Lessons from Maya

You may be wondering who Maya is? Well, Maya is my personal trainer. Well as personal as you can get for her being a Wii exercise coach. I use to think she was trying to kill me off when I worked out alone instead of with my husband but now our relationship is doing better. Since she is antimated her responses are pretty much the same from workout to workout. She says things like “you go girl” and “you are working now” like she can actually see what I am doing. As I was working out today though a few of her phrases stuck with me. In exercising, it is very important to do the exercises correctly. If I don’t, I will not get the benefit out of the exercise or I could get hurt. Often Maya will say,”Do it right.” The other phrase that always makes me laugh is that we will be doing cardio and she will say, “Don’t forget to breathe.” Who forgets to breathe when they are hustling up and back?

Since God has been dealing with me and my words this week, I thought about Maya’s word in relation to communication. “Do it right.” We can communicate in so many ways but doing it right is doing it God’s way. In Colossians 4:6, Paul commands, “Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt so that you may know how to answer everyone.” I think I have the salt part down but not so much the grace especially in relaton to my students. Secondly, “don’t forget to breathe.” Sometimes students make me mad. I think they know how to push my buttons better than my own children. Remembering to breathe would help me take James’ advice when he says “everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry.” So as I continue to work on my words this week, I am going to try to “do it right” and to not forget to breathe.

Here are some other proverbs that have stood out as I have been reading a Proverb a day.

Proverbs 13:3 “He who guards his lips guards his life, but he who speaks rashly will come to ruin.”
Proverbs 14:28 “the heart of the righteous weighs its answers, but the mouth of the wicked gushes evil.”
Proverbs 16:23,24 “A wise man’s heart guides his mouth, and his lips promote instruction. Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.”

God, May your Spirit guide my responses and my words. Amen

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