Marriage Advice

The 5 People (possibly?) Fallacy

~ Bev Parker ~ Leave a comment

A Closer Look at the “5 People You Hang With” Thing

The saying is that you’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with, and I’m hearing it often.  But I’m not quite comfortable with it—I get a little squirm of doubt and unease every time it’s repeated. While I see the validity of the statement—bad company does indeed corrupt, and good company certainly is a welcome and a needed influence (eating out with people who order steak and salad instead of burgers and fries, and who always look on the bright side, like my sister-in-law Liz) there is still a little squirm of unease and discomfort with the “5 people” mantra, and here are my thoughts and questions about it:

  1.  I’m not a statistic.
  2. I’m not an average.
  3. I am meant to overcome evil (or whatever undesirable influence) with good, not the opposite.
  4. I am not seeing anything in Scripture that says I’m to ditch my family and friends when they aren’t of use/benefit to me.
  5. This sounds like bravery, but is it?  Wouldn’t real bravery speak up when needed, or do the opposite of the crowd when wisdom so dictates?
  6. If I can see the problem, aren’t I called to be a good example by not joining in?
  7. Wouldn’t praying in love and faith be simpler and more beneficial for all parties than simply seeking a new circle?
  8. Can’t God be trusted to bring those new relationships into my life, even as He can be trusted to lead me with the current ones?
  9. Am I trying to escape something/someone I need to face, and thereby grow in freedom and grace?
  10. Could it be that I’m not the marvel my imagined new circle will welcome with open arms?

This statement, I believe, has value when you’re trying to get free from parasites/addicts—when your life actually depends on leaving a circle of death.  But for your family and friends, maybe you’re just meant to be the voice of reason, the doer of the beautiful, the example, the prayer warrior.  Or maybe you’re in a situation like mine has been lately—I am meant to allow the relationship to be so covered with grace, that my flesh has to shut up, that I have no alternative to doing the only thing that ever really changes things:  Trust God.

And here’s another maybe:  maybe you’re meant to be like Pastor Mark Hankins’ mama, who when the talk got negative said, “Let’s talk about Jesus.”  If that didn’t do the trick, she began singing the song, “Let’s talk about Jesus.”  Eventually people get the message—even the one in the mirror.

Don’t Label Your Narcissist

~ Bev Parker ~ Leave a comment

There’s a ton of good stuff out there about narcissism, but let’s be like good parents dealing with trying children.  Just say “No.” Good parenting is not enabling destructive behavior.  Enabling is easy, like any sin.  You just bow to the sin. 

Years ago I got enough of a narcissist in my life and when I crossed this person they came at me, fists clenched.  I stood my ground.  “Go ahead,” I said.  “Hit me.”  That stopped them.  I then said, “Nothing I ever do is right.  Nothing I do is good enough.”

In other words, I stopped performing, stopped being manipulated, stopped responding.

The most unkind thing we can do to a  narcissist is dance to their tune.  We, as the more “well” person in the relationship, are called to put on a new song.  They can learn to sing along, or they can get along.

Someone, telling me about someone else being mad, as though that was important, was happily surprised when I said, “He can get glad in the same clothes he got mad in.”  I have to not care.  I have to be healed, set free, even delivered of the  need to please, to keep the peace. 

It seems to me that narcissistic adults are, just like brat two-year-olds, begging for someone to draw some boundaries, help them learn to behave and therefore get along in this life. 

But labels—no.  Once you decide your mom, mate, boss, friend, or pastor is a narcissist, you will see everything they think, do and say through that lens.  YOU ARE JUDGING AND WHAT YOU JUDGE WILL, IN SOME FORM OR FASHION, COME ON YOU.  You will see them as fatally flawed, and just someone to leave in the dust.  You will stop praying for them, stop letting God have say-so, and lose all your power.

So examine the relationship.  Where have you enabled?  When have you bowed to their nonsense because you’re afraid of a bit of conflict? 

Isn’t it disgusting when you see moms asking permission from a toddler  for the day’s activity?  And when she tries to give him whatever he wants to stop the whining, does he stop?  No, he whines all the more, and eventually starts yelling and screaming.  He’s absolutely begging for some non-negotiable boundaries, for someone he can trust to help him be a better person. 

Well, you can’t spank your neighbor, or your mate, right?  No, but you can get to the end of your rope, stop trying the tired things you’ve been trying for ever, and that have never and will never work.

Oh, you wanna back up to that spanking part?  You want to so self-righteously tell me you don’t believe in “hitting” your child.  Well, if you think spanking is hitting, you definitely should not spank, but that’s for another time.    

So, don’t call your kid a brat, don’t call your mate a narcissist.  Call yourself brave and wise and finished with the nonsense.

And remember this:  We often see in others what we dislike in ourselves.  Yes, that gal in the mirror may be a work in progress as well.  Let’s just all get out of God’s way, and get in His ways.  Can I get an Amen?  Amen!

Talking to myself today, because when I start listening to too much YouTube  and getting all  brilliant about everyone else’s issues, I can really get all up in God’s business, and forget all about love and forgiveness, and walking in all the fruits of the Spiritl. INSTEAD I just get miserable, mad, and pathetic.  Like a two-year-old or a narcissist who needs the “gift of No” and maybe a nap. (I HEARD ABOUT THE GIFT OF NO FROM TIM HAWKINS.)

