That old friend........pride

When I think about pride I have several different feelings. One, I think that pride can be something that we can use to benefit us, if it is used in the right way. For example, taking pride in cleaning our homes, taking pride in how we look, taking pride in our work..........I think pride can be a positive thing. Then I think about the negative aspects of pride and my list could go on and on. Pride can destroy our hearts, relationships, ministry, jobs.....in fact I dare to say that pride really could destroy our lives. It can make us bitter, angry, scared, sinful and it definitely does not bring honor to our Lord.

I'm just going to be very honest here.....there are many, many things in life I struggle with, and I'm always very honest and open about them. But, pride is a different struggle for me. For so much of my life, I spent my days thinking I just was not good enough for anyone, anything and I was just plain ol....yuck. I really believe that so much of my childhood was spent with a low self-esteem. I don't really think that my parents did or did not do something that made me that way. I think especially with girls, this is just an area we struggle with......I STILL struggle with it! Having no pride at all isn't a great thing either.

But, I think there is a good reason why God has provided so many scriptures on pride, because it can be such an ugly thing. I know in my life, there have been many times where I was hurt simply by pride. You see, pride wants to be our friend when we're up, and he especially wants to be our friend when we're down. Either way pride can win, if you let him. So how on earth do we overcome this struggle? How do we allow pride into our lives for the good, and not the bad?? It all comes down to humility, being able to be humble before God and others. It's be willing to say, "No, I'm not perfect, I don't have it all together.......or I was wrong." I think though so much of it has to start with our hearts. Our words can speak one thing and our hearts can be completely different.

I think about this verse in Proverbs 22:4, "Humility and the fear of the Lord bring wealth, honor and life." I think humility starts with saying, I am absolutely nothing without God. I am no one and I can do nothing without the saving grace of God. But then it's turning around our thoughts into, "I can do this with Christ's strength,......... I can do this because God's hands are upon this." I don't think Christ wants us to put ourselves down and feel that we are unworthy of anything, but I strongly believe that he wants us to build ourselves up only through HIS strength, power and words.

When we can fall into those lines with our relationships, THEN Christ can bring wealth, honor and life just as that verse says! But it's always going to be a struggle, to not allow things to "get to our heads" when life is good.......but also to not allow things to bring us down when when we have failed or messed up. The one thing I hope to teach these girls is to never feel like you can't say, I'm sorry. I have someone very close to me that struggles with those words. There is so much healing found in just admitting you are wrong and most importantly telling Jesus you are sorry. I constantly remind Taylor and Hope when they have wronged each other that they need to apologize. And oh........it is hard for them, but once they do it, they experience so much joy again, like, life can go on now! (even though they are, "never speaking to each other again!")

On a very different note, last night I caught a few minutes of the Oprah show. She had this woman on there called, "Grammar Girl". Oh my goodness do I hope that "grammar girl" never reads this blog! =) Ya'll forgive my imperfections with my writing! I couldn't help but laugh at all the mistakes I have made on here. But, I was reading this blog the other day and this woman was just going off about how many mom's don't know how to write well. (apparently she is "grammar mom") Well, I got something to say about that!(you like my grammar??) These blogs are just our random thoughts, most days we are lucky if we have time to hit spell check let alone do a grammar check! So give us a break! If it bothers you that much, you ain't gotta read it! It's not like we are publishing novels on our blogs! Goodness.


Ok, now that I've gotten that off my chest, I can go on with my day! =) Have a very blessed day humble day!!!! =)