Why I Gave Up Pants

A neighbor, whom I don’t know, reminded me yesterday of why I gave up pants for lent.

It was a sad way to be reminded of what kind of a mother I want to always be!!
I haven’t shared with very many people, other than my family, that I gave up pants for lent. I decided I would only wear skirts or dresses for forty days. My real intention was to try and change my disposition, not my dress. My biggest challenge in life is to ALWAYS be a kind, gentle, loving and caring person towards my family and I thought that maybe if I would look more feminine I would act more feminine. This major wardrobe change has turned out to be an effective reminder every day, all day, of who I am and how I’m suppose to be.

I have blogged before about the fact that I can be quite the yeller to my kids. Usually I find myself yelling when I’m either in a big hurry and I have a slowpoke or two, or when I ask someone to do something or not to do something and they attempt to refuse. If something gets lost I may yell as the frustration mounts if we can't find it right away. These problems and behaviors can sure raise the pitch and volume of my voice. There are times that I find yelling is necessary and don‘t feel guilty for it. For instance when Daniel starts running towards the street I’ll panic and yell at him to stop.

But yesterday I was reminded in a hair raising way, why I gave up my pants for lent. I don’t want to be a mom like the one I heard yelling from a house that is diagonally across the street from mine. It was in the middle of the afternoon and her child, dressed in pink footy pj‘s who looks about two, had apparently escaped her ground floor apartment to the top of a set of stairs. To get the child back down the steps the mother screamed in a deep roaring voice, “COME DOWN HERE RIGHT NOW AND WE NEED TO BLOW YOUR F_ _ _ ING NOSE! I just shuddered. The child didn’t say a word and complied and headed back down the steps. I thought to myself that poor child is too used to THAT word. I hate that word!

If and when I do yell I keep my language clean most of the time. Very rarely do I swear but when I do it comes in waves where I have a couple bad weeks here and their when four letter words can slip out of my mouth in a fit of anger. I can’t think that I ever say that dreaded “F” word but I may substitute something very close. When these times happen I realize I’ve grown apart from God and I need to turn back to him and ask for forgiveness. I do this by going to confession and I always am reconciled back to Him and become a nicer person again.

This lent is teaching me that to be truly feminine I must cling to God and then I won’t need to wear skirts and dresses to be what he made me to be. But until Easter I’ll gladly suffer through, as He did for me. And I’ll unite my suffering to His and pray that my new neighbor can grow close to Him in order to respect and treat herself and her child with gentleness, kindness and love. And I’ll pray in thanksgiving for there by the grace of God go I.