Strong and Gentle

I have this Daily Spiritual Refreshment for Women Journal and the subject for today is Strong and Gentle.

Let your gentleness be evident to all.

The Lord is near.

Philippians 4:5

And the thought for today after the passage is as follows:

“The Bible says that the strong woman is also gentle—two words that might seem contradictory.  But they aren’t.  The strong woman chooses how she will respond to others.  She chooses to deal with them gently—because she can.  She is in control of her emotions, her words, and her actions.  Anger, hostility—both represent the easy way out.  But gentleness requires strength.  God wants to see you become a strong, gentle woman for Him.”

For Lent this year, I decided not to give up anything, but do something instead.  So many times I give up something and I just fall off the wagon.  Give up swearing or sweets or coffee, whatever.  Never fails, I will do, eat or drink whatever I gave up without even thinking about it.  So this year, I decided to pray every day.  I have to think about it.  And I have my prayer books at work on my desk to remind me to start my day off with prayer and a bible by my bedside to remind me to pray before going to bed. 

It is amazing how much benefit I have gotten from these daily prayers.  Last Sunday our priest mentioned in his homily that we need to do “preemptive prayer”.  Pray before we get into situations that would let the devil in (like bad thoughts, actions, anger etc).  I laughed about it afterward, that I would end up praying 24/7 if that was the case.  The joke was on me, because this preemptive prayer is helping me and I didn’t have to do it 24/7.  Just adding prayer into my daily life, brought a strength and calmness about me.  Sure, I can still be a ball of stress and tension, but I seemed to be handling things a lot better.  Thinking before acting.  People in my life are no longer an after thought, instead I think of how my words, and actions can affect them before saying or doing.

So by doing my Lenten promise, I am letting my “gentleness be evident to all”.  Or trying to at least.   I am trying not to take the easy way out with anger and hostility. 

In doing something for Lent, I ended up giving up something.  I gave up my worry, and stress.

Being a wife of and RSD sufferer and a mother of a 3 year old, I need to have a lot of strength and I need to be gentle too.  I need to reach in for that inner strength and to be reminded to do so through prayer has been helpful to me. I am finding my sprititual life has been imperative to my survival.