That Terrible Lie

What do you do when all the girls you know get their hair cut for the summer, and your parent's won't let you?

I have been pretty busy the past month, and didn't have a lot of time to write, but as I was going through my desk, I came across this, and laughed and cried over it. I thought you would enjoy reading it, even though it was written a long time ago. I kept the original spelling and grammar, for your amusement.

That Terrible Lie

It all began one day when I relized that every single one of my friends (girls) had shoulder length hair, while I had long brown hair that I could sit on. Just then I wanted short hair. "Mom?"

"Yes?"

"Can you cut my hair?"

"You will have to ask your dad, but I don't think so."

Of course dad said no too, but I wanted to have short hair real bad. Then the dredful day came.

In June, 1999, I cut my hair. It was in the morning. After I woke up I couldn't stand it anymore, I grabbed my scissors and cut half of my hair of. I did it! I was horrified.

Franticly I tried to put my hair back on. (which I couldn't, but I wasn't thinking.) I went downstairs after I hid my hair, and told mom I had a dream that I went to the barber shop and got my hair cut. She didn't notice it. Then I bent over and picked up a book and then said "Mom! Look!" and I showed her my hair. She was mad. After she finished cutting my hair she "marched" up the stairs and looked for my hair in my room and found it. I told her I didn't cut my hair. Day after day, week after week, month after month, I lied about my hair. I was Jumpy, tired, and restless. Finaly I could not stand the stress becouse every time I read or heard the Bible, it seemed to tell about lieying or telling the truth. So I asked mom to come to her room and then I flew into her arms crying and I confessed. Then I asked her to spank me becouse I knew I needed it. Then mom and I prayed together I, asking forgivness and Mom, thanking God for letting me overcome my stuborness. That night I had the best sleep I had in months.

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Posts from the Past

Every Wednesday I post something that I have written in the past. It may have been written a long time ago, or a very, very long tim ago! :-D So please forgive any mistakes!

How Our Relationship with God Affects Our Sibling Relationships - Part 3

When we decide to faithfully pursue a right relationship with the Lord, we will begin to see His blessing pour out and help us in many areas of our lives. As we begin to see and feel how our attitude and response towards our siblings change, there is something we should be mindful of.

Our relationship with God affects ourselves only. We cannot always expect the Lord to work in a sibling's life in the same area, at the same time as us. There are two aspects of this we need to be warned in.

Number one, it is our duty to keep our eyes focused on Christ and our relationship with Him, and not look at anyone else. Scripture tells us that "but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise." (2Corinthians 10:12)

Not only is it not wise, it can be dangerous for us and our relationship with Christ to compare ourselves with someone else, especially our siblings. If we feel we are doing better than them, we can easily fall into the category of becoming prideful, and then if we feel we are so much below others, we can become discouraged and despairing of our walk with Christ.

Number two is that many times, especially when we first begin to respond in the way we should to our siblings, they may not understand or take too kindly to the change. I know for myself, when I was angry and struggling, nothing irked me more than to see one of my siblings sweetly following Christ. I unconsciously did my best to tear that person down or to show some fault in them. Just as we saw in the verse about Cain last week, someone who is not necessarily doing all they could to work on their relationship with the Lord, may have a negative response to someone who is.

"And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous." (1 John 3: 12)

There is a very good possibility that our siblings will not respond very graciously to our cheerful or loving responses, but we must be prepared to follow the Lord's leading anyway, no matter what our siblings may do or say.

In conclusion, I'll have to speak with King Solomon.

"Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter; Fear God, and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man." (Ecclesiastes 12:13)

If all we do is look to God and be totally and constantly pursuing Him and follow His leading in every area of our lives, we are accomplishing His calling. This will not only give us complete peace and fulfillment, but will ensure a godly response in our relationships with our siblings.

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Posts from the Past

Every Wednesday I post something that I have written in the past. It may have been written a long time ago, or a very, very long time ago! :-D So please forgive any mistakes!

How Our Relationship with God Affects Our Sibling Relationships - Part 2

As we have already seen, a life lived for Christ will have a wonderfully positive effect in our response to those around us, namely our siblings. The Scriptures are full of examples of this. I love the story of Joseph as it gives us a prime example in how Joseph followed the Lord, and he was able to demonstrate remarkable love and forgiveness to his brothers.

But just as our relationship with our siblings can be affected in a positive light by our relationship with God, the opposite is also true.

When we are lazy in our devotions, or turn a deaf ear to the Lord's prompting for more study, Bible memorization, or prayer, we distance ourselves from the only One who can help us to have true love and appreciation for our siblings and those around us.

I'm sure we have all had times when we were struggling with a specific concept or conviction, and we found ourselves in a very touchy and irritable mood. Our responses to our siblings were probably not as they should have been, and we find that we had dug a pit of hard and hurt feelings that we later have to go and try to fill with repentance and apologies.

There are many things we do wrong that affect our relationship with the Lord that will also negatively affect our relationships with our siblings.

