The five minutes I gave myself to freely express thoughts popping in my head now seem like a very bad idea. Does anyone really want to read my thoughts? Does anyone care? Then, I remembered the book I've been slowly reading. And, that six part sermon series I soaked up online.
Crash the Chatterbox. [Hearing God's Voice Above All Others]
How easy it seems to shut off all of the negative self-talk. But, it's not. Yesterday as I was getting ready for church my hair was...hhhmmmm...being more stubborn than I am and that is saying something. It was, to put it nicely, behaving badly. Nothing I did would soothe it's wildness. a major coating of hairspray later, I left the mirror muttering all the way.
One more look in the mirror right before leaving for church didn't help my grumbling. My self-talk began to tell me how square my face looked with the shirt I was wearing and I was convinced the bad-hair-day-hair wasn't helping the situation. I grumbled loudly this time and one of our daughters heard and scolded me. She basically disagreed with me and told me to stop talking to myself. To, "crash the chatterbox". I hate when she is the mother and I'm the child. [ok, my five minutes are up but I'm going to keep going because it gets really good...]
We have a Kindle that my husband likes to take to church to use for his Bible. I've come into the habit of reading a little bit of the Crash the Chatterbox book as he drives. Church is only 8 minutes from our house but I can get a page or two in before we pull in the parking lot. Well, guess what I read Sunday morning?
"I wonder how much of its forty-eight-thousand-word quota your chatterbox has already filled today?
Did you hear it in the closet while you were getting dressed, telling you that it doesn't matter what you put on, that nothing will look good on you because you're too flabby, too bony, too pale, too old, or, in a single word, defective? ..."
The garbage of our minds. I've been spewing garbage in my mind for so long I didn't even realize it was happening. When I keep putting myself down, I'm really saying I'm not good enough. And, when I say I'm not good enough, I'm putting God down as well. If I'm talking to myself in such a negative way am I truly leaving room to hear from God? Those voices in my head get pretty loud (and annoying) at times. What would happen if I silenced them? Would God's voice come through loud and clear?
Shouldn't a person just get to a certain age and have everything all worked out and no problems whatsoever?
Yeah, I didn't think so either. [sigh]
So, here's to crashing that mean-old-Mrs Chatterbox! It's not going to be easy but who said anything good comes easily.
Just think how much happier, or should I say joyful we would all be if we shut that off? We must enjoy our misery more than we let on :)
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