February 23

For Today's Forward Day by Day Reading click here: http://prayer.forwardmovement.org/the_daily_readings.php?d=23&m=2&y=2013

Welcome back! I hope you've had a nice time mentally exploring the "complete set," otherwise known as the fruit of the spirit, that God has packed for you in that bag of yours. Like mine and your neighbor's and everybody else's in the world, you should see a fantabulous complete set of Love, Joy, Peace, Forbearance (otherwise known as Patience), Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness and Self-Control. All that, it it's not even $19.99 with free shipping and handling! This set comes free and is standard order in all of God's children's bags. Awesome.

I took inventory of my set this morning. I was inspecting Self-Control, thinking about how lucky I am to have this particular tool in the set. If you had to visualize Self-Control, a thought process we'll be going through with all the tools in the set, imagine handcuffs...maybe handcuffs with a blindfold. And no, this is not going down some kinky "50 Shades of Grey" road. Imagine how powerless and trust-FULL we have to be if we have handcuffs and a blind fold on. No wonder policemen user them! You can't move, physically react or flip out in handcuffs. Your only move? Trust. And deep breaths.

"Thank you God, for Self-Control," I said to myself this morning, as I bounded down the steps to the breakfast my husband was cooking — just before...I smelled something that wasn't hot bacon. Or coffee.

Poop.

I smelled it. And it wasn't the "Hoof Hearted Ice Melted" joke (this is a good kids' joke they like to play on me. Say it a few times real fast and see what it sounds like) It was poop. As in, dog poop...and by the smell of it, loads and loads of it.  By the way, one of the other gifts God put in my bag was a good sniffer, so I knew what I was smelling was ALLLLLL wrong. After sniffsnoffing around the living room and den, I found the slithering source. It was where it always is: all over our nice, white, wool rug, which now sits in the dining room. Our expensive, only-nice-thing-in-the-house rug look like a chocolate covered ice cream sundae.

(So God also put a healthy dose of the "knack for having things look just right" superpower in my bag, which can be a hinderance if not handled properly.)

I began panting. In a panic, I grabbed for my Self-Control, feeling happy I'd thought about it before coming downstairs.

God put Self-Control to work right away. He remembered what happened five years ago when we came back from a trip to Texas on Christmas night — when the sick cat had gotten locked inside for a few days and had gone bloody pee and poop crazy on this same, expensive, only-nice-thing-in-the-house rug. THAT time, by the light of the dry Christmas tree, I forgot all about Self-Control...and cried, mopped, soaked and sprayed myself into a wild frenzy. It wasn't pretty. THIS time, Self-Control got after it.

I took a few deep breaths, stopped gawking at the expensive, only-nice-thing-in-the-house rug, and went into the kitchen...where my sweet, breakfast-making husband was recruited by Self-Control to take over. After plugging husband into the job, Self-Control also got Stanley Steemer in on the job...and by noon, the whole nasty mess was all but a memory. In fact, things are better than they were before. All the carpets and rugs in the house are clean! Could it be that depending on a God-given tool can leave you in an even better place than before you used it?

Self-Control. Check yours out today and see what stains come out!