When you’re ready for a change

Maybe if I move the furniture around. Clean that drawer again, buy a shirt. How do I look with bangs? Most middle-aged girls go that route right about now.

I sigh and look around again, looking for change.

Something to wake me from this… this … acedia.

Kathleen Norris introduced me to this word which so aptly describes this lethargic, sluggish fogginess that settles sometimes in my spirit. Defined:

Spiritual sloth. Could it get any more descriptive? The world’s slowest mammal, a sloth travels (top speed) .15-.2 mph.

I picture that sloth again and look in the mirror.

Bangs aren’t what I need. 

Really, what’s happening is that I want to change everything around me because I don’t want to change me.[bctt tweet=”Usually I want to change everything around me because I don’t want to change me.”]

It’s way easier to change my hair than my heart.

The truth is, when things slow and the dust of busyness settles, sometimes we have a chance to see inside a bit. Sometimes we see our discontent, our critical or controlling spirit, our anger or white-knuckled grip on comfort or ease. So we respond:

New throw pillows, anyone?

Specifically, I noticed my tendency to get angry with my kids. It was something I’d “dealt” with several months ago, devoting a prayer card to daily repentance of this, and saw such dramatic deliverance in this area that I tossed out the prayer card, praising God for His glorious work!

But gardens need tending because weeds tend to return.

I saw it again on Saturday, and my son (who sees all things scientifically) commented:

“I think some people have an anger gland …”

He paused, weighing his words.

“I think you have an anger gland.”

Sigh.

An anger gland. Awesome.

Well, there we had it, and I may not be the brightest girl, but I know that if my child diagnoses me with an anger-gland my greatest need is not a new pair of shoes.

I need to change.

And, just for the record, those littles weren’t all innocent either. (I responded by saying with a wide smile, “Well, some people’s behavior makes other people’s anger gland FLARE UP.”

So, since the problem was us, I decided that going out for ice cream wasn’t what we needed most.

We gathered in Heidi’s room (the only place with carpet), got on our knees, bowed our faces to the ground. And together we re-learned the power of repentance, of confession, to God and to one to another (James 5:16). The quarreling, the selfishness, the anger: all out loud. Of course we only need confess our sin silently to God, but there is power in transparency with others. When we do it, Scripture says, we are healed. 

Changed.

Of course this isn’t a one-and-done deal. On our faces is a place we often ought to be. But I did notice a marked difference, in all of us. Today, as the kids worked through a tiff instead of turning it into a fight, and I responded with a warm voice instead of a bark, they high-fived each other and said, “This is our best day ever!”

My eyes welled with grateful tears as I high-fived them too, and just like that I realized:

The best kind of change is the kind in us. 

{Thank you for reading.}