What Make Spirituality Christian?

I started this blog for the girls.  As much as I love to scrapbook, I just simply do not have the time right now.  I didn't want to miss out recording important milestones and memories in the girls' lives, so this blog was born.  I am in the process of editing the print copy of it for last year and as I am going through it, it is making me think a lot about our blog and what the girls will take from it when they are grown.  Someday they will be wives and mothers...in the exact same place I am now.  Then I thought, "How can I use this blog now to relate to them, encourage them and help them through what they will probably be doing 20-30 years from now?"

So, I have decided to put myself, as a mom...and not just the narrator, into this blog every once in a while.  Just some stuff I am learning and how I am trying to become a balanced wife, mom, teacher, daughter, friend and follower of Jesus.   If you don't care or don't want to hear my ramblings...sorry, I'm going to do it anyway ;)  And maybe some other people can relate with me along the way... 

With that being said, here is what I have been learning lately.  We haven't been able to go to church for the last two weekends because of the YL 40th Anniversary Celebration and the girls being sick, but our senior pastor's (Rich Nathan) last sermon has really stuck with me.  He was addressing the fact that not all spirituality is Christian and what marks a spiritually Christian person.  He made two points that have really spoke to me:

• We are Cross-Shaped People-  
• We continually try to 'pay off' what was already 'paid in full' by Jesus with the cross.
• The way we deal with our children (giving in, over-indulging,  lack of discipline, etc.) is a result of the lack of confidence we have from unhealed guilt.  OMG!  That is so me...I always tend to give in or do things I wouldn't normally do because I feel guilty about being a working mom!!  He went on to say that the guilt must be taken to the cross in order to gain confidence.  I am still working on this one...
•  We are Carried People-
• He told the story of Charles Blondin, a famous tightrope walker who did several stunts on a tightrope over Niagara Falls.  His greatest stunt was carrying a man across the Falls on his back. On a tightrope. Are you serious?!?!?  Rich then asked, "What would've happened if the man stopped him halfway across and said, 'Thanks, but I will take it from here'?" Yikes! Then he went on to say we, as Christians, do this all the time.  We want to take control.  The problem is that we don't know what we are doing....

No wonder I am so stressed out all of the time!  I am in the middle of a tightrope...by myself and completely UN-balanced.  I am not a tightrope walker.  Not to mention I am terrified of heights!  Thankfully, by the grace of God, Jesus is a tightrope walker and he wants to carry me across.  Sometimes I let him, but - more often than not - I decide I can do it better or faster and jump out of his arms. There is my struggle...learning to let myself be carried by the One who knows how to make it across.  I am still, and probably always will be, working on this one too...