Getting My Act Together
When we left for church on Christmas Eve morning, we had already enjoyed fun family Christmas gatherings with all of our kids and grandkids. Our Christmas Eve plans included church, going to the home of one of our daughters and her family for a few hours later that day, and having a quiet late evening at home. Though we weren’t expecting any visitors that day, I still wanted our home to be straight and lovely and calm. It did not start out that way.
As I gathered the materials for my Sunday School class together in the dining room, I dashed into the laundry room, pulled a couple of Christmas tablecloths out of the dryer, and spread them on the back of the couch in the living room, so they wouldn’t wrinkle in the dryer while we were at church. We were barely out of the driveway when I wondered if I would ever in my whole life get my act together! During the ten-minute drive to church, I put on some lipstick, tied a ribbon on a present, finished my breakfast, and reached down to buckle my Mary Janes.
During that drive, I also wrote down “Getting my act together” as the idea for a future blog post. When I sat down to write it, I thought about various titles, finally settling, as you see, on my original thought. As I began writing, I thought about that word “act.” We women need to make sure that we know the reason we want our “act” together — and that reason can’t be because of what other people will think if we don’t. We can’t actually be acting. Rather than acting, we must be living a genuine life of faith and love, making the first two commandments our guiding principles: Love God first. Love your neighbor as yourself.
And this I pray,
that your love may abound still more and more
in real knowledge and all discernment,
so that you may approve the things that are excellent,
in order to be sincere and blameless
until the day of Christ;
having been filled with the fruit of righteousness
which comes through Jesus Christ,
to the glory and praise of God.
Philippians 1:9-11