BY LIBBO CROSSWHITE
How teenagers
— and God’s Word —
teach me humility
I doodled this flower in my journal a few months back (my art teacher would be so disappointed in my petals), and as I was searching for what to write this month, the words I’d written next to the flower reminded me of why I came to love this column in the first place.
I indulged in a large slice of humble pie with last month’s Modern Motherhood column: I had a student kind enough to mention that they saw that I wrote in a magazine their mom had picked up. I asked, “Well, what’d you think?”
To which they followed up with, “Oh no, I didn’t read it. I just saw it and it was pretty long. But it looked like it might be good.” Reason 127 that I love my job. Humility and grace abound for those who work with teenagers (or have them in their home).
So this month, I am going to indulge my perhaps nonexistent younger readers with what God has been teaching me through His word lately, through short snippets of my latest sermon notes and quiet time readings. Sometimes I get so wrapped up in selfish ambition and what I think will be good, considered well written or clever, that I forget why I love writing this column. God has given me this space to share His words, and it has very little to do with me or my motherhood.
My prayer is that maybe something God has been saying to me will do one of two things for you:
✞ Allow you to see the gift of humbling yourself before the God of Creation.
✞ Take you to the Cross.
2 Corinthians 3:17 – “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.”
Freedom will never come from my own desires or my own works without the faith that God has given me. There is so much freedom in the realization that joy is only found when we give all that we have to the One who created us. Living in freedom means I can love others, especially my family, without condition, as Christ has loved me.
Ephesians 1:18-21 – “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.”
The same power that raised Jesus from death to life is alive and active in us. Our hope is found when our eyes are opened to the truth of God’s power to work within us and through us. May we never become numb to the true message of salvation: that Christ has paid it all at the Cross so that we may enter into His kingdom. From death to life, we have been saved by Jesus’ sacrifice that He would empty himself on our behalf. That he would take our sin and suffering and make it His own on the cross. May we never grow weary of hearing our own salvation story.
In John 13-16, as Jesus spoke His last words to His disciples, He modeled humility in the most tangible way. By washing their feet, Jesus spoke to each of us that we are called to be both humble and a servant to those around us, even those who are the hardest to love. Jesus wants the way we love and serve others to not only point them back to Him but to be our ultimate desire for our lives. May our lives be considered relevant not because of our fame or success, but because people were able to meet Jesus because of the way we humbled ourselves and served one another.
Libbo Haskins Crosswhite and her husband, Clay, live in Madison and attend Pinelake. They have one daughter, Mary Thomas, who is 6 years old, and a son, Russell, who is 4 years old. She is the high school guidance counselor at Madison-Ridgeland Academy and can be emailed at lcrosswhite@mrapats.org.
