Tag Archives: Christianity

Mom's The Word on Motherhood Pride

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Marilynn Griffith

Marilynn Griffith

Marilynn Griffith stops by today to talk about spiritual pride as a mom. She is the author of eight novels, mother to seven children, wife to a deacon and proof of God’s enduring mercy. One of her novels, If the Shoe Fits, served as a prop in Tyler Perry’s box office hit Why Did I Get Married? She has served as national Vice President of American Christian Fiction Writers and has served on faculty at several national writers conferences. When she’s not writing about friendship, family and faith, Marilynn blogs and speaks to women and writers.

Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.–Proverbs 16:18

At one point in my life, I think I took pride in my children. They knew their verses at church, treated people nice enough and were homeschooled and kept away from all the “bad” influences.

How naive I was. I forgot that they were spending most of their time with…ME! Now that I’ve had enough children to accept that their job is to make a fool out me in any way possible and lived long enough to
know that God’s grace is sufficient and much better than anything my weary flesh can muster, I am thankful that my kids aren’t scarred for life.

You see, the enemy is often inna-me as I once heard a preacher say. It’s my habits and attitudes (not my prayers and platitudes) that I’m now most concerned about. That and the fact that my youngest son is
intent on making everyone think I’m insane. This weekend, while at a relative’s house out of town, he picked up a six-pack of beer (which he’s only seen on TV, by the way). What do you think he fixed his mouth to say?

“I love beer. Can I have some?”

A few kids ago, I would have been a shrieking mess, swooping down on him like a hawk, shaking his shoulders for him to confess to everyone that he’d never had a beer or seen one in our home. These days, I just don’t have that kind of energy (and besides my mom was there to do it for me). What did I do? I laughed. The boy is an actor in his own movie.

My mother, however, was not amused.

“Have you ever had any beer?” she said, eyes narrowed.

“No, but I still love it. Want some?”

About then, I knew that we all needed a nap. I was reminded that whenever I put my faith in something or someone other than God, in the end, I will be disappointed. While there’s nothing wrong with desiring excellence in your family, remember that your children are not extensions of you, to be graded and paraded. They are a gift from God given for your care (and feeding!) until God releases them into their destiny, which is the same as ours–to change the world for Christ. Sometimes that means accepting that while life can be good, it’s rarely perfect.

Thanks for stopping by!

ABOUT THE BOOKmomstheword
When her tall, dark, delicious husband joins their three kids in calling her “Mom,” Karol Simons has an identity crisis. Sure she loves the pint-size trio, but what’s happened to her dreams of writing a novel? Determined to have it all, she turns to her neighbor for help.
Dyanne Thornton is thrilled to stand in as Mom for three weeks so Karol can write. Bursting with baby fever, the career-woman trades her glamorous clothes and four-inch heels for the playground and potty training. She hopes to convince her reluctant husband they should start a family of their own, right away.
Order your copy of Mom’s the Word from Amazon.com.
Follow the blog tour at http://bit.ly/MomsTheWord.
Visit Marilynn online at http://marilynngriffith.com/.
Join Marilynn’s social network at http://www.sistahfaith.ning.com.

Spiritual Pride

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A few weeks ago I told you about a dry place I had been in. There was not the connection with God that I was used to having. I was going through the motions of prayer and reading the bible; there was no bible studying except for family devotions. I kept crying and crying out to God. I told you that He answered through my sister: Lose control, He commanded, so I knew that I was still trying to control something. The challenge from there was discovering what it was. Well, God told me recently, and it was an amazing truth that I have not wanted to accept: I was suffering from spiritual pride.

woman with bible

He showed me that my well-worn method of devotional time to get into and feel His presence had to be changed. I was doing the same things and not getting the same results. I was spiritually weak and God showed me that I had not been living (2 Corinthians 12:9). He told me that I had to stop relying on my methods and be weak so His strength would be made perfect. Of course I understood 2 Corinthians 12:9 intellectually. If I am being strong I get in the way of God’s strength doing all it needs to make my situation perfect. I have understood that God sometimes allows things in my life to cause me to buckle from their weight so that I become weak, forcing me to look up to Him. I have understood this intellectually. I thought I modeled this pretty well physically because I have allowed God to have His way in the many areas of pride where I’ve struggled; I was forced “not to exalt myself above measure” (2 Cor. 12:7).

I cut my locks, disconnected from groups, resisted engaging in certain conversations. I have given up some things that caused me to be boastful. But spiritual pride was not something I had ever thought I struggled with. One of my spiritual leaders had called me spiritually arrogant, but I denied it, couldn’t see it. And now God was showing me that spiritual arrogance—pride—had been the source of my spiritual wasteland experience. God allowed a thorn in my flesh—experiences to keep me spiritually weak—so that I could humble myself and allow His strength to be made perfect. What a startling revelation, one that I’m still accepting as my reality.Tune in for more to this. In the meantime, I still long for your pride experiences.
Copyright 2009 by Rhonda J. Smith

Pride

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This Mother’s Day I got treated to rest and dinner. My husband took care of my one-year-old all through church service and fulfilled most of our children’s demands throughout the weekend; I ate at my favorite restaurant (The Blue Nile, Ethiopian); and I finally watched the TD Jakes’ movie Not Easily Broken with Morris Chestnut and Taraji P. Henson.

For those of you who haven’t seen the movie, it’s about what happens to a married couple that doesn’t keep God at the center of the marriage. In this movie, selfish desires take precedence and allow bitterness and blame shifting to become basis of the couple’s interactions. Ultimately, pride is what keeps each of them from continually pursuing the other to make amends. But a conversation with her mother led the wife to a revelation of her complicity in destroying her marriage.

