Do I Gotta Please Everyone?
I sat in the pew with my head bowed. After church was over, I walked quietly
out of the service, nodding politely to friends, but keeping pretty much
to myself. When someone spoke with me I answered in a soft voice and with
very few words. The first couple of days this routine wasn't too bad. Then
my voice screamed to talk faster and louder; my laugher bubbles kept surfacing
up to my throat and it was getting to be harder and harder holding them in.
Finally, I just gave up and went over to see my friend Rita. "I can't do it Rita," I complained. "I just can't be holy!" "What in the world are you talking about, Kathy?" she said with a surprised look on her tiny face. I loved Rita. She was the epitome to me of what a Christian woman should be.
I was a new Christian and I admired how tender and kind she was. She spoke
in low tones and did not say a lot, but what she did packed a lot of punch.
Her big brown eyes were soft and tender and she rarely complained about all
the suffering in her life.
As I looked at her and wished again I could be so humble and quiet, I told
her how much I admired her and that I had decided to imitate her. Thus, I
would begin to become like her, a humble, quiet, wonderful Christian wife
and mother. What a surprise I got when she started laughing. I'd never seen
her laugh so hard!
"Kathy, stop trying to act like me," she said. "I wondered
what was wrong with you these past two weeks. You seemed so strange. God
loves you and so do I - just the way you are. He'll do any changing that
needs to be done. Please go back to being Kathy."
Psalm 143:8 says: ‘Teach me the way I should go.’ That includes
embracing the wonderful person each of you are. Me, too! We can dust off
our failures with the Lord's help. But this month of love, let's love ourselves...
cause, hey, you and I are made in God's image and that's pretty awesome...
Love ya,
Kathy
Kathy Thomas is the director of Woman to Woman Ministries of Tucson, dedicated to the encouragement and healing of women, which airs a weekly radio program on KGMS 940 AM every Sat. at 2 pm.and on cable television Wed. at 3 p.m. on channels 72 and 97 and Fri.at 5 p.m. on channels 73 and 98. email Kathy at hooperandhonker@msn.com.
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