Proverbs 17:1

Better is a dry morsel, and quietness therewith, than an house full of sacrifices with strife

Well I have been praying about this for a while, deciding what to write. I have some pretty strong ideas on this so....forewarned!


After reading Heather's Blog and more specifically this post I felt a tug about this verse. I have read it many times before I am sure but it just never spoke to me like it did when I read Heather's post. God's word does give us what we need when we need it, it is a living love letter to us! A long time ago, about 18 years ago I was saved. I started going to church and thought it was wonderful. I was so new in the Lord and so excited about everything that if someone asked me to do something I was all over it!! I just shared with my daughters the other day how I had only been in church a few months and I was asked to teach VBS to 5 year olds! Maybe that is why I love that age group to teach now, I don't know, but I learned so much by preparing to teach them that week! Britt was only a toddler at that time. I learned all my Bible stories along with Britt and of course the other girls. I was amazed at when the preacher said to turn in your Bible to a specific passage most everyone whipped out their Bibles and turned there. I was brought up in the Catholic church and we were never encouraged to bring our Bibles to church or to read them. I had no idea what the Old Testament and New Testament were much less which books were where! I say that because I had the misconception when I first started attending church that if someone asked you to do something in God's house, you were to do it. I felt as if everyone knew better than I did, others had been there longer so they must know bettered to do. I carried that with me to all my other churches. I always taught, cleaned, served in whatever way I could never giving much thought on if I should. Honestly never even given to pause for prayer to see if I should. When we moved from Parris Island to 29 Palms it was interesting. We were of course homeschooling at that time, Wade was out there to go to school, a very difficult school, for his job. I had two kids in school at home, a younger daughter to watch over, a home to take care of, a husband to take care of, I am sure I had to take care of myself somewhere in there...and a church we attended. This church was interesting. It was a very young, very small church. There were some definite problems but as long as they lined themselves up with God's word we were ok. They had a choir and someone got a "bee in their bonnet" that they needed choir robes! I was not in the choir but there were people there that knew I knew how to sew. The person with the bee in their bonnet decided she would buy the fabric and all. Well she asked for my help so I said sure, I could "help"! I was still in that mindset that if someone at church asked me, I should. After all God had blessed me with somewhat of an ability to sew shouldn't I use it for church? This lady went ahead and bought very silky fabric, a roll of it, a 100 yard roll of it, all off-white! Dropped it off at my house with a pattern and that was the extent of her "help". I spent weeks on my hands and knees on my living room floor trying to cut out fabric that if you looked at it cross-eyed it would shift! All the while trying to do my every day stuff. I was getting angrier and angrier at the lady, at myself, and pretty soon at everything! Finally I told the lady that I was at the end of my rope and that she and some members of the choir should be helping a whole lot more. I tell this story because it was at this time in my life I learned how to say "no"! I promised myself then that I would never do something that jeopardized my peace of mind just because it was someone at church asking. Those who know me know that I am now quite capable of saying no. As a matter of fact I often say it so quickly that people do a double take. I don't think there are many people that are used to hearing that word because I feel that some people would rather suck it up and do something they don't want to rather than just be bold enough to say no and not worry what people might think. I have three daughters and I have a strong responsibility to teach them how to be good Christians, good wives, mothers and good church members! I have had many dear friends that are frazzled because they just won't say the word no to anyone! My first responsibility is to my family at this point. God has entrusted me with three girls to raise and teach. I look at what I am doing at home as pebbles in the water. I may not have known much when I got saved but I have tried to make sure that things that were hard for me are second nature to my girls. My girls won't have to teach themselves Bible stories or have their husband teach them songs to memorize the books of the Bible (thanks Wade! I love you!). They are starting out so much better than I did. It doesn't matter if they don't have money, two cars, two jobs whatever, they have something in them that is everlasting...God's Word! Like I said they are my three pebbles, it may not seem like I am doing much now but those pebbles are starting to hit the water and the ripples are going to touch many lives! I love my job, being a keeper at home Titus 2:3-5 The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things; That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed. I take this pretty serious. We came to our current duty station and joined a church. We felt it was a good church but quite honestly I don't think that we were at a spiritual high point in our lives and our choice showed that. It was a small church that was trying really hard to be a big church. There are somethings that you go out on faith for, I believe that, but there are some things you can wait on. One thing that struck me was there were barely enough Sunday School teachers yet they were trying to break up the relatively small classes into yet even smaller classes. It didn't make sense. My attitude was really stinky. I did not like the way the church behaved towards teens. They treated them as mini-adults and servants. There were mothers that would sit around talking and have teens watch their children, change their children, feed their children. That was so weird to me. I have spent my time as a mom taking care of my children, not hoisting them off on someone else. I have spent the time when they were young doing all these things, wiping faces, noses and hands. Now I am in a different season in my life. My children are older but they still need me in different ways. I never have liked the idea of teen girls being "little mommys" to church kids. Helping out is great and I may add, expected, but there are so many young girls that have romanticized the idea of being mothers that unfortunately they take steps to become mothers themselves way too early and without the blessing and protection of God. God wants better for kids, I want better for my kids! In any event we left that church and we are now members of another church. We still have some friends from the other church and from time to time we may hear things that are going on. I don't like to talk about that church and I sure don't bring it up but one of the ladies that I consider my friend was telling me this church was trying to "expand" again, still not enough folks to cover the expansion though. They wanted everyone to take on more responsibility and I was able to share Prov 17:1 with her. Also I shared it with my girls so that they should know if they can't serve without it causing strife they should not serve (Prov 17:1 Better is a dry morsel, and quietness therewith, than an house full of sacrifices with strife). I mean strife in their homes because they are stretched too thin, strife at church because they couldn't/wouldn't say no so now they may be angry. My paraphrase it...better to not do it and have peace then to do it and make everyone/everything miserable. What an important lesson. I make sure my children know how to make a reasonable decision and if the answer is "no" then I make sure they have the honesty and integrity to tell whoever it may be "no"! I had a conversation with Pam and Kammie at Genghis Khan before we left Okinawa about this and I told them just because someone at church is asking you to do something DOES NOT mean that God is asking you to do it. Service for our King should be the service he wants from us and who knows our lives and our personalities better than God?? Would he put too much on us? So much that we neglect our quiet time with Him? So much that we neglect the children He has give to us to raise? So much that we neglect the spouse He has given to us to help and take care of? Think about it....

