Choices

Facing the music on the results of choices can be tough. ..especially bad choices. Or even worse, dealing with choices that others made that are affecting you. I tell my son all the time, issues you are dealing with now are results of the choices you made two weeks ago, two months ago, two years ago, what different choices are you making NOW that will result in outcomes in two weeks, two months, two years?

Everything is a choice. Who you call, who you ignore, what you eat, what you put away, what you spend, what you save, where you go, when you decide to stay home, what rules you break, what ones you obey, what you say, what you hold back, what bills you pay and what bills you put-off....

I hate to see cycles coming sometimes...you look up and you are in a familiar place ..and its not a good one. I mean you are still cordial, polite, smiling and hospitalable, but deep inside you know...something is coming...something is not right...I will not be able to hold back this storm...this time its coming and I will not be able to stop it. Actually, I don't want to stop it..come what may...lets just deal with it once and for all....and THAT too is a choice.

I've figured out that sometimes the "run" wears you out. Running from your past...running from your future, running from the phone, running from the mailbox, running from those that can help, running from the fallout of previous choices. At some point you need to stop running, and that is a choice. You need to just stop trying to juggle all the balls alone. Take your superman cape off for a minute and be honest. Be vulnerable, be humbled. I know most of you are saying you must BE crazy..I'm not. I just know that continuing to try to hold it all together when the dam is about to break can kill you. This time make a different choice. Let the chips fall where they may, sincerely turn it over to the only one that really knows all the right choices ~God.

Or, you can continue to do what you've always done in your family, your job, your marriage, your church, your friends, your home, your relationships...hold it all together by the skin of your teeth...but if you do...you'll continue to get what you've always had. If you want something different, DO something different-make a different choice. Ask for help!! I know "FOREIGN..."

Trust somebody, your spouse, friend, pastor or even if its nobody you can trust but God. But this time...don't go it alone...this time the stakes are higher and you may not make it back...trust me.. make a different choice. I'm working on doing the same.

The Spirit of UGH!

Ugh...that was as best as I could describe it. It was hard for me to explain what I was feeling today, but I remember a sermon that Joyce Meyer preached awhile back that talked about “dread”. I looked it up and the definition is pretty accurate:

• feel extremely frightened: to feel extremely frightened or worried about something that may happen in the future
  be reluctant: to be reluctant or frightened to do something because it is unpleasant, upsetting, or annoying
  terror: a feeling of great fear or terror, especially at the thought of experiencing or encountering something unpleasant

Whereas I can’t say its “terror” perse’, I do know that frightful, reluctant feeling…that thing that happens in the pit of your stomach when you have to deal with something that you really don’t want to face. Dread is an energy sapper. As soon as the issue surfaced, I could feel my spirit sink to my feet, my heart began to race and my face grew weary. My whole demeanor changed and as much as I would like to say that I self-talked myself out of it right away, I can’t say that. It has been a process all day to stay focused and to try to strategize my next move. My preference would be for it to just go away. However it won’t, things that pop up in your life for you to face rarely do. They just keep surfacing until you deal with them head on. People say that all the time, BUT I am learning that it is easier said than done.

What am I afraid of? Many things, but particularly I fear the unknown. I fear that I don’t have what is necessary to fix it, that I don’t have the resources, or the knowledge. I fear what could happen if I don’t? I worry that my procrastination will cause me angst or embarrassment and I am not sure that I can handle it. I don’t know where to start and I don’t know where it will all end, again, “the unknown”.

But (sometimes, I love that word) I do know who DOES know what to do. I do know who has the resources, the knowledge and the strength to show up even in my weakness. I thank God for…well..God. I am grateful to have someone I can talk to on the way home to try to sort this out in my mind. I am thankful that he can help me untangle any web I have gotten myself into. I am thankful that he doesn’t toss me out just because I said that I am afraid. I am grateful that he knows, that I know that he hasn’t given me a spirit of fear but of power, love and strong mind. I am thankful that on the other side of this is freedom and peace and although I can’t see my way clear now, I know if I at least turn in God’s direction, he will never leave me or forsake me.