In defending why she encouraged her daughter to put her husband out of the house, her mother said: “Black women have to be strong and you know that.” “And in all your lessons about how I need to be strong and proud and independent, Mama, you left out some very important things. How to love, Mama. How to really care about somebody. How to forgive.” Oh, this struck a chord with me. My mama, too, like many of our mothers, gave us the reality lesson of the double struggle that comes with being black and a woman: People automatically discount your strengths so you have to work twice as hard to be considered half as good. And for me and others I know, this made us work more than twice as hard because we wanted to be considered more than half as good. This excellence, for me, resulted in pride. Not the kind that prompts you to have good self grooming and appreciate how God made you (this is good pride), but the kind that says, “I’m all that. I’d rather just do it myself to make sure it gets done right.” I became self-reliant and in my recovery, I have had to learn how to have God esteem, not self-esteem, and let people help me.

Pride has been my source of strength, my vice, for many years. We know that pride comes in many forms, and I have dealt with a good variety of them: intellectual pride, family pride, sorority pride, material pride, just to name a few (Yes, there are more. I will be delivered, in Jesus’ name). As I prepare to reveal my proud self in various areas of my life, tell me where you struggle with pride. How has pride been a hindrance for you? Talk to me.

Copyright 2009 by Rhonda J. Smith

Exalting Concepts

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For the last three weeks, I have challenged the thoughts of some iconic black women, one of whom is a favorite of mine. I didn’t do this to get a rise out of you or to slander them. I just believe that it’s imperative for this forum—one that seeks to challenge the notion of being a strong black woman—to challenge the ideas of people that have been held in high esteem, ideas that we may otherwise dismiss because we like the people or because we don’t want to “air our dirty laundry.” But air we must because dismissal is not an option (Ephesians 5:11, 13-14a).

I could continue to talk about others’ ideas and beliefs, and perhaps I will return to them in the coming months, but for the next few posts I want to turn your attention away from specific people to concepts and ideals that we exalt and may unknowingly hold us captive. The focus of my entries will be based upon “The List.” Why don’t you take the time to review the posts “The List” and “The List Deconstructed” to see where I’ve been and to see the basis on which I will build for the next few weeks? As always, I welcome your feedback so I look forward to your comments.

Copyright 2009 by Rhonda J. Smith

Talking with Grandma

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Iyanla Vanzant

Iyanla Vanzant

A few years ago (2001) I was watching Tavis Smiley’s State of the Black Union. As usual, he had several of America’s top black minds on the panels. This year’s focus was religion. While the moderator was talking to one panelist, he noticed that another panelist, motivational speaker and minister (Yoruba priestess) Iyanla Vanzant, seemed to be conversing with someone. He turned his full attention to Vanzant and asked her what was going on. She said:

    I’m struggling with the essence, the energy of my great grandmother in my DNA that says you don’t need nothing but a strong connection to you and your creator. You know, she says, ‘He’ll tell you what to do and how to do it.’ She says, ‘You keep doing the same thing, sometimes in a different way, and that’s why you keep getting the same results.’ She says that we have a genetic and a cellular memory that comes forth, and that memory that is really etched inside of us is one of running, hiding and waiting. We’ve been running from stuff for so long. Then we hide so that we won’t be found out hoping to be found, and then we wait to be invited in. And she says it’s time for us to stop running, first of all, from responsibility. . . .Nobody in the White House, green house, po’ house, left house brought you on this planet. You are here by divine design. What is your connection to that? What is your connection to that?

After deafening cheers from the audience and panelists, Vanzant told black folks that trust was their second area of responsibility and that grandma said black folks show a lack of trust by what they say and do. Ultimately, they turn to the government, instead of themselves, to get what they want. “I don’t need George Bush to tell me who I am and who I’m not,” Vanzant said. “I don’t need that. What I gotta do is go within myself.” And, as she has said throughout sharing this spiritual moment, going within herself means tapping into ancestral spirits to help her and others recognize “their divinity, their power, but also recognizing the things they do to sabotage themselves. . . .So, yes, me and grandma are having a moment. And it’s all good.”

Maybe you thought like me at first. Beyond the ethereal talk, I thought that Vanzant may have just been referring to the values her grandmother instilled in her but was just using present tense to describe how her grandmother would talk to Vanzant when she was alive. But then Vanzant closed her remarks with this: “So let us as individuals, as we address each and every one of these issues, please let us not forget that grandma will speak to you, and not only will she speak to you, but she knows that they owe you her salary, and she’ll tell you how to get it.” I love my grandmothers, and they were wonderful women. I remember their wisdom and use it. But I remember what they told me and don’t seek to find out what they can yet tell me. This is divination. This is witchcraft. This is worshipping the dead. This is not the way to honor the ancestors, if you’re a bible-believing Christian.

“When men tell you to consult mediums and spiritists, who whisper and mutter, should not a people inquire of their God? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living?” (Isaiah 8:19, NIV). Isaiah asks us two good questions that we need to ponder. If we do indeed believe in “giving honor to God who is the head of my life,” then we should make that statement true, and seek him. And if we must talk to an ancestor, let it be someone alive who God has told us to seek. Grandma may have had some good ideas, but only the one who was and is and is to come, Jesus the Christ, has the best ideas, and we must seek him for our strength.

Copyright 2009 by Rhonda J. Smith