A simple praise can be a decision. That is what I have decided. Actually I consciously remember making a couple of decisions when I was a teenager.
#1 I thought and thought and thought about the issue of race. I could not understand why people regarded others by their race. I didn't ask anyone else's opinion on this thought process. My parents NEVER qualified anyone by race except in light of how interesting, they are Polynesian. Or Tran is coming over, you remember that his hands were badly wounded by a bomb in Vietnam and he is here living with Nan and Bunya Spies...[friends so close I thought they were cousins] while he has the surgeries to repair them best they can. Or she is from Bulgaria and will be staying with us for two weeks!
But I was confused that I didn't like the girls in my gym class......and then all on my own I figured out what I didn't like...I didn't like unkind people, mean people, teasing people. That I knew all kinds of people from around the world and the ones I was having difficulty with were the unkind ones. From any background! I remember being SO proud of my self for figuring that out. I was on the school bus coming down CornerKetch-Lyndell Road on the school bus and suddenly I had the answer!
#2 I could choose to hold a grudge and be embittered for long, long stretches of time or I could copy my *extra* mother and let my irritations flail and drown. I have not always succeeded in this effort too quickly but God has given me lots of opportunities to practice! oh. yay. My parents [in my case that was Grandma and Mom] could give a cold shoulder and a lecture that burned my sensitive heart. It helped to create some of the anxiety I feel yet today of doing things the *right* way. But when I went to live with another family the mom there told me, " I tell how I feel and then I forget how I felt." That may backfire at times and there is certainly a time to zip the lip but forgetting your anger and irritation? OOOO that is a goooood idea!
Simple praise I have tried to live my life doing. Forgetting what lies behind me and pressing on toward the high mark of my calling. Love my neighbor as myself. I learned both of these even before I committed my life to Christ but oh how He makes it easier.......simple praise.
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