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Lois Flowers

When Grace Interrupted My Pity Party

by Lois Flowers
by Lois Flowers

Last week, I wrote about dying to self and how this many-layered theological concept became personal to me during a stressful time of my life. Now, I explain how an unexpected epiphany brought hope and freedom to my dry heart—and just might do the same for you.

Dying to self

I continued thinking about dying to self as the months went by. We even started talking about it as a family. We called it “DTS-ing” for short, referring to unselfish acts like choosing the smaller cookie or letting someone else go first—intentional efforts to put others ahead of our own desires, even for the little things.

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One Way to Bring Life to Someone Else

by Lois Flowers
by Lois Flowers

Dying to self 3What does it mean to die to self?

The question—posed several years ago during a small-group discussion—was one I had never seriously considered.

The image of someone jumping in front of a bus to save another person immediately sprang to mind, but I suspected the meaning was more figurative than literal.

The scriptural context was 2 Corinthians 4:10-12, which says:

“We always carry the death of Jesus in our body, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who live are always given over to death because of Jesus, so that Jesus’ life may also be revealed in our mortal flesh. So death works in us, but life in you.”

I had always sort of skipped over these verses, what with all the repeated words about life and death and mortal flesh. I understood the connection to the one-time event of salvation, but that night, I started thinking about how “death” in me could result in life for someone else.

That season of my life included significant amounts of change and stress. Though it all, I struggled with irritability. I often reacted rather than responded. I frequently failed to demonstrate the fruit of the Spirit in how I interacted with my daughters, who were then about 10 and 7 years old.

As I contemplated dying to self through the lens of my own struggles, Jesus’ words in John 10:10 came to mind:

“The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.”

I thought about my words, my tone and my attitude. I considered the power they have to impact other people, even if it’s just the people in my house.

Do my attitudes and my thoughts bring life to others? I asked myself. When I respond to my children, are my words bringing life to their hearts and minds, or are my words and tone speaking death to them?

I know the theological concept of dying to self is multi-faceted and many layered, but this was what convicted me during that conversation. When every fiber my being wants respond in irritation and frustration—because I’m stressed, tired, hormonal or whatever—it is possible for me to die to myself so that someone else can experience life—full, whole, complete life.

I can choose kind, gentle and loving words instead of going with my human desire to be irritable. I can put someone else’s need for my presence above my own need to be alone.

Don’t get me wrong—it’s not easy. It actually can be quite hard, especially for someone who has been running on irritable for a long time.

There are many times when I don’t do it, even now.

But I can do it.  It is possible.

The day after our small group talked about dying to self, Lilly—who was in fourth grade at the time—asked me if I would come to school and have lunch with her. I tried to do that regularly back then, gamely braving a noisy lunchroom full of highly spirited kids because she wanted me to be there.

That particular morning, though, I was even more tired than usual. I had already come for lunch once that week, and I didn’t really want to do it again so soon.

“No, not today, honey,” I told her as she got out of the car.

She was OK with that, but no sooner had I driven out of the parking lot than the words from the night before started running through my head: die to self, die to self, die to self.

Oh, all RIGHT, I frumped. I get the message. I’ll go to school for lunch today!

When I got there later, I went to the fourth-grade wet area to find Lilly. One glance at her face told me something was terribly wrong.

A friend had been unkind and her feelings were hurt.

In a way that nobody but God could have predicted, she needed her mom right then, and there I was.

We retreated to the bathroom, where hugs and a few soft words soothed her feelings. She usually invited a friend join us for lunch, but this time, she and I sat at a table in the wet area—just the two of us—and ate our lunches. I pulled a deck of cards out of my purse, and by the time her classmates came back, she was fine.

It was a small thing, but it made a huge impression on me—one that lingers to this day.

(That’s not all I learned about dying to self during that season of my life, by the way. Next week, I’ll share about an unexpected epiphany that touched the deepest parts of my faith.)

♥ Lois

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Between a Hard Week and a Most Glorious Sunday

by Lois Flowers
by Lois Flowers

When your 22nd wedding anniversary falls on the day before Easter, at the end of yet another week of scary news headlines, it’s hard to know how to commemorate the occasion on your blog (especially if you don’t normally post on Saturdays or spend a lot of time writing about marriage).

sunrise cross

Sometimes, though, it’s OK to forget about what may or may not be appropriate blogging behavior and just go with your heart. And as I look forward to celebrating our risen Savior tomorrow, my heart says to post this today.

• • • • •

Randy has been talking for a long time about replacing his wedding ring with a tattoo. His gold ring itches, he says, and he’s constantly taking it off and rubbing his finger.

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When the Scorned Becomes the Blessing

by Lois Flowers
by Lois Flowers

black-eyed susansMy love of gardening began germinating a couple of decades ago. We had moved into a new house with a great space for a flowerbed by the front door, so I ordered a bunch of perennials from a mail-order catalog to help fill it up.

Plants were much cheaper back then, which is why I was able to purchase six black-eyed Susan plants for about $12. The heavy clay Arkansas soil must have agreed with them, because in a few years, they had expanded so much they practically took over the entire garden.

That might not have been a bad thing had they been a different color, but I’m not overly fond of yellow-orange.

Plus, someone I admired once referred to black-eyed Susans as a weed. And for some reason, I adopted her attitude instead of agreeing with the opinion of a different friend who considered black-eyed Susans to be her favorite flower.

So I dug them all up and replanted the huge clumps on the bare west side of the house where they would get plenty of sun. Soon, they were so big that I’m pretty sure you could see them from space.

Eventually, I got so sick of looking at them that I gave them all to another friend, who happily transplanted them in her own yard. And I vowed I would never have black-eyed Susans in my flowerbeds again.

I kept my promise at our next new house, but when we moved to Kansas in 2006, the home we bought had some black-eyed Susans gracing its existing flower borders. I didn’t have the heart to get rid of them, and they were more contained in the slightly less hospitable Kansas climate, so I let them be.

Several years later, we moved into our current home, a fixer-upper surrounded by expansive, mostly bare garden areas. Our first summer there was a scorcher. The backyard, which consisted of a large, neglected swimming pool and flagstone patio surrounded on three sides by a huge flower border, was a jungle of weeds and thorny hedge trees.

It was too hot to do anything back there and even if it had been cooler, I had no energy for gardening during that exhausting season of my life. But despite my complete lack of attention, there were a few bright spots of color on the patio, including—you guessed it—a black-eyed Susan plant sprouting out of a drain hole near the pool.

There it was—in a mass jungle of weeds, in the midst of the worst drought in decades— growing happily. And every time I saw it, it made me smile.

The irony wasn’t lost on me. The scorned had become the blessing.

A few summers later, I moved that plant to a more appropriate spot, only to find that the rabbits that frequented my now-thriving flowerbeds enjoyed eating it as much as I enjoyed looking at it. I tried all kinds of rabbit repellents, but nothing deterred these persistent creatures.

Which is why, the following spring, I found myself cutting out a length of chicken wire to go around this vulnerable little black-eyed Susan clump. How could I not protect this thing that had brought me so much joy during such a parched season?

The moral of the story is this: Sometimes, the things we turn our noses up during one season of life are the very things that bring us the most joy later.

♥ Lois

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