group of chaos. The other day I was leaving the commissary pushing my cart to the van (the kids were in Mother's Day out, so my mind was wondering) and I was thinking about how I wished that I had a pack of the cool, matching shopping bags from Earthfare. There is a really neat pack of three for sale there, they all fold up nicely into one little pack and are just really cool. And in that moment, as I've been trying to make a habit of lately, I asked myself, "What would be my motive for wanting matching, cool reusable shopping bags?" And answering honestly, just because they are cool and look nice. They don't work any better! And then I found myself thinking, "What a waste of money that would be!!" There are people all around that can't afford groceries or medical care, and I'm thinking about how I wish I had cooler bags to put all the stuff I buy in?! How absurd and self-centered.
My thought process of asking myself about my motives came a couple years ago when I read Shepharding Your Child's Heart. The main thing I took away from this book was finding the correct motive in disciplining and parenting our children. He argued that we focus far too much on changing behavior, when our goal should be to change our child's heart! In changing their heart's motives, their behavior will follow. So I started asking myself what my motive was in correcting my child's behavior. Was I angry at my child for embarassing me? Was I annoyed by my child? If so, these are self-centered reasons to discipline. Is my child being put into a dangerous circumstance? Is she being disrespectful to her sibling with her behavior? If so, my goal in disciplining becomes one of bettering my child's life! Helping them form the priorities in their heart so that they can serve God better as they grow! This is key! And more recently Robert and I are going to a homegroup on marriage called What Did You Expect? It's about a book written by Paul David Tripp. I recommend this book to everyone!!! I ordered a couple of copies of the book and intend to give them to newly weds, but it can also be helpful to oldly weds too! ; ) He addresses motives as well. There is way too much that I took away from this study to get into it right now. But here is his definition of Love (according to Christ): "Willing self sacrifice for the good of another that doesn't demand reciprication or being diserving". In other words my husband will NEVER deserve my love or anything else I do for him, and I shouldn't expect him to pay me back for my love. Christ gives to us freely, we should do the same. Just as we don't deserve anything the Lord has blessed us with. In marriage it's really easy to gain the motive of getting what I want! "I'll get up with the kids this Saturday morning and let him sleep in, and maybe he will do the same for me next Saturday." No. "I will get up with the kids this Saturday morning and let him sleep in." Period. True servanthood. And if each spouse is taking this motive (of serving Christ and others instead of ourselves) then the marriage flourishes and grows! So I find myself asking, "Why am I cooking dinner for my family (when all I really want to do is go to bed)?" Because I am serving God by serving my family. That is the correct motive. At times my motives have been more along the lines of, "Well, I'll serve the family dinner so that Robert will see that I do the right thing!! And then he will feel guilty for not helping!" (martyr) or "I'll serve dinner for my family so that Robert will brag about my cooking to friends!" (pride) or "I'll serve dinner because no one else will and it has to be done." (bad attitude all together) or "I WON'T serve dinner! Let him deal with it when he gets home from work!!!" The Bible says to do all that we do as if serving the Lord. I believe this means EVERYTHING! Not just not sinning. Romas 14:6 says, "He who regards one day as special, does so to the Lord, He who eats meat, eats to the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who abstains, does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God." What this verse is saying, is that none of these particular subjects are sinful in nature, but each person may feel lead differently. What matters is motive!!! Why are you abstaining from meat? Is it for the Lord? Then Praise God!! And no one should judge you! (Sorry....I'll talk to my hubs about this! Because, yes, he struggles with judging people that don't eat meat! HA! Just kidding....sorta) Do you uphold one day as holier than others? Why? For the Lord? Then great! I'm happy for you, even if I don't do the same. Everything is about motives! When we make a choice, whether large or small, let's ask ourselves what our motive is behind the choice.
