I found a loophole

I was reading my blogs and I came across a mom was on a trip and calling her husband at home she said:

"I called my husband yesterday and he started talking about he had installed some lights and a new mailbox. He must have talked for ten minutes about this before he asked me about New York. I kept thinking to myself, “Is this how I sound? Do I really go on and on like that about the mundane things I do all day?” The answer hit me as a resounding YES! I guess it’s inevitable. When you’re stuck home all day, dealing with kids, isolated from other adults, you sort of go crazy and given the chance, you talk your head off about any subject to any adult who will listen." (italics mine)

That made me laugh, because it is soooooo true!!!! So does that mean, I have some special privileges and actually you all have to listen to me?

Of course I am kidding.... but maybe my husband should--kidding again....I do want to strive in the listening area, but given my 'handicap' it may take longer *smile*

More seriously now....

Here is what has been on my mind a-lot lately. This is Dietrich Bonhoeffer, titled "Ears of God" The thing is he is addressing pastoral care, but I really think that it is applicable for all Christians and that we all have the responsibility to tell truth to other believers. That is why this is so convicting to me! I can see myself in the words that he is saying. So many times, I have been the person he is talking about and I can see myself (like a movie in my mind) in many of those times...--patiently waiting for the person to finish....

Ears of God

"For Christians, pastoral care differs essentially from preaching in that here the task of listening is joined to the task of speaking the Word. There is also a kind of listening with half an ear that presumes already to know what the other person has to say. This impatient, inattentive listening really despises the other Christian and finally is only waiting to get a chance to speak and thus to get rid of the other. This sort of listening is no fulfillment of our task. And it is certain that here, too, in our attitude toward other Christians we simply see reflected our own relationship to God. It should be no surprise that we are no longer able to perform the greatest service of listening that God has entrusted to us--hearing the confession of another Christian--if we refuse to lend our ear to another person on lesser subjects. The pagan world today knows something about persons who often can be helped only by having someone who will seriously listen to them. On this insight it has built its own secular form of pastoral care, which has become popular with many people, including Christians. But Christians have forgotten that the ministry of listening has been entrusted to them by the one who is indeed the great listener and in whose work they are to participate. We should listen with the ears of God, so that we can speak the Word of God.

I think that this has been on my mind since --Monday, November 19, 2007 as I had posted about this topic there as well...I do plan to revisit this subject with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, since I do NOT have this down and I desire to be a good listener. When I do take the time to listen, I have found it to be SUCH A BLESSING!