7 Quick Takes Friday with Jenny at Conversion Diary
- A major pitfall facing all committed Christian mothers, especially a home school mum is letting go of control of our children’s spirituality and inner healing so that Christ has a chance to save, heal, and sanctify them. Over zealous mothers get in God’s way. Trust me. I know from experience
- When my family was still young and I had only 7 kids from 12 years old to newborn, I earnestly strove to raise Catholic kids. Yet God showed me that all my effort was actually hindering His Spirit from working in their lives. My anxiety and control acted like a barrier, a fortress around my children because I was acting like their saviour. I was in fact stealing God’s job.
- When I did not take subtle hints, the Lord gave me an inner image that symbolized what I was actually doing by refusing to hand over control to God. First I saw an ocean and a tiny black dot in the water. Slowly the image grew larger till I was face to face with a huge octopus.
- The scene switched and now 7 tentacles wrapped around each of my children with my husband in the eighth. All of them were grey, limp almost lifeless. The Jesus appeared in a blaze of light. Brandishing a sword, The Lord severed each tentacle one by one. As soon as each child was set free, they began dancing and laughing in the sunshine.
- When all seven were set free we sat on the ground, surrounding my husband who was also wrapped tightly by the remaining thick tentacle. All of us were weeping, desperately pulling and tugging at his bindings but to no avail. Suddenly, Jesus stood at his feet and in a flash of the sword of truth, my husband was released and came back to life.
- I was the octopus.
joy of nine9 
Powerful post and vivid images. Well-done. Great moral story.
God bless you and your family.
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That is so right on the money, Jean. One type of codependent behavior is control.another is depending on being controlled. When we take the responsibilities of someone else and make them ours,then they become irresponsible.
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good insight
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That is so right on the money, Jean. One type of codependency is feeling the need to be in control, and another is to feel the need to be controlled. When we take another’s responsibilities away from them and take them as our own, then that person has little or no responsibilities, and hence, becomes irresponsible.The perfect ground in which an addict grows.
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God gave me a bush that I “bonsai’d” into a tree. It was ugly…looked kind of like Cousin It from the Addams Family program! We had a discussion about that tree one day, and He told me that I’d tried to shape it into something it was never meant to be, then asked a question that remains in the forefront of my mind: “Do you understand why I haven’t given you the power to fashion a person into what you want them to be?” Yikes! Poor “Hairy” (my pet name for the tree) stood as a reminder for a dozen years. I finally laid him to rest last fall!
I love the image of the octopus. That’s a very powerful picture. Thanks for sharing it!
\o/
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you really understand,, thank God; it does not seem that many people connected with this post even though it received many views
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That’s too bad. It’s a serious problem in many people I see. I wrote about Hairy and left his story on my main page. You can read it here: http://lessonsbyheart.wordpress.com/about/hairy-lessons-from-a-bush/
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Great insights. Wanting to control others is not confined to being a mom. I think in all close relationships we run the risk of not letting go and not letting God take over. Fortunately, if we are prayerful, God intervenes and shows us our mistakes as He did with you. A lot of times He’s telling us through others already and we’re not listening. Been there. Done that.
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you are making tears come to my eyes; it often feels like I am the worst of the worst
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Your analogy was so illuminating. I will try harder to let go and trust Him and my child more.
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imagery always helps me get what God is trying to tell me
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