Category: Titus 2

Hey Friends

I’m in the process of handing off Christian Homekeeper to my friend, Marie Hanley! So you will see fewer of my posts here and more of hers eventually.

You can still find me online at the Christian Homekeeper Facebook group and page. And you can find me at my personal blog, SylviaBritton.com  .   

There isn’t anything there right now because I’m still setting up house.

I know you’ll enjoy Marie and what she offers you here at CHK, so be patient, it will all be finished soon and the dust will settle.

God bless you as you serve Him in your homes!

Love,

Sylvia

Wasn’t that the title of a children’s book from years ago? I just found the picture of the book. I’ll share it here. It is a Rod & Staff book that we used in the 2nd grade, I think.

The days do go by rather quickly now. I don’t mind but I realize because the days go by quickly and I’m a little slower than I used to be, I don’t get everything done I’d like to get done in a day.  When I look back on the first things I posted on CHK in 1997, I wonder what that version of me would think of me now. I wonder what she’d day to me?  I think she’d speak kindly to me.

I do have more wisdom now and more compassion, more love. I think those are the important things, not keeping a perfectly clean house. Not that mine was ever perfect, ha!

I didn’t make any New Year’s resolutions this year, I don’t usually. Do you?  I am though trying to do something more than I’ve ever done it: talking to myself like I am my own best friend, speaking kindly to myself.

I realize I say very negative things to myself and it’s usually when I am anxious. So I have been trying to say to myself, when I feel anxious, “You’re doing great, it’s going to be OK.”  “That wasn’t the right thing to do but you didn’t know what else to do, you did your best, give it to God and rest in Him.”

For the longest time after we left our church of over 25 years, I berated myself and told myself that I was stupid, an awful person, that I must have caused all the problems the church was experiencing, that how I was feeling was my own stupid fault. I stopped calling myself names but the feelings remained until I started speaking to myself the way a best friend would.

I want to tell you something. I needed grace. I needed a human being to call me up and say,  “It’s going to be OK, you are doing the right thing (or the wrong thing!) and here is why …” But I didn’t have that, so I had to rely totally on the Lord and be that for myself.

Not long afterward, I saw the situation more clearly and knew that leaving was the only thing I could do and that I wasn’t responsible for the trouble. I don’t think I could see this until I stopped being so negative with myself.

I’m not talking about Word of Faith beliefs here. I’m not talking about “affirmations” either. I’m talking about that inner dialogue that happens for almost everyone where we either build ourselves up or tear ourselves down. You know in Ephesians 4 where it talks about not letting unwholesome words come out of your mouth?? Well this is about not speaking those unwholesome words to your own self.

Now with my husband’s stroke and some terrible things that happened at the same time, I started the whole berating myself and talking negatively to myself again. That was a year and a half ago and I have only just in the past few months started speaking to myself kindly again.  When I say talking negatively, berating myself, what I mean is I spoke mean, hurtful words to me, I beat myself up with words. And because I believed those words, I cried all the time.

You might say, “Sylvia, why in the world would you do that to yourself?”  I don’t know but it is my default setting to blame myself and beat myself up. I am devoted to stopping that behavior in myself and with God’s help, I will.

Speaking kindly to myself really is helping me not to be so anxious and I am not having the mental stress of thinking that I’m such an awful person. I created that feeling of awfulness with my words to myself.

I’ve been saying, “Do you need to pray about this? Do you need to repent for anything? You are doing the right thing in this and it is all you can do, so rest in the Lord.”

At the same time, I talk to the Lord. I ask for help and I worship Him.  As I read the Bible and pray, He shows me what His will is and I am convicted or encouraged where I need to be.

You should try it if you don’t already talk to yourself like this. It is reassuring and keeps me from feeling so negative.  Add it to your prayer life.  My 1997 version of me would have spoken kindly to me today, I think. And that is something I’ve learned from her just recently.

I’m convinced that we are our own worst enemy when it comes to telling ourselves negative things. As the days go by, speak kindly to yourself, see if it isn’t a blessing.

Hey, while I’m thinking of it, if you’d like to get new posts from CHK in your email, scroll down to the very bottom of this page and enter your email address to subscribe.  Every time there is a new post, it will be sent to you. 

Life got hard around 8-10 years ago. Then it got harder. And when it got really hard, people left.  So in case your life, or a friend’s life, gets hard, here are some thoughts.

People I thought were life long friends left. People who I thought had some kind of spiritual responsibility to stay by my side, also left. People I have known and served God with for over 30 years simply left my life. I guess they left because my life became messy and very hard and it was probably because I wasn’t willing to talk in depth about it. Most people though never even asked.

I’m not angry and I am not bitter now, though I was for a while. I was disappointed for a while. I was sad for a while. But I’m not even sad now because my understanding has been enlarged. And because this is about the ones who stayed.

