Archive for the Category »Relationships «

03
Sep
Poop, People, and Looking Like Jesus
Susan Gaddis

People are not the cleanest of beings. They tend to make messes throughout their lives and living with them isn’t always fun or necessarily easy.

The other day I came across several Scripture passages that immediately triggered two memories—Psalm 51:7, “Scrub away my guilt, soak out my sins in your laundry” (Message Bible), and John 13—the story of Jesus washing the disciples feet and then instructing them to wash one another’s feet.

Memories flooded up as often happens during my morning devotionals. The first visual that popped into my mind was of walking into the bedroom of one of my small children and finding her crib smeared with the remains of a very dirty diaper. Like a princess, this smiling toddler sat in her crib equally covered with the remains of the same diaper.

The second visual was of my dad sleeping in the facility where he eventually died. He looked peaceful and comfortable in his clean pajamas and fresh bed linens. Dad had people who cared for his messes, and I was very thankful.

From birth to death I will continue to make messes for God to clean up. Some of those messes are a result of my learning about life just as my toddler was exploring her world and my dad was learning to let go of his. Other messes are more grown up, which makes them without excuse. Either way, it is God who cleans me up and his family who helps to scrub my dirty laundry and my dirty feet.

How good are you with cleaning up people’s poop and washing their feet? Not a real tidy question, but a necessary one to ask. If you want to look like Jesus, ya gotta get into the messes of people’s lives. Care to comment?

Oh, if you are wondering which of my six children was the toddler in this story, you can check her out at: www.mchristineweber.com.

In Him together, Susan Gaddis

9 Comments
Category: Personal growth, Relationships  Tags: , , , , , ,
01
Sep
Things Your Mother Never Told You About Teamwork
Susan Gaddis

Working as a team doesn’t always come easy, whether in marriage, church, or on the job. Yet teamwork is part of our calling—God describes us as living stones in the process of being built together to be a spiritual house and a royal priesthood (see 1 Peter 2:5). He refers to us as a living body made up of many different parts. No part can function independently (see 1 Corinthians 12:13-27). I hope you enjoy this short clip on teamwork from one of my favorite teams at Igniter Media.

If you received this post via a RSS reader or email and cannot view the video, please stop by the Holy in the Daily blog to view it. You’ll be smiling the rest of the day! (After that, just click one of the icons–email, facebook, twitter, or other icon–at the very bottom of the post to share your smile with a few friends.)
In Him together, Susan Gaddis

2 Comments
Category: At work, Relationships, Video  Tags: , , , , , , , ,
23
Aug
Blood, Guts, and Authenticity
Susan Gaddis

Around 1,000 years ago, Viking Leif Ericson landed on the east coast of North America and began a colony called Vineland. Although the Vikings were fierce warriors, they had a difficult time with the Native Americans.

The Vikings were confused by the Indians and believed that they were often demons in disguise. The problem of distinguishing a real Indian from a demon was simple: Authenticity was established by blood. A real Indian would bleed when stabbed while a demon would disappear.

We can verify a Christian with a similar test of authenticity. When a Christian is “stabbed,” he bleeds love. This is especially true when wounded by other believers. “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:34–35 niv).

Love is the core of Christianity. Everything we do must represent the love demonstrated by God towards us. This means that we should be genuine in our relationships. No masks, facades, or pretenses. We are to be authentic with each other.

Authenticity contains the idea of humility and honesty in how we present ourselves and how we respond to others. We are to be people experiencing the ongoing transformation of God’s Spirit, Word, and truth conforming us into His image.

Blood and guts questions:
  1. How does the aspect of bleeding love differ from the way we have been trained by our culture to respond to “stabbings”?
  2. What emotions and attitudes bleed out of you when stabbed emotionally by another? How would the people you live and work with answer this question about you?
  3. How can you authentically bleed love when your attacker needs to be confronted?

I invite you to leave your knives, swords, guns, answers, comments, and insights in the blue comment link below.

In Him together, Susan Gaddis

This post is reprinted from my book, “Help, I’m Stuck With These People For the Rest of Eternity!”

3 Comments
Category: Personal growth, Relationships, The Backward Kingdom  Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
18
Aug
5 Secrets to Understanding the Opposite Sex
Susan Gaddis

I think Elayne Boosler had it right when she said, “When women are depressed they either eat or go shopping. Men invade another country. It’s a whole different way of thinking.”

Half of the people that live on this planet are wired differently than the other half. For example, a wife wants her husband to compassionately listen to her latest frustration. The husband wants her to get to the point so he can give his wife the solution to her problem. Unfortunately, her sharing is the point, the solution isn’t, and her husband is sleeping on the couch—again!

