A friend told me on New Years Eve that she had wanted to avoid looking back on her past year with a view to how it went and what she'd done. She wanted to not evaluate herself, but yet she did. She paid for it. A Migraine came.
Another friend sat with me for coffee recently and with puffy eyes and down-turned mouth told me of her eighth grader.
His attitude has changed towards me. The things he says . . . I wonder what kind of mother I've been. Being a reserved Asian she couldn't tell me what he'd said -- too much shame -- but I can well imagine since I've taken my share of tongue lashing from my own teenagers. I too have seen myself through my teens eyes and marked myself as a failure.
Our smart and perceptive (armed with psychological insights) teens do often accurately see and say what's wrong with us. But not all the time.
Their glasses are spotted too. People see from their own viewpoint - what is sometimes a need to see what's wrong with us.
Teens need to see their parents' faults so that they can become separate, that process of becoming their own persons and following their own desires rather than continuing a childish dependence and need to please those they've been attached to.
And we ourselves cannot see clearly who we are. Sometimes I criticize myself and scorn the course of my life: "What a loser!" "I never became a college prof or took a FT professional job for long--what a waste of my talent and ed."
Those attacks on myself come from wrong assumptions.
Who is to say that a college teacher actually has more impact than a stay-at-home mother, an ESL tutor, a writer and a volunteer in classrooms, an unpaid counselor, mentor, leader and Bible teacher as I have been. All these "little" things may add up to a lot. I cannot see the end outcome of how I've invited my time and talents. Other people cannot either and their opinions of my life do not ultimately matter.
I think the Apostle Paul understood all this when he wrote I Corinthians 4:2-5:
"Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful. (He'd been entrusted with the good news of Jesus and told to carry it too many) I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself. My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me.Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait til the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men's heart."
Did you get that! We are commanded not here not to judge ourselves. Judge means here to scorn or put ourselves down. We are told in other places in the Bible to appraise ourselves and others accurately.
When the Lord comes he will make plain what really causes me - or others - to do what we do. Actions that look initially good on the outside can come from a rotten heart and can ultimately have bad effects.
What is the motive I desire to have for my life's choices and work?
To love God and to love people in all that I do. The work and words I've said from that motivation will have lasting value. Everything else will disappear.
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