PS After I wrote this today I was thinking some more. Mulling over what I written and tormenting myself on how I could have said it better :-). Well there was one other thing that came to mind that I would like to share. It is about works. As I mentioned before I was raised in the Catholic Church and they were real big on what you could do to earn/keep your salvation. If you sinned and went to confession you would be given an "assignment" of saying prayers to atone. Well I think sometimes we can get caught up in our works, will people think we are super spiritual if we are always so busy doing things in church. See with salvation there is only one way to get to Heaven, believe in Jesus Christ. There are many people out there who like to decide for themselves what they think God would want them to do, you've heard it, I'm a good person, Hey I've never killed anybody! The thing is we have to come to God on His terms, not ours, we can't be more righteous by being busy at church. We can't live like we want and be in every ministry and that make it ok. Are we confident enough in our salvation to say no and have it look like to our fellow believers that we aren't doing what "they" might think is enough? I don't advocate doing nothing in church. I believe if God lays a ministry on your heart that not only will He make a way for things to get done but there will be none of the bad feelings that go along with doing things because someone else wants you to. What a freedom! I had one young fellow one time say something that cracked me up. His mom was none to pleased either. Wade was on the drill field so he was never home. I had the 3 girls that were all pretty young and had just started homeschooling. A bunch of ladies were standing in the vestibule at church discussing some things that needed to be done. The lad piped up, "have [me] do it cause I don't do anything all day but stay home" Never fool yourself we never just "stay home"!!