Sunday's video on patience introduced another Greek word: anecho, which the Bible translates as bearing with. It encompasses both "holding up" and "holding back." That got me thinking. "Holding back" is SO hard to do! The temptation is strong to "let it all out" when we're frustrated with someone or we think they're wrong.
Being a mom is not good training in holding back. The second our kids start getting out of hand, we're on 'em like hounds on a meat bone. Sometimes that's a good thing; I don't want to wait till every last person in the 8 o'clock service is wide awake thanks to my kid's noise before I shush her or wait till a playmate's nose is bloody before I curtail my kid's hitting, but sometimes my action is more out of my personal frustration (or being worried what people will think of me) than a desire to lovingly train my child.
Moms are conditioned to take action, not to wait. And I daresay we're frustrated a lot. :-) Put those two together, and there might not be a whole lot of anecho-ing going on in our lives.
My question is why. Why is it so hard to hold back?
I think maybe (personal opinion here) a "take action" and "it's my responsibility" mindset encourages and masks control issues. I think we have a hard time with restraint, with forbearance, with patience, because we have a hard time letting go of control, a hard time letting God's Spirit lead us and fill us--a hard time letting God be God.
Chew that around for awhile. What do you think? Does it make sense?
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2 comments:
I find that the days the I am the busiest is when I have the least patience and tend to not "hold back" when my kids have acted out or are annoying me. Of course, telling them the SAME thing day after day after day has alot to do with why I can't hold back. How many times do I have to repeat myself before they get it?
There are times that I am irritated with my husband for getting on the kids for the noise they make in the house or in the car, or course, I think he learned that from being hushed all the time as a child because his dad was sleeping. I often can tolerate a lot more of the kids bickering, noise making, inappropriate behavior than he can. I don't know if tuning it all out is a moms survival tool...or I just wait until they are completely out of control and then "set them straight". Motherhood!
As most people, I do not like conflict, I don't like to deal with conflict, and it is in those times that I find it MUCH easier to hold back and do nothing. Although, then it would appear that I am making no effort to "fix things". In many ways I feel like it is better for me to say nothing than to say hurtful things. Of course I have done that a time or so and cleaning up after those times can be much more messy than saying and doing nothing.
I can definitely relate to Rachel's comment about growing up with "anger" being very prevalent in my daily life. The way anger was dealt with in our household was with silent treatment, so I am sure that is why I tend to do more "yelling" than is necessary. At least I can say my peace and move on. The silent treatment would go on for DAYS in my house...which is why "holding back" in conflict can be very difficult for me. Alhtough to keep the peace, I find myself reverting back to my childhood of silence with my husband. Funny how I have been with my husband almost as long as I was with my parents and yet my childhood continues to effect my adult life.
On another note...I had to laugh yesterday morning when Beth was talking about how she crams one more thing into her already full schedule, I can be so guilty of this very annoying habit, although, I have been getting better at limiting my "one more thing". I absolutely hate to be late for anything...and I find that if I add that "one more thing" into my day that I am late for the next important event/activity. Recently, when my youngest son was VERY anxious about whether I would be back in time to pick him up from CYT, I realized that I needed to make sure that not only was I on time, but that I was early to pick him up. It brought tears to my eyes that when I saw the relief on his face that I was early. He actually was worried that I would not be there on time to pick him up. It's funny to me that my precious little son would worry that I would not be back to get him. How could I possibly forget about him?! Wow! What a lesson for us adults...how could we possibly think that our Heavenly Father would forget us?
...how could we possibly think that our Heavenly Father would forget us?
I love that last line here. I think sometimes we know in our heads that our Father won't forget us, but still we feel afraid or alone. Like Peter, I guess, who looked at the wind and waves instead of Jesus and forgot that Jesus has power even over wind and waves, so there's nothing to fear. And maybe that's also the heart of why we don't hold back when we should and why we DO hold back maybe when we ought to speak up--we want to feel better, to allay our fears, and we get ahead of God and try to do something about it ourselves instead of waiting on him.
Rachel
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