No.
Just, “No.”
That’s what I was just dying to tell this one mother at the pool yesterday. I was trying my plum best to have my Queen LaDiva vision lived out…
by watching the boys swim and read my book on the pool edge. But I couldn’t. Because I was distracted. Distracted and irritated. Alright, I was distracted and irritated because I was being nosey.
Fine, I said it. I was being nosey.
There was a mother in my nosey ear span that was getting on my nerves. If she warned her two sons once, she warned the little tykes 25 times to, “Don’t jump off the deep side.” They never did but they kept walking across the three-foot strip of cement that separated the shallow pool from the deep pool and looked back at her. Taunting her. Exasperated, she played into being owned by her most likely two and three-year old sons and said, “Don’t go in the deep end, come over here.” (Repeat this sentence 26 times and then tell me if you’re irritated.)
I wanted to tell her to just say, “NO!” Not just, “No” but tell her sons that, “No. If you walk the to the deep end again you will not go in the pool. You will sit on the sidelines.”
Okay, there. That’s what I really wanted to say to her.
Listen, I know what it looks like when your kids are owning you. Because I’ve been there, done that and continue to ask God for help in that department. Her kids were owning her. And as a result, the poor mother just wasn’t enjoying her kids or the “fun time” at the pool. She was a stress ball.
I felt like she could have enjoyed her life and kids more by just saying, “No.”
Have you ever heard the idea that the things you don’t like in someone else perhaps are the things that you don’t like in yourself?
So I sat there, irritated and not reading my book and thought about how I’ve allowed certain people, situations, cherished offspring, even ministry work…to “own me”. How I’ve limited my own joy by failing to just say, “No.”
I’m a recovering people pleaser. The reason I have a trouble saying, “no” to people and situations is because I don’t want to cause anyone pain. But like that mother at the pool, avoiding no just exasperated and extended the pain…at least for her listening audience it did.
Basically what I’m saying is that this mother was irritating me because I’m irritated with myself.
This year has been such a growing year for me. I’ve found saying, “no” to be rather stressful. But after the stress died down, peace came quickly after.
Just, “No.” invites peace and love and helps me enjoy life more.
My kids asking, asking, asking…
No.
Downloading my entire day onto el Finkstero (that’s what I’m calling him until we come back from our trip to Puerto Rico) when I know that he’s had a horrible day…
No.
Say absolutely everything that’s in my heart to a friend?
No. (Because saying everything would bury her and that’s just not love.)
Eat everything I want?
No. (Believe me, I’ve tried this route…it doesn’t work.) 
Let a friend vent under the guise of prayer request to camouflage gossip?
No.
Spending above our budget because, “We can just use savings?”
No.
Overextending my time commitments because, “The work just won’t get done if I don’t do it?”
No.
Smacking the sense into someone…
Really, no.
It takes a lot of courage to say, “no.” I’m learning that often times saying “no” really means that I’m saying “yes” to peace.
And I dig peace. 
I know these are rather loaded questions today…
What is one area where you just need to say, “No”? Do you buy into the thought that what irritates you in someone else is something you don’t like about yourself?
