It's not about me...

The first line in Rick Warren's book "The Purpose Driven Life" is..."it's not about you."  I've read that book, I grew up in church, I went to Christian school, I went to Bible college, I'm married to a Pastor/Church planter, yada yada yada...who cares? I have SOOOOOOO much to learn about it not being about me. I've dealt with pride in the past and it's not a fun lesson to learn.  What I'm learning right now is that line from that book doesn't always mean you're prideful.  It can mean you're selfish (which can be rooted in pride obviously).

If there is anything that I learned when I had my first child...it's that I'm selfish.  Then I regressed and forgot that little nugget.  I had a 2nd child and was reminded that I'm selfish.  Time went on and I moved on from changing that behavior.  We started going through the adoption process and information and learned before we travelled that we needed to think about things from her perspective.  It helps you to understand why she might react or act out in a certain way.  If I'm anything...I'm honest...and to be honest with you...that  part is somewhat easy when you're in her country.  It's easy to think of things from her perspective...you're somewhat living in it still.  It's even easy to do that the first week or so when you're home, but as you get comfy in your own home and try and get back into your routine...you can easily forget it.  Especially when you're selfish like me.

I have learned a lot about many things through being a parent...and now a parent of an adopted child, but nothing as blatantly obvious to me as (once again) that I'm selfish.  Hard headed much? I get so frustrated with myself that I can't seem to get this life lesson...it's not about me...it's not even about my children or my husband, but it's about Jesus!  I want to complain about how much life I've "given up" for my kids...or to plant a church...or WHATEVER.

I believe that the enemy likes to plant those little things in our heads to get us focused on ourselves rather than what's important and what God has called us to do.  It's a battle of the mind for me so I know I need to keep my mind on Christ and His calling.  I know a lot of things don't make sense to most people out there, but God called us to plant a church, He called us to adopt knowing we wouldn't have 1 income for 6 months in the middle of that and He called me to leave a great job with great people that I loved to stay home with these children.  If that's crazy then I guess you're reading a blog of a crazy person (you can see below that our newest addition fits in well).

I came across these verses yesterday in my devotions (and I love it in the NLT version):
2 Corinthians 5:13 If it seems we are crazy, it is to bring glory to God. And if we are in our right minds, it is for your benefit. 14 Either way, Christ's love controls us. Since we believe that christ died for all, we also believe that we have all died to our old life.

I pray that we're bringing glory to God through everything. I pray that it benefits others because Christ's love controls us...crazy or not! So I renounce for GOOD my selfishness and move toward service...Christ first, then family and then others so this family of 5 can make a difference!