Mom School – There’s Just Something About That Name

Phil 2:9-11

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (NIV)

The human soul was created by God to recognize its creator and to rely on His strength.  Last night I couldn’t sleep and my mind kept thinking about this scripture.  This morning I opened up the book “Unglued” and started reading where I had left off.  I’m reading this book in conjunction to the Orange Rhino Challenge to not yell.  Wouldn’t you know the chapter dealt with the power of Jesus’ name.  One paragraph stood out to me and it just captured my heart:

When I am in an unglued place, I can invite a power beyond my own into the situation by simply speaking His name.  I don’t have to know what to do.  I don’t have to have all the answers.  I don’t have to remember everything I learned in Bible study last week.  I just have to remember one thing, one name – Jesus.

I thought, well isn’t that the easiest thing (sarcasm), but as I thought about it more I realized that while I’m in a tirade I can’t think about all the great things people suggest for me to do or say.  I’m so angry my thoughts can’t seem to go anywhere else.  This doesn’t take any thought.  Just one word.  That’s all.  No thinking.  So what would it hurt to try just saying His name when I get angry?

With my twins, when one gets whiney. the other, who hasn’t a care in the world at the time, has to whine too.  What is up with that?  So when the whining started and kept going and going, I could feel me getting irritated and my blood pressure rising.  I said out loud “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.”  At one point today I started singing the song “Jesus, There’s Just Something About That Name” and my boys came running over to quietly listen. It was a miracle and I’m not just being being silly, it worked.  I could feel my blood pressure going down and a slight peace coming.  Now it didn’t make my kids stop whining and I still had to deal with the kids’ behaviors, but it got me to a place where I could think.  That my friend is called the beginning of self-control. 

Why does this work, because it’s not just a quirky little gimmick?  I believe in the power of God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  I have a relationship with God and we talk.  Have you ever had a friend so close that when times get hard you call them and just talking with them makes you feel better?  That’s what this is.  God knows me so well that all I have to do is call on Him and I feel Him there.  He doesn’t take the hard work out of the situation but He gives me the calm that I need to handle it.  I wish that I had thought about this simple thing long before now.  I’ve tried to remember to pray, quote scripture, take deep breaths and the list goes on but in the heat of the moment all that I’ve learned to do can’t be recalled on short notice.  His name is so familiar that I don’t have to think about it.  It’s easy.  It works.  It’s what I’ve needed for such a long time.  I’ll still be struggling to not yell but now I’ve taken a giant step to being able to have self-control over my anger.

Advent Calendar

December 1st, it’s more fun and meaningful than I thought it would be. 

Early last month I saw a post on http://heartfelttruths.wordpress.com/advent-calendar/ about the felt board advent calendar.  It was just what I wanted, even though I didn’t know what exactly I wanted until I saw it.  My twin boys are 2yr.  They don’t get the reason behind Christmas yet.  They won’t sit and comprehend the reading of the Christmas story out of the Bible.  Heck, they don’t even get Santa yet.  But I still wanted to find something that would start to make sense to them about Christmas being a celebration of Jesus’ birth.  That’s were Heart Felt Truths’ felt advent calendar comes in.

Thankfully she was offering a free pattern for the set.  I didn’t have a ton of time to sit there cutting out every little piece and making my scene look as lovely as a picture.  Nor do I think my boys will care how detailed it looks!  All it took was one afternoon, during the boy’s nap, to trace all the pieces onto felt and cut them out.  The next day I took Elmer’s glue and layered all the pieces together.  I put the scripture reading page and all the felt pieces into a bag and stored it away until Dec 1st.

Yesterday was Dec 1st and before bed, I pulled out our felt board and my advent kit.  The first reading was a few sentences about the angel of the Lord announcing to Mary that she was with child.  I proudly pulled out Mary and put her up on the board.  Then I had each boy say Mary’s name out loud.  Lance wanted to hold her for a few minutes then Mary and the board was put away for the night. 

Tonight I’ll get the board back out, read over yesterday’s reading, add Mary, read the next part of the story and add a new felt piece next to Mary.  I can’t wait until the end of the month to read the whole story to the boys and put all the cute little pieces on the board.  It’s not anything grand, but I just loved starting to tell the story of Christmas to my boys.  I love that they will hear pieces of the story repeated night after night.  Again, it’s not earth shattering, but someday this story will be life changing for my boys if they accept Jesus as their savior.

At the end of the month, I’ll post a picture of my final felt scene.  In the meanwhile, below is what Heart Felt Truths’ advent calendar looks like.