Surrender

 Isaiah 41:13 

For I am the Lord your God who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear, I will help you. 

Yesterday didn't go as planned. I had a list on my kitchen counter of several things to finish and many calls and appointments to make. I still haven't finished my absentee ballot and I had clothes in a basket and clothes in the dryer from the day before. We had been visiting both sets of parents the evening before and I came home tired, ate oatmeal for a late dinner, left the dishes and went into a TV coma the rest of the night. A migraine would start off my day and even with medication, heat packs, and a nap, I could not shake it. I folded two loads of laundry, cut up a few vegetables for dinner that night, cut two matted balls of fur off the dog, fed the birds, and that was the extent of my accomplishments for Monday. My migraine did not cease until late that night. Today I woke up with bladder pain, which is no surprise, but frustrating nonetheless. I am tired of dealing with some kind of pain every day of my life, despite the things I do to prevent it physically, mentally, spiritually and every other -ally I can think of. I had already spent Saturday with terrible bladder pain, worried that I wouldn't be able to fulfill my commitments of making lunch for everyone plus helping with the leaf removal at my mom's house on Sunday and baking bread for Steve's parents.

 It seems whenever I make commitments to help others, my body is attacked even more. Sometimes I just want to give up or cry or both. I'm just being honest. A person can only be strong for so long before the cracks start to show. Sometime on Saturday I checked the weather forecast and was somewhat grateful for a 90% chance of rain on Sunday to give me the reprieve from the lunch and the leaves, as I didn't have what I needed to make the lunch and would have had to go shopping. Steve also felt sick on Saturday, so my backup was out of commission too. In fact, I had spent Friday night taking care of him. Saturday was just rough. Mom was disappointed that we couldn't all come because she is lonely. She misses church and bible study and feels everyone has deserted her and I agree. Whatever happened to taking care of the widows and the orphans? I think that only applies when people don't have to wear a mask to go and see her. She served her church for many years, but it just doesn't matter. See, these are the things you think about with a 12 hour migraine. Injustices, the lost, the lonely, the misguided, the unfairness going on right now, the friends who just aren't really your friends anymore. Things just don't feel "right" right now, and it isn't just the pandemic. But the pandemic certainly isn't helping. It's the election, the difficulty in even having a discussion with anyone and having to tiptoe because you know you're on opposite sides and don't agree on anything with certain people.  It's not fun to disagree and it certainly has been a unique time in history where people of the church have taken politics into God's house and pastors are quitting. But that's another issue.

1 Peter 5:7 

Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. 

As I write this from my card table chair on my card table in my bedroom, my husband is using my small desk chair in my old craft room/writing room because his desk chair finally bit the dust. The tile for our kitchen sits behind him on my scrapbook paper cubbies, and his awards for excellence sit on the windowsill with some family pictures. Every now and then the internet goes out right in the middle of something he is doing or he gets the blue screen of death on his work laptop. Sometimes his dad calls in the middle of the day and needs something. When I need to take or make