A ‘no touch’ subject

Yes, I am going to say it….politics….yikes! Holy cow is it on fire! This is a subject that most would agree that you should not even bring it up for one reason or another. It has the equivalent of cussing in a conversation that makes it escalate quickly.

But why? Why does the sudden bad taste in your mouth come along when you discover someone has an opposite political view from you? Why do you rush to judgment when the person you were having a pleasant conversation with reveals they are for the ‘other side’? In an instant, things change. Your friend suddenly becomes you enemy.

The reason for this is passion. When you grow up a certain way, or even change your views in mid life stream, it is passion that bubbles up and out of you. When your friend reveals this most likely disappointing view, it instantly triggers you to decide that they are against everything you believe. To your core, you believe your views. It is your opinion and you see it as fact. Your defense to protect your views is to judge others for fear they will impede on your passion.

When you google PASSION the first definition is “strong and barely controllable emotion”
So, let’s look at that.

STRONG emotion. Your beliefs are instilled you so strongly, they are practically immovable!
BARELY CONTROLLABLE: This belief/s exudes from you so strongly you can hardly control from shouting it to the rooftops, especially when ‘challenged’

This strong and barely controllable emotion you have defines your very being. And when someone, or something tries to go against that, you must defend yourself and your very personality as you know it! Unfortunately, this is usually not handled in a very Christian manner. Rather than having a friendly and loving discussion about the opinions. You instantly go into defense mode, which overtime society has developed into argue mode. It has become completely acceptable to disregard someone and be completely rude (to put it nicely) to whomever disagrees with you, without any explanation or friendly debate. On top of that, it is now also acceptable to completely shun that same person even if that person is your dear friend, or even brother/sister in Christ.

There is a second definition that google has for PASSION: the suffering and death of Jesus

Hmm…something to think about.

Instead of getting defensive, maybe we should try to understand why someone believes what they do, and then decide if that is in line with what Jesus told us.Should you feel the need to ‘correct’ your friend, please do it with a loving heart.

I want to encourage you, really plead with you, that before this election day pray. PRAY HARD. Pray that God will put in your heart to put in your mind to put in your fingers to elect the candidate that He can use the to mold our nation into what HE wants. The candidate He can use to make the decisions necessary to guide the nation back to GOD. Because quite frankly this nation has veered away from God and we as a nation are very selfish. The ideals that are developing are very much so against what God has said to do. So again, PRAY AND PRAY HARD that God will spare our nation and use our next president to do HIS will.

Monkey see Monkey do

I am trying to get all my exercising in…sometime during the day. But evidently I have been getting in workouts enough that my 3 year old is paying attention. I will say sometimes he drives me completely crazy! He thinks since I am exercising, my legs automatically become ‘a tunnel’ that he must go through. That is probably because I started this particular journey with PiYo which has yoga moves and I guess I turn into a jungle gym!

Having said that, he also encourages me to go exercise. He almost nags me to do it! I love it! If there is any habit I want him to know me for, working out would be at the top of my list! Right under serving the Lord and loving my family.

I had a proud moment the other night. During my scheduled workout, the little rugrat was driving me crazy right under my feet. But, when I got finished, LilT insisted on getting an exercise ‘for boys’ so he could ‘practice’. My pride was so big!

I am not always the best at creating teachable moments or pulling out the Pinterest activities to teach something, but you know, most of the time it is not those scheduled cute activities we give our children. As much as they are cute and fun, that is not what our kids learn from. It is our actions, our habits, our responses that our kids learn from. These are the behaviors they mimic. So if/when you think you are not doing a good job because the mom next to you has just made a dozen cookies after helping her son glue cotton balls to a piece of paper, just breath and remember you are showing your littles how to live just by being a present and loving. They will pick it up, so keep working on yourself because it will trickle down.Monkey see, monkey do!