The ones who stayed are few. They are not all related to me. Some are related and I sort of think that people who are related don’t have any choice but to stay but they do have a choice if they’re adults and they all are. Some are friends who are not related, and both of these kinds of people are super precious to me.

They don’t ask a lot of questions when I say I can’t talk about that right now. They are quiet when it’s needed and they’re always there. They have lives of their own just like everyone but they have taken the time and effort to stay and be present when I felt like I was losing my mind and when I was grieving and searching for light. When I just needed a hand to hold and to feel that hand in mine.

More than anything I see now that Jesus also stayed. He has become an even deeper Friend. I realize that everyone who has stayed with me through this valley is very much like Him. Some more than others but they all have His traits and the characteristics of a loving, caring, helpful  friend.

Life is still very hard but I am living it better. I’m learning about life, people, faith, what is important and about God Himself. I’m grateful for that.

If you ever go through what sometimes people call “hell on earth”, believe me, people will leave because nobody wants to walk through hell.

But there is a Friend who sticks closer than a brother and there are people out there who will come and stay with you while you walk through it. Jesus will be first in line, so call out to Him. Let Him in and He will stay with you while you weep and wonder. Call out to Him to bring you a friend who stays. Don’t dwell on those who left. Look around at those who stay and thank the Lord for them.

And if your friend goes through a hard time, be the one who stays. Don’t allow a friend to simply fade away and disappear. Ask questions, even if you don’t get answers. Persist and pursue them. They may reject you, but I think it’s so important to try.  I hope I can be a friend like that if I am ever called on.

Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good, so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored. Titus 2:3-5 (NASB95)

This is a familiar passage, especially to most Christian women. It’s the passage that instructs women on how they are to live.

Let’s look at the word kind in this passage. The KJV uses the word good and we’ll consider these two words to have the same meaning.

Adjective: kind; comparative adjective: kinder; superlative adjective: kindest . Showing a friendly, generous, and considerate nature.

Kindness is lacking in our society, would you agree? The intentional showing of generosity and consideration to others is rare online especially.

You’re aware I’m sure that people tend to be rude and vulgar to others online because of the perceived anonymity of  being hidden behind a phone or computer.

Women will talk to each other online as if only they know the truth and must have the last word in a conversation. It seems like whoever can be the wittiest, offer the best one-liner and say the most cutting thing is the perceived “winner” of a conversation. Those who do try to offer up kind, conciliatory words are often virtually shouted down.

This has trickled into our face-to-face interactions as well. Think of how people treat each other in the market place, in offices and in public places. This has definitely changed for the worse.  This worsening disrespect and unkind behavior shows online now more than ever from people who aren’t even attempting to hide their identity.

I regularly read posts on social media from professing Christian women that are decidedly not kind or even civil. Think of places like Twitter where many women and men put their cutting, sometimes shocking or rude thoughts out there to attract attention not caring if their words reflect the kindness they are called to.

Somehow as a whole Christian women have decided that it’s more important to make an impact and cause shock with their thoughts and opinions than to offer up kindness and consideration.

God, on the other hand, has His own plan for how a Christian woman should speak and type out her thoughts.  It can be said that He also has instruction for how we speak and how we think. Specifically, In Titus 2:5, He tells us that older women are to be kind and teach kindness to other women.

If you’re not careful you might skip over the command to be kind. It’s there in the middle of several other adjectives that we’re commanded to be like sensible and pure. Sometimes I wonder if we’re just so accustomed to the word kind that we miss the fact that being kind is a firm command. Just as firm as the command to be pure, sensible and subject to one’s husband.

Kindness is one of the Fruit of the Spirit listed in Galatians 5:22. This lets us know plainly that we aren’t told to reach down in the depths of our souls to find some vestige of kindness to show others when we’d rather offer up a good lecture filled with biting rhetoric and told-you-sos.

The Holy Spirit in us produces kindness. If you’re not allowing the Holy Spirit to move in you like this what does that say about you? About your relationship with God?

The last sentence of Titus 2:5 should give us pause.   We are to be these things, including being kind,  under the influence of the Holy Spirit and teach these things so, ” ….that the word of God may not be reviled”.  When was the last time you heard the Word of God reviled because of how a Christian was acting or speaking? Yes, me too, just this week in fact.

Kindness eludes us so often. It's as if it is a kindergarten word and something we teach children, not women. We're more kind to animals than we are humans sometimes. Click To Tweet.

Yet kind/kindness is exactly what God expects us to be and to teach. Even when we must be firm and steadfast, we can be kind. It takes more effort than spewing words without thinking. And more prayer.

Such a simple word. Such a simple definition. Seemingly so difficult to show.