A mother attempts a meaningful conversation with a son who interprets her effort as invading his space. A daughter feels her father doesn’t have time to listen to her innermost thoughts while the dad thinks he is doing pretty well to listen to her during halftime of the football game.

These differences also show up in other relationships where the sexes have to converse. A man can interpret a woman employer as bossy and domineering when she sees herself as confidently overseeing the details of the business. A male soccer coach wants to take his young team to view a professional soccer game, yet he has to convince a soccer mom that the trip will be safe and they will be home on time. She apparently has a funny feeling about the security of the trip. He thinks she’s nuts.

God made us different for a purpose, because it is only together that we reflect Him and His image. Remember, God made Adam and Eve in His image—male and female together. In order to fully represent the image of God through communication we need to seek to understand how the other sex communicates.

Ellen Tien conducted an interview with 25 couples and found some genuine differences in the way men and women behave and perceive events. See if you can relate to these differences:

1. Men consolidate while women diversify

2. Men want to get going while women want to get ready

3. Men care about what things do while women care about how things look

4. Men go for the big picture while women cherish the details

5. Men rely on information while women depend on intuition 

What communication differences between men and women can you add to this list? Have you found that honoring these differences allow a place for the Spirit Holy to manifest himself in your communications?

In Him together, Susan Gaddis

2 Comments
Category: Brain overhaul, Relationships  Tags: , , , , ,
06
Aug
How Clear Are Your Perceptions?
Susan Gaddis

Joe and Carol moved into their first home in a lovely, old Sacramento neighborhood. All around them the restored houses displayed their manicured yards and stately porches. As with most couples, Carol was very proud of their new surroundings and their ability to afford such a treasured home.

One morning while they were eating breakfast, Carol saw her neighbor, Sally, hanging the wash outside.

“That laundry isn’t very clean,” Carol commented. “Sally doesn’t know how to properly wash clothes. I’ll bet she’s using cheap laundry soap.” Joe looked on, but didn’t say anything.

Every time Sally would hang her wash to dry, Carol would make the same comments.

A month later, Carol was surprised to see nice clean laundry hanging on the line and said to Joe, “Look, Sally has finally learned how to wash clothes. I wonder who taught her how?”

Joe replied, “I got up early this morning and cleaned our windows.”

Sound familiar? Many times, our perceptions mirror our dirty windows more than they do our neighbor’s dirty laundry.

Finding the Holy in the daily requires keeping our interior windows clean. How’s your window washing going lately?

In Him together, Susan Gaddis

2 Comments
Category: Daily chores, Humor, Personal growth, Relationships  Tags: , , , , , ,
28
Jul
What Simple Pleasure Marks Your Life as Good?
Susan Gaddis

A Chinese legend tells of a group of elderly, cultured gentlemen who met often to exchange wisdom and drink tea. Each host tried to find the finest and most costly varieties, to create exotic blends that would arouse the admiration of his guests.

When it came the turn of the most venerable and respected of the group to entertain, he served his tea with unprecedented ceremony, measuring the leaves from a golden box. The assembled connoisseurs praised this exquisite tea.

The host smiled and said, “The tea you have found so delightful is the same tea our peasants drink. I hope it will be a reminder to all that the good things in life are not necessarily the rarest or the most costly.”

I don’t know about you, but I find more contentment sitting on our deck enjoying good conversation and ice water with my husband than I do a night out at a fancy restaurant. Fancy parties are fun and I enjoy them, but the simple pleasures with those I love carry the warmest memories for me.

What simple pleasure marks your life as good?

In Him together, Susan Gaddis

4 Comments
Category: Personal growth, Relationships  Tags: , , , , , ,
09
Jul
See How Easily You Can Change Someone’s Day for the Better
Susan Gaddis

It doesn’t take much to change someone’s day for the better.

I don’t remember where I first heard this tale, but the story is told of a blind man sitting on the steps of a building with a hat by his feet and a sign that read: “I am blind, please help.”

A creative publicist was walking by and stopped to observe. He saw that the blind man had only a few coins in his hat. He dropped in more coins and, without asking for permission, took the sign and rewrote it.

He returned the sign to the blind man and left. That afternoon the publicist came back to the blind man and noticed that his hat was full of bills and coins.

The blind man recognized his footsteps and asked if it was he who had rewritten his sign and wanted to know what he had written on it.

The publicist responded: “Nothing that was not true. I just wrote the message a little differently.” He smiled and went on his way.

The new sign read: “Today is spring and I cannot see it.”

How can you infuse a little of the Holy into someone’s world today?