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I've been thinking about addressing this for some time, but have hesitated because it's quite a personal issue. My main goal in sharing the why we do the things we do series is for folks that maybe haven't thought of things from another point of view or anybody just interested in learning why people do things the way they do. I know I enjoy it! Whenever I hear of people that made different choices than us I want to ask and talk about it. Most of the time I hear the same old, same old reasons, but occasionally you hear something new that you never thought about! : ) And that is exciting, I think. Also, I want to address some hurtful things in this area of discussion. So here we go! If you don't care why we didn't circumcise our son, then don't read this.
When we were pregnant with Cal and my all-knowing mom did her discerning gift and announced she was just SURE he would be a boy, I started reading, listening, praying and thinking. I had only EVER met one child that was not circumcised. And because of this and both sides of our families raising us to never really think about not circumcising we were both leaning toward circumcising. So it was definatly out of my comfort zone to even think about not going through with the surgery. But then again, as a mama, emotionally I couldn't even bare the thought of putting my first son through a surgical precedure at such a young age!! So, I figured, if I could find a good enough reason to get him circumcised then I would be able to ignore those emotional issues and do the logical thing! So that was my goal in looking into it. To find a good enough reason to circumcise! : ) I couldn't. Man, I tried too. I talked to friends that circumcised their sons, hoping each time that they would offer a really great medical reason to get it done routinely. I joined online forums for strictly PRO circumcision mommies where they bashed mamas that didn't circ and shared why they did. And still, nothing. Everyone I ever talked to had only the main reason of cosmetics. No one can argue that there are any studies showing a great list of pros for routinely circing babies. And all the medical groups say that there aren't enough pros to outwiegh the risks of the procedure in routine cases. Sigh, I had only forced myself to leaning more toward not circing my son. Which was scary to me, to be honest! And all for silly, superficial reasons. Like, I wasn't used to seeing that! What if I thought it looked wierd! Or, we live in an area where MOST babies are circed! People will think we are wierdos! So I presented all my research and opinions to Robert. He is, after all, the leader of our house and happens to be a male! So I would never make a decision without his support or leadership! I told him that i would honor whatever he decided but that I really was hoping that he would have a better reason than cosmetics. We talked and talked and talked about it. He picked our midwive's brains about it (who both had several sons that were not circed), he talked to buddies about it(who all balked and told him it would be cruel of him to NOT circ his kid because then he would get made fun of in the locker room), and then we discussed the idea that we would have to pay out of pocket for the (what we believed at that point) cosmetic surgery because medicaid in Missouri had stopped covering it, since it wasn't medically necessary. SO! We decided not to. For all the reasons why people don't. The only medical reasons why people DO circ could also benefit little girls if they were circumcised as well (which they do in some countries). And we didn't want to teach our children that surgery is necessary for any cosmetic reason. When one of his buddies cornered me and told me "I had no idea!" That i was setting my son up for horrible teasing in the locker room. I couldn't help but think, yeah, but I got teased for being flat chested in high school.....does that mean I should get my girls boob jobs when they hit puberty to help them dodge this teasing? This argument didn't hold any water for us. We did not circumcise Cal and won't circumcise any other sons we have. And the main reason is because we couldn't find a good enough reason to have the surgery preformed. I've gotten over my issues of people thinking we are wierd and have such peace about our decision. As I hope anybody does about parenting. I don't care what anyone else does, this is what we did and why. NOW!!! To address something that HAS bothered me since we did this. I have heard moms that chose to circ their son say this, "I think uncircumcised penises are gross/wierd/funky looking!" Now. The reason you say that is because you are used to looking at circed penises. If you were used to looking at uncirced penises, you wouldn't say that. And just for a moment, if you have ever said that, just for a moment! Stop and think about what you are saying. About.....my.....son's body part that God gave him. Seriously, just think about it for me. Now, how would you feel if I said your baby's face was funky/wierd/gross looking? Who in their right mind says such a hurtful thing about an innocent baby's body part?! It astounds me. And I think that we need to stop and think before we speak. Seriously. |
LindseyI'm the mama and wife. Updating you on our life! Archives
January 2022
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