Spiritual Fruits

So I've been doing alot of thinking lately, alot of listening, and alot of learning.....

With the move, stuff with my husband's family and some other relationships, and trying to get adjusted to our new living situation, find jobs and get settled, I haven't had much choice.

Plus, I'm not working, and not working makes my mind go crazy as I'm a total work-aholic by nature. :)

Anyways, sitting in a Sunday School Class and then Service this morning, my mind started going alot.

I started realizing the things going on lately should be teaching me something, other than who not to trust.

I realized that even though I'm not bitter towards anyone, I'm not holding any grudges, and I'm trying not to do anything back to anyone in revenge, that I'm still venting alot, and being negative alot, and as much as venting is healthy, it's not showing very good self control.

The Fruits of the Spirit are....
Love
Joy
Peace
Patience
Kindness
Goodness
Faithfulness
Gentleness
and Self Control.

I'm missing quite a few of them in my life right now.

Love- I show my husband daily, I show my good friends and family frequently, but how often do I really show it to my readers, students, acquaintances?  Am I at least a non un-loving person?

Joy- Right now, I stink at this.  Not working makes me very unhappy and I need to get a better handle on that.  I do alot of sulking on my computer these days, not exactly productive, or joyful.

Peace- Again, something I don't have a huge handle on right now.  I'm going to be honest here, our checking account is almost empty and we just found out that my husband is most likely not getting paid out his vacation, personal or sick time from his old job, even though the school principle approved it, because, HR gets final say and there's no actual rule about payouts, so they can chose to do whatever they want for each case.  Stupid I know, but it looks like we'll be living on nothing after March 5th, so I don't have a ton of peace right now, mostly just anxiety about that.  I'm seriously praying that after one more phone call to HR on Monday that they decide to be gracious and pay him at least the already approved by his supervisor PT, that would hold us over til the 12th, in which case if he starts this job he's training for Monday right away, he would be getting his first check from them on the 12th, so we'd be ok.  PRAYING!!!

Patience- Finally! Something I feel like I am capable of in most circumstances!  I may not be the most tolerant person, but I am patient with people 95% of the time. I'm rarely in a rush for anything, slow drivers do not tick me off, I'm patient with my students and their various learning speeds and needs, I LOVE waiting on people!  I found a fruit I have!

Kindness- Okay, 50/50 on this one, I'm either kind, or indifferent to people.  I can throw a quick jab in there in sarcasm, but genuinely, I do my best not to deliberately be mean to anyone. I will be blunt, I will be honest, and I will be sarcastic, but I do strive to not directly offend anyone.  I do complain about things/people, but my complaints are simply statements of things I do not agree with happening in my life, usually morally, and it's not usually the person that I'm upset with, but the scripturally or morally wrong action.

Goodness- This is probably the weirdest Spiritual Fruit to me, because seriously, as humans, none of us are truly good.  Christ can make us "good", but it's something that has to be renewed, in a sense, constantly.  Remembering to pray for help in this area would probably be a smart thing to be doing, but lately, I feel like I've been asking for help in alot of areas.

Faithfulness- I wouldn't be here now without having that one. I fought God so hard on this move. I prayed for months for reasons not to move, I kept begging Him to shut the door, instead, He kept opening more windows.  I'm here, through faith alone.

Gentleness- With children, with my youth group kids, with my students, with my husband, yes. With everyone else, I'm an honest, blunt person, probably not qualities of a "gentle" person.  I do not always think about my words and actions before I follow through, something I definitely need to work on.

Self Control- I need to learn to think, BEFORE I speak or act.  Hold it in and process whatever is going on before reacting.  I do not have a quick temper, which I think is part of self control, and I do not hold grudges, but I am quick to express myself, and it's not usually a good thing.

So, those are my thoughts right now, what are yours?

So I'm starting over

It's been a fun couple of weeks the last few weeks. Moved out of our town house, 1800 miles across the country, into my parents house, set up two rooms like an apartment, started searching for jobs and students, and got run out of my blog by a crazy stalker and threatening brother in law who only found out about the blog because of the crazy stalker and the fact that she decided to teach me a lesson for reporting her by cutting a bunch of 2 line vents about my inlaws and pasting them into one long message and bad mouthing me to my inlaws making my brother in law send me a cussing out email and my husband an email disowning him for not disowning me and threatening to destroy all our stuff left in storage in NY if he ever saw anything negative on my blog again.

Thanks crazy stalker, now I have two of you.

So, new blogger account, new email, new blog, no name, and I'm getting myself up and running again.

I will not let other people's maliciousness keep me from something I love.

Like the header says, "my life, my words". I was trained that if you can't say something nice to someone, don't say anything at all. If you don't like what I have to say, don't read, or at least don't send me nasty comments, I won't post them. That doesn't mean I can't vent, that's just saying something negative, not to anyone specifically about them, but just having a bad day negative.

Hopefully a few of you at least follow me over here, if not, it will just continue to be my record keeping place and outlet.