“What are we going to quit this Thursday?” I posed to my girlfriends as we lingered over a late lunch after church at our favorite Mexican restaurant.
The speaker on Sunday morning, Bob Goff, ignited the church with his infectious love and zeal for people, and had us all thinking about the lack of margin in our lives. We sat and reflected on what we needed to be let go of so we could more available to engage in loving relationships.
My dear friend leaned back in her chair and said, “I need to stop swearing. It’s not what I want to model for my kids.”
And her words startled me because I realized how not that long ago this was a HUGE issue for me.
But without even realizing it, my desire to verbally scrape the filth off the bathroom floor has disappeared.
How did that happen?
It’s certainly not because I’m more Christ-like, although I give it my best shot every day. I look in the mirror and the same old redeemed sinner stares back at me.
But In a moment of clarity I grasped why I’m now different in this area and how I inadvertently gained victory over my covert potty mouth.
I think it’s because I’ve made a HUGE effort to cut out the life draining activities and toxic relationships which perpetually keep me on the edge of an F-bomb leaking out.
If I’m honest, I was so overwhelmed with life (for a time) with the third baby, church plant, being the pastor’s wife, and juggling three jobs that resentment and bitterness were slowly brewing in my belly into a pity party of vulgarity.
Even if I didn’t say the bad word (good pastor’s wife that I am), I was probably thinking it.
But when I made some major life overhauls, thanks to my cranky heart –contentment and MARGIN started to fill in the cess-pool of obscenities. I still don’t know whether to laugh or cry at my heart condition, but more often than not, lately it seems like it might be a hidden blessing.
Now, don’t get me wrong, some people will always be jackholes and I have no qualms about calling them out, but there has been a massive shift in my verbal paradigm and for that I am eternally grateful.
At least my kids won’t remember me as Sailor Sam.
As for me, the thing I want to quit is being afraid. I have a laundry list of fears swirling around finances, my parent’s health, and my kid’s growing up able-bodied and sound; all of which give me chest pain if I dwell on them too long.
So, in light of the magnanimous Bob Goff (author of Love Does), I want to ask you…
What do you need to quit doing to make room in your life for love?
