MOVING THE ANCIENT BOUNDARIES

It was one of those Spring mornings in Florida that make every junior-high-kid wish he or she didn’t have to go to school.

So yep, during our half-mile walk to the bus stop, a group of friends and I concocted a plan—a stupid plan—to skip school next day and go swimming at one of the boy’s houses. His parents had a pool, but they worked. No one would know.

God’s Word says, “Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child…” But we didn’t consider ourselves foolish nor children. As a matter of fact, I’m not sure what we considered ourselves. One sane thought would have nixed the plan—ten teens all from the same bus stop, a no show? Really?

We wore our bathing suits under our clothes the next morning, walked like we were going to the bus stop, but deviated the long way through our subdivision and back to Tom’s house. A deliberate deception. The water was great and I was having a superb time ‘til I surfaced from underwater and one of the boys looked at my seal-slick hair dripping off the end of my nose. “Girl, you’re ugly.” he crowed. “And that nose.” All the boys laughed.

I wanted to die. Why did I think this would be fun? I wanted to drown.

Mama drilled into our heads, if you do bad things, bad things happen. I did a bad thing which opened the lid to my  personal Pandora’s box.

One of the guys peeked through a knot-hole in the wood fence then jumped back in the pool. “Your mama’s stomping down the road, DiAne. And she looks mighty angry.” There was no Plan B. Bad things were going to happen.

Now Mama didn’t drive, but she was industrious and could sniff out misbehaving kids like a thoroughbred hound. No use to run—she’d track us down. About that time, one of mom’s posse pulled her car into Tom’s driveway. What were we thinking? If tongue lashings coulda killed, we’d all have died that morning. Not even noon, and I was in more trouble than I ever imagined.

Mama took the girls to our house, the other mother stayed with the boys at Tom’s, and we quickly made ourselves ready to go to school. Another mom pulled into our driveway and Mama herded all the girls into her car—two moms and a girl in the front—the rest of us squeezed into the backseat, knowing every mom in the neighborhood had been alerted. We were notorious delinquents.

Now a gang of silly 8^th graders juggling trouble was no match for three angry mothers. Those little steel magnolia moms marched all ten of us into the principal’s office, made us confess, one-by-one, what we had done, and admit how sorry we were. And I’m sure we all knew we weren’t as sorry as we were going to be after school.

Before Mama left, she pulled me aside. “Make no plans for the next few weeks. We will discuss this when you get home.” Now her idea of discussing always resulted in a lickin’ for me and some hideous form of long-term punishment. She wagged her finger in my face. “If you don’t want to be in trouble, don’t be where trouble can happen.” She smiled big. “Just doin’ my God appointed job, girl—to be sure you aren’t where trouble can happen.”

But this incident, well over fifty years ago, and the hurtful words that young man said stuck to me like glue. I felt ugly for years after his stinky words, and trust me, words indeed hurt. My nose and those freckles became the bane of my existence. I felt sooo ugly. So worthless.

It took years for me to understand God created me the way I am for a purpose in His plan. And He loves me—long nose, freckles, and straight hair—regardless of what I’ve done in the past.

A few years back I heard a quote from Bill Gilham. “Satan speaks to us in first person singular, with a southern accent.”

My nature chooses to wallow in words spoken by others. I cling to them and rehearse them. And the evil one attempts to diminish my confidence in God by whispering those hurtful words in my ear. Left unchecked his lies hinder me from enjoying the richness, peace. and joy of my Lord Jesus.

But some of those offensive words originate in my own mind, and I punch replay again and again, adding to the original version until I convince myself these lies are also true.

How often have you looked in the mirror and heard the voice in your head snarl, “Girl, you sure are…” You fill in the blank. Now Satan can’t read your mind, but your mouth gives him enough information to know just where to aim those fiery darts.

The Word of God tells us we are to “Take every thought captive to the obedience of God…” (2 Corinthians 10:5 NAS). In other words, we must freeze frame every troublesome thought, and those painful consequences of sins, either ours or those caused by the actions of others, and shine the spotlight of God’s wisdom to see where those thoughts originate—from God who created you and loves you enough to die for you? Or from the enemy of your soul whose goal is to destroy you?

How many times have you and I rehearsed those glued-on-words that convince us, We can’t–we aren’t good enough, or smart enough, or talented enough. When God clearly says, “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength” (Philippians 4:13 NAS). God wrote a Book of His words so we could choose right. But more often than not, we choose to believe the lie rather than the truth. Just like I did that Spring morning so long ago. I knew what was right, but I chose to ignore right and did wrong.  Consequences were certain. God forgives the sin, but consequences remain.

Before I became a mom, I came to understand the wisdom of my mom and her quirky sayings. By lying, skipping school, and traipsing off with a group of equally foolish young people—I did a very bad thing that placed me smack-dab in the middle where trouble could happen and the consequences haunted me for years.

What debilitating thoughts and actions from the past cause you to struggle? What bad things trail behind you like a knotted tail on a kite? We’ve all made wrong decisions, but we have a God whose “mercy is new every morning.” A God who loves us and forgives us.

It’s Spring! What better time to let the fresh wind and fire of the Spirit of God ignite a Spring cleaning in you?

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort; who comforts us in all our affliction so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ” (2 Corinthians 1: 3-5 NAS).

DiAne Gates – Author ROPED, Grace Awards Finalist – http://www.amzn.to/1XOJqiy

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