"Only by pride cometh contention; but with the well advised is wisdom." (Proverbs 13:10)

"No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier" (2 Timothy 2:4)

"Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin." (James 4:17)

These are just a few, but as we can see, there are a number of things that can cause conflicts in our relationship with God. Conflicts in our relationship with God will cause conflicts in our soul, which in turn will cause conflicts in our sibling relationships.

We see that this has been a problem from the very beginning of Scripture. The story of Cain and Abel is found in Genesis 4, and from reading it we see that Cain's conflict with God caused a very harmful and deadly response in his sibling relationship.

"Whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother. For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous." (1 John 3: 10b-12)

We would be wise to learn from this example and take our relationship with God seriously. All righteousness comes from the Lord, and if we are not living our lives in Him, we may very well sink down to doing some very painful or destructive things against the people we love the most.

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Posts from the Past

Every Wednesday I post something that I have written in the past. It may have been written a long time ago, or a very, very long time ago! :-D So please forgive any mistakes!

How Our Relationship with God Affects Our Sibling Relationships - Part 1

I wrote this series a couple years ago, and just recently revisited and revised it.

Sibling relationships can be one of the most difficult things for us to be Christ-like in while living our everyday lives. After all, even in the Proverbs it says, "A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity." (17:17) :-) It is so much easier to be pleasant and God-honoring when we are with friends than when we are with our siblings day in and day out. Of course, I may be miss-using this passage just a bit, but it seems to be used in this way quite often.

I find that if we really look, we can find a multitude of articles and books that address the issue of proper relationships between siblings, and some of them have a lot of practical and helpful information. But when we really dig down to the heart of the issue, we find that most of the time it is missed altogether in these how-to writings.

"But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you." (Matthew 6:33)

How often do we need to be reminded that if we work on having our relationship with God where it needs to be, He will work through us and help us in every area of our lives?

The number one focus for each and every one of us as believers is to tune our hearts and lives to the One who gave us life. Our Creator is more than worthy to be first in every aspect of our lives, and this includes relationships.

A very important factor in our relationship with God is to establish exactly what we believe about Him, or how much we believe in Him. If asked, I'm sure we would hasten to assure the questioner that we believe in God with all our hearts! This may be so in our hearts and minds, when we are alone, and in the quiet of our devotions, but what about in our everyday lives?

For many, believing in God is deciding that they are going to believe in this invisible Creator, whether or not they feel He is real. This is what most people call faith. But if we are truly striving for a live of intimacy with Christ, this will not be enough. We not only have to choose to believe, but act on it.

"Who is like unto the Lord our God, who dwelleth on high, Who humbleth himself to behold the things that are in heaven and in the earth?" (Psalm 113:5-6)

One of the most important aspects we must realize in our relationship with God is that He is an actual, real being. He is not somewhere in heaven or the sky looking down at us every once in a while to see if we are following Him, but He is RIGHT HERE. He stays close beside us every moment of every day, taking deep interest in our interests, sorrows with us in our sorrows, smiles with love and pleasure when we serve others, and many times stands by in sad disappointment when we chose to disobey Him.

Once we realize this, we will find that this knowledge affects every action and decision we make. A heart in close unity with God will spread His love to our response and reactions to those around us.

Just as God's love no depth knows,

His love our hearts will overflow.

Whence can it flow? Out of our lives.

With those around we'll harmonize.

"The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light." (Matthew 6:22)

As this verse plainly states, if we keep the eyes of our hearts focused singly on Christ, our whole life will reflect the light of His presence. How awesome!

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Posts from the Past

Every Wednesday I post something that I have written in the past. It may have been written a long time ago, or a very, very long time ago! :-D So please forgive any mistakes!

Fun With the Girls!!!

One of the ways God has been working in my heart this past year is to help me really appreciate and enjoy the company of my younger siblings. As bad as it may sound, I never really realized just how sweet my little sisters were! I have really come to enjoy my time with them!

So the other night our parents decided to go out for dinner. As Mom was walking out the door she said that if one of the sisters would make it, they could have pizza for supper. Well, all the other older girls said "no" because they had other things to do. I mentally thought that it didn't apply to me, because I couldn't eat the stuff anyway. But, the begging eyes of little sisters prevailed, and I announced that Ashlyn and I would make dinner. Of course, Naomi came in and decided to help, so I HAD to get pictures.

Oops! The mixer is broken! I guess we'll have to do it the old fashioned way!

This fascinated my little sisters, but I did have to show them the art of kneading.

(Wow, that made me feel old!) :-D

Ashlyn really surprised me at how hard she worked at it!

Naomi watched for a while, then hopped right in and took over!

Of course, what adventure is complete without a silly picture?

"Webecca? Can we put lots of pepperwoni on it?"

I guess so!

I told the girls they could each eat ONE piece of pepperoni. 

Well, it didn't get totally eaten without being played with a little first. :-D

We did not get pictures of the "finished" product, but judging by the way the family wolfed it down, I'd say the pizzas were a success. I had fun anyway!