The First F: I Was Foolish!

As a church girl I did not know Proverbs 3:5-6:

Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not to thine own understanding
In all thy ways acknowledge Him and He will direct thy path.

Even if I had been acquainted with this scripture, I probably would have just used it as a tool in my church work, a weapon to wield against those people who were not living up to my expectations. To use the lines from the poem “Invictus,” I was “the captain of my fate, the master of my soul.” I was in charge of me and I would be the only one who would chart my course for church work even as I did it under the guise of humility and submission.

I was a true legalist; I judged not only the church worthiness of people by what they did or did not do, but also my standards determined if they were worthy of my church girl attention. Heaven help the preacher who used bad grammar in a sermon; I immediately tuned him out, deeming him illiterate and sub-standard. If I knew of a particular “sinful” predilection of an individual, then that individual became persona non grata, always under the purview of my jaundiced eye. If anyone offended me, he or she made my hit list which meant I did my best to avoid any contact with the miscreant. I became very skillful in ignoring people without their ever having a clue that they were being ignored.

Since I was in control of my world, I was also correct in my assertions and my assessments. In my foolishness, I established the rules by which I measured everything and everyone. When some mere mortal did not meet the standard of my expectations, I became judge and jury. There was not a smidgen of grace or compassion in my scrutiny. I was hard-core. I saw all the negatives in life and it was my responsibility to not only point them out to my pastor/husband and anyone else who would listen to me (one reason why my pastor/husband, for a period of time, banned me from riding to church with him on Sunday mornings since I always seized those moments to voice my negatives), but it was also my duty to provide the cure.

I was foolish, because I was in control of nothing even though I did my best to control anything and everything around me. In spite of my "good intentions," my thoughts, my words, my reactions and my responses were still subject to the whim of my personality and the tenor of my circumstances. While I did a pretty good job of controlling me, myself and I most of the time (meaning I never snapped or lost control of myself in public), I still had my moments and most of the time I had those out of control "moments" with family. I was Foolish!