Children of God

I had the privilege of attending a Morning of Reflection yesterday with ladies from all around Columbus and other suburbs. The guest speaker was Teresa Tomeo. She shared with us her life's trials and how media & peers put pressure on women.

Teresa shared numerous studies and I did not write down a lot of stats because I was more focused on her than taking notes. Women think in order to get ahead we have to look better. Girls as young as 8 years old are starting to wear make up and will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars that isn't entirely necessary. Despite what others might do, we can find comfort knowing that the Lord looks at our hearts.

Do you know what ego is? How about "Easing God Out"? When you have an inflated ego, you are not acting in God's way.

Our media habits can lead to some of the following issues:

Vanity or obsession with appearance.

Acts of selfishness.

Poor self-esteem.

Relationship problems.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to look pretty or beautiful. Where it goes wrong is when it becomes unhealthy with eating disorders as an example for those trying to lose weight. Media tries to make the world believe that the perfect woman has enormous breasts, an itty bitty waist, long legs, no wrinkles, and no gray or white hairs. Sorry but I'm not Barbie!!!

Women are under constant pressure as wives, mothers, and workers. This excess pressure leads us to forget that we are children of God. We should take stock of our lives and make sure we have time to be a child of God. I'm as guilty as anyone in this area. I've been under pressure to manage the NASCAR pool for our family a few times and was terribly criticized because I messed up the spreadsheet. I live in Excel so I know how to use it but I did not understand what my husband was trying to accomplish with the data. Let's just say after listening to Teresa Tomeo yesterday that I think I'm going to go into the spreadsheet, black out my sections after last night's race, and eliminate myself from the pool. It's an unnecessary stressor in my life.

I also have the terrible habit of working at home. I've been working in the evenings, mornings, and weekends a lot more over the past several weeks because I'm behind in my work. I'm happy to say that yesterday, I did not do any work after I got home from the morning of reflection. I thought about logging in but it was too nice of a day. Instead, I took reading materials, a chair, and a glass of wine outside and was a child of God. I read Pope John Paul II's letter to women from 1995. I read my book on Mother Teresa "Total Surrender". In the evening I escaped to the bedroom to spend more time with the Lord reading the daily Bible. I'm washing my face and I hear the TV turn on. My husband comes in to watch the NASCAR race. His Dad calls to make sure he's watching the race & we missed part of a hockey game at the arena a few weeks ago so we could tell his Dad we watched the race. I used to enjoy watching NASCAR until it became required. By the time I washed my face, brushed my teeth, and brushed out my hair our son was in our room, too. I climbed into bed, turned on my bed side light, and tried to focuse on the Bible. The guys eventually went back down to the TV room to watch the race and left me in peace with the Lord.

"WWJW" = "What Would Jesus Watch"? Jesus probably did not mind "Captain Planet" and his team of environmentally super heroes that my son was watching for a good part of the afternoon. I think Jesus might have been as mixed on Spongebob & the crew as I am sometimes. Jesus probably doesn't mind NASCAR with the exception of the commercials. Teresa Tomeo suggested that we put statues or pictures of Jesus and/or the Blessed Mother near our televisions to help influence what we watch on TV. We have six televisons in our house so that's a lot of Jesus and Mary that I need to purchase! Of course, I could eliminate a TV if we pulled the TV from our son's room as she also suggested.

I know I've been all over the place with my writing today. Teresa Tomeo has forced me to think how I can be better a child of God and help my family be better children of God.

Have a Blessed Week.