Think of that when that person is being impossible.  What’s really going on?  What do they really need from you?  It’s not enabling, that much is for sure. 

But it’s also not getting all in the flesh because you’re the latest expert on narcissism and you’re going to tell them off right this minute.  Pray and wait.  God really wants to help us all, deliver us all, set us all free to enjoy each other.

This will help:  Think of a new label, and make it one you want TO SEE BECOME REALITY.  Your two-year-old, because of your excellent training, is “a fine young man”, for instance.  Your drama queen teenager is a “deep and good-hearted woman IN THE MAKING”, your know-it-all grouch husband is a “Dearly Beloved Child of God.”

Someone in my house called someone else in my house “such an ass” and I said, “Do not call my child names.”  So, how about we just, as I said in the beginning of this diatribe, stop with the labeling.  It doesn’t help at all.  It harms. STOP WITH THE FINGER POINTING, AND PUT YOUR HANDS TOGETHER AND LIFT YOUR EYES—GETTING THEM OFF NARCISSISTIC BEHAVIOR AND ON THE HEALING LOVE OF JESUS.

Husbands are not the sum of their faults.

~ Bev Parker ~ Leave a comment

Get Serious About Your Mission, and Stop Goldfishin’

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Yes, You are Creative–Watch This!

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FRIEND TO FRIEND is here (well, on Amazon)

~ Bev Parker ~ Leave a comment

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=bev+parker+friend+to+friend&crid=FT3SIMMCP0WW&sprefix=bev+parker+friend+to+frien%2Caps%2C117&ref=nb_sb_noss_2

I’m self-publishing this one, and I’ll be sharing from it soon on YouTube, but go ahead and get your copy now. It’s so pretty and such fun, too. How about the title: Friend to Friend–A Home Lover’s Daybook for Adventures in Everyday Life.

And if that’s not enough excitement, I’ll have the expanded edition (as in twice as long) of The Maker’s Marriage available by April 15–so something good on that inauspicious date.

Stay tuned.

The Only Narcissist You Need to Worry About

~ Bev Parker ~ Leave a comment

First, can we agree that time spend on YouTube learning how at least half the people we know are raging narcissists is, well, not time well spent? And what is the point, anyway? I’ll tell you what Maryl di Milo said in a YouTube video about a book she was reviewing, which advocates, among other things, getting away from less than pleasant (narcissistic) people: “It’s about self-preservation.”

I haven’t read this book, and it may be extremely helpful, but if it’s another book that points me to me, I don’t need it. I can do self-preservation instead of trusting the only One who can preserve me, easy peasy–no help needed.

And anyway, is that what we’re here for–self-preservation? I think not. Let’s learn that any self-focused thing (oops, isn’t that narcissism?) may not be our friend. Let’s learn that so often the people so determined to label people as narcissists may have a few less-than-selfless traits themselves.

Shall I look into the mirror? Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the most narcissistic of all?

Oh, that’s my husband, my daughter-in-law, my neighbor. Why can’t we just know that as long as we’re here we’ll likely be fighting self-worship in some form, and simply mind our own narcissistic business.

And here’s a thought: Let’s find something a little more constructive (see the New Testament) to do about troublesome people than just toss them out of our lives.

Revival of What?

~ Bev Parker ~ Leave a comment

I have been, with so many others, praying for revival in our land, in the world, in the church. But it occurs to me we might want to agree with God’s reasons for revival, and we might pray a little deeper about this. I feel I am treading on dangerous ground here, when I say we need to pray for revival not so gas prices go down, and wages go up, and life becomes safer and more comfortable. Yes, these are all nice things, but let’s have pure motivation, purified via abiding in Christ Jesus, so that we pray for revival with a heart of flesh.

Again, lets pray a little deeper, about that place where it all begins: at home. We can never pray too passionately for families–that marriages are strong, couples simply awash in the Love of God. Let us pray that children are so intensely valued that we see them exactly as their Creator sees them–the greatest imaginable of gifts, and worthy of training, discipline, and focused attention–undergirded by unending prayer and warfare.

Why not stop speaking what is: skyrocketing divorce rates, kids left bereft and easy prey for any predator and taker, pornography in schools, etc. How about we believe the Word of God which tells us, in short, that we have what we say. Let’s declare what we want (and INTEND) to see, rather than what is. When we lament what the enemy is up to, and what he’s already accomplished, it’s glorifying him and his work. It’s a perverse/death-bringing use of the tongue (see Proverbs 18:21).

We not only have what we say, we believe what we say. So, let’ say something that’s truth–something believable, remembering that everything Satan does, every evil, is based on a lie. It’s a lie that we can’t overcome, that any battle is too far gone, that we have to just wait it out and hope we survive.

We are not just conquerors. We are more than conquerors. When will we see this truth? When we believe God and say what He says; when there is a revival in our own hearts.

In reading the following aloud, and not fussing about the KJV translation (or just read in your own Bible) you will feel hope arise in your heart. And, I pray, the peace of God. And the Love that works with faith to bring . . . revival!

Romans 8: 31-39

What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?

He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?

Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth.

Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. 

Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.

For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,

Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

That’s How You Change the World, Ladies!

~ Bev Parker ~ Leave a comment

Getting Saltier Than Ever About Home Things and a Certain White Man

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