"Mind" your own business

  This weekend I had the privilege of chaperoning a girls retreat for the 7th-12th grade girls at our church. It was a wonderful 2 days of hanging out, playing games, talking, bonding, and learning God's Word with and from them. Honestly, I took so much away from the conversations and lessons! I hope they did, too, since they were the target audience. I love how God teaches us things when we think we are teaching others. :)

The theme was God Girls - belonging to Him, heart, soul, body and mind. I got to speak, along with a dear friend, about the mind. We focused on how Satan tries to get into our minds and keep us from seeing things God's way, causing us to make decisions that do not honor God, and pull us farther from Him. One of the things we talked about were the lies he feeds us - we're not good enough, we're not smart enough, we're not pretty enough, etc, and how as girls/women we are really good at criticizing ourselves. We encouraged the girls to ignore those lies, push away negative thoughts, and focus on positives instead. But right after the talk, what did I do? Immediately began a play-by-play of the talk in my head, deciding what went wrong or didn't come out the way I wanted it to, and how it was so awful. I gave right into Satan and did what I just told the girls not to do! 

While I always want to do a good job, and do my best, I will never be able to be perfect. So why do I get upset at myself when I'm fall short of perfection? So what if the talk felt disjointed? So what if the words didn't come out perfectly. God is in control, and He can handle it. It's not about me. It's His message. And I know He was guiding at least some of my words, because I said some things I had planned not to say. (But that I realize now were important to say, because I needed to hear them as much as, if not more than the girls!) And as for the other stuff, oh well! As long as I do my best, He'll handle the rest. My goal is to just try not to get in His way. :)