Anne LeGare

Two weeks ago on Saturday, I was entering the home stretch of an incredibly hard mom-week.  The typical mom-weeks usually start the moment dad leaves town on a business trip. This time, it started the moment dad left the continent on a business trip!

In the week leading up to this particular Saturday, one of the kids got really sick, requiring several doctor and hospital visits. His sick-storm passed the day before he was to represent his junior high at the Central Texas History Day competition in Austin. We patched him up just in time for the event.

We got up at 6:00 Saturday morning and were setting up the exhibit in Austin two hours later. After a long day in the big city, we were finally headed home as the sun was setting.

The problem was I had no idea how to get home. I programmed my onboard GPS and listened to the turn-by-turn directions. For some reason, I was re-routed for traffic conditions, and ended up on a new toll road I knew nothing about. What’s worse, my GPS knew nothing about it either, and kept telling me to take turns that don’t exist. It was dark, and I had no idea where I was.  

So I did what was natural for me to do when I’m scared and panicked. I started yelling at the closest target. In this case, it was the GPS lady. I told her what an idiot she was. Then I got off the toll road, pulled over and asked for help.   After getting the help I needed and getting back in the car, a particularly annoying woman walked by. I thought a bad thought, and almost said it out loud, but stopped myself.

I said to the kids “I almost said a bad word back there.” They started laughing and said “Mom, you owe us like 28 dollars, because you’ve been saying lots of bad words!” (In our family we have to pay the swearword jar $1 per bad word uttered)  I was incredulous. I knew I’d said a couple of foul things, but 28 of them? Even though I knew they were exaggerating, I was disappointed with myself for the bad example I’d set.

The next morning I apologized to the kids for the things I’d said when I was scared and angry. Then I gave them lecture and spiritual lesson number 6,952, which I entitled “default settings.”

Default settings, I explained, are the behaviors we revert to naturally when we’re tired, stressed, anxious, panicked, or just plain angry. For me, 30 years of cultivating rough edges in my life made foul language my default setting in this instance. For others, a default setting could be looking for love in the wrong places.  Some might revert to using drugs or alcohol.

Default settings can be good, however. Right now, I’m typing a Word document in Times New Roman, font size 12, which is the default setting for my computer. I just sat down and started typing — no thought required. These programmed settings make life easier, and make operating our many appliances, vehicles and other contraptions effortless.

As Christians, we have been given an entirely new nature. Our old is gone. But we still live in our flesh-encased bodies. My mind has a lot of default settings that I programmed into it for many years before I became a Christian. But I have the power to adjust those settings.  I can make living for God in all areas of my life more and more effortless with each setting I choose to change.

By using God’s Word as the owner’s manual for our lives, we can change our default settings!