I understand the need.  I sense true compassion for those in pain.  Yet, because I understand the magnitude of the need, I feel like a mosquito trying to bring down an elephant, like a child throwing pebbles at a giant. I long to be the good in this world, to leave a meaningful impact on humanity before my life is over.  Yet, so often I am flooded with feelings that I am not enough, no matter how much I do, it is never enough.  Never meaningful or important enough.

When we have self-control, we live in freedom, no longer lead by instincts like animals. Living in freedom is possible only for those who have developed self-control. How can we develop self-control? I have yet to meet someone who has done it in a moment. Self-control is an ability that comes through a process of remaining faithful.

There is a story from the Old Testament of the Bible that has truly led me to a powerful revelation.  The story is about a widow, who had a serious need.  Her husband was a prophet, but had passed away, leaving a debt large enough that the creditors were coming to take their sons as slaves to pay off the debt. 

If you have known me for any time at all, you probably are already aware of my love for books or at least the fact that I wear glasses for reasons not associated with being fashion savvy.  I have been reading stacks of books for longer than I can remember and way before it was trendy to admit to it. That is how I earned my right to wear prescription glasses.

We can’t participate in compromise, we have to speak up against wrong choices.  But speaking up is not the first step.  If we want our words to have any weight, we have to start with our own walk with God.  We can’t correct our spouses if we are participating in the same behavior or if our heart is not right.  It all starts with our own relationship with God, allowing God to correct us before we attempt to be tools in his hands to correct anyone else, especially our husbands.

This year Slavic and I will be celebrating our sixteenth anniversary, but it was exactly sixteen years ago this month that he asked me to marry him.  I am so glad I said, “Yes!”  As in love as we were back then, we love each other even more and are even closer and in tune with each other today.  Our love for each other is deeper today, not because we feel more in love, but because we’ve learned to love each other when we didn’t feel like it.  Slavic has his own stories to share, I’m sure, but since this is my blog, I’ll share a few of mine.

In my previous post, I wrote about the people who had a lasting impact on me.  One of them was my aunt Marina.  If you have children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, or simply have someone in your life who is still on their way to adulthood, this message is for you.

Do you ever look back over your life and think of specific situations or people who had a lasting impact on you?  There are a handful of people who truly made that kind of impact…

There was a season in my life when I was taking care of two toddlers, age three and two, a newborn, and a seven year old who thought she was seventeen.  My husband was busy running his painting business during the day and attending meetings at the church in the evenings four days a week.