In Him together, Susan Gaddis

3 Comments
Category: My village, Relationships  Tags: , , , , ,
09
Jun
Are You Living With Flat People?
Susan Gaddis

Three Musicians by Picasso

A story is told of Pablo Picasso riding on a train when a man approached him and asked him why, as a famous painter, he did not paint people “the way they really are.” Picasso asked the man what he meant by that expression.

The man opened his wallet and took out a snapshot of his wife, saying, “That’s my wife.”

Picasso responded, “Isn’t she rather small and flat?”

Most of us live and work with flat people and fail to realize that our limited perception misses the realms of possibility and wonder hidden within. Seeing people the way they really are is impossible, but we can see them as more than flat.

Usually we form a quick opinion of a person gleaned from a few interactions with him or her. That information is then filtered through what others have told us about the individual. As time goes on, we view this person through the stories we ingrain within—stories based on what we continue to hear and experience of his or her actions and life events.

Some of these stories are good, and some are not, but all stories are limited, since we cannot know a person’s thoughts, motives, hopes, dreams, or the details of the past that have shaped his personality.

Without realizing it, we trap ourselves into certain patterns and ways of thinking concerning the people around us. We see only what we are inclined to see derived from our interpretation of the stories we’ve collected about them in our mental file cabinet.

Finding the Holy in the daily often means looking at people through new glasses—seeing the wonder that God has placed within them, finding the unexpected sparkle behind their story, and assuming the best about them.

Are the people around you flat? Are there aspects to their stories you are missing? How can you change the way you interpret these people?

In Him together, Susan Gaddis

2 Comments
Category: At work, Brain overhaul, Relationships  Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
02
Jun
Wedding Toasts and Blessings For When Your Mind Goes Blank
Susan Gaddis

Looking for a wedding toast or blessing? Over the years I’ve attended a lot of weddings and given many a wedding card. Finding the right words for a wedding toast brings flashbacks of standing before my peers in a third grade spelling bee—my mind goes blank. Writing a blessing on a wedding card is a little more personal than just signing my name, but finding the right words often burns more brain cells than I have available when I’m trying to get my kids, and the pastor, out the door and to the wedding.

Here are my favorites from my collection of wedding toasts and blessings, gathered over many years of being in ministry. I invite you to jot them down in a journal or keep them in a computer file for easy access—ready for this summer’s crop of weddings. 

Marriage: a community consisting of a master, a mistress, and two slaves—making in all, two.

May you grow old together on one pillow.

See a happy marriage with wholeness of heart, but do not expect to reach the Promised Land without going through some wilderness together.

May your love endure beyond the last sunset.

To the lamp of love—may it burn brightest in the darkest hours and never flicker in the winds of trial.

May your children be blessed with rich parents!

Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.

There is nothing nobler or more admirable than when two people who see eye to eye keep house as man and wife, confounding their enemies and delighting their friends.

Happy marriages begin when we marry the one we love, and they blossom when we love the one we married.

Here’s to the groom with bride so fair, and here’s to the bride with groom so rare. Here’s to marriage, one soul in two bodies.

Do you have a favorite wedding toast or blessing to contribute?

In Him together, Susan Gaddis

One Comment
Category: Holidays, Relationships, Seasons  Tags: , , , ,
17
May
6 Responses That Help Defuse a Tense Situation
Susan Gaddis

How do you defuse a tense situation? I often find myself reacting instead of responding when someone is spitting fire in my direction–especially if that person is one of my kids or my spouse. I don’t remember where I heard this quote, but it is so true: “When you live in reaction, you give your power away. Then you get to experience what you gave your power to.”

I know I don’t have to defend or explain myself when I am under pressure, but usually my reactionary genes forget that logic. Here are 6 responses I’m practicing that provide space to compose myself in various situations. None of them commit me to taking on another’s problem or solving a conflict immediately. Each response needs to be spoken with a calm tone of voice.

  1. “I’m sorry you are upset.”
  2. “That’s interesting.”
  3. “I’ll be glad to talk with you when your voice is calmer.”
  4. “I need to think about this more. I’ll get back to you later.”
  5. “I’m not available to help you with that right now.”
  6. “Let’s talk when you are feeling less stressed.”
 

The trick is to use a one liner before your reactionary genes take over. If needed, repeat the one liner several times instead of getting drawn into the fighting arena.

Sometimes these one liners work well as text messages or email. They also come in handy written on a card and placed next to the phone for easy access during disturbing phone conversations.

Proverbs 15:1-2 states, “A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. The tongue of the wise commends knowledge, but the mouth of fools gushes folly” (NIV). What have you been gushing lately—folly or a gentle answer? What one liners have you found helpful during difficult conversations?

In Him together, Susan Gaddis

For more tips on communication, check out Chapter 11, “Rules and Tools for Kingdom Communication,” in my book, Help, I’m Stuck With These People For the Rest of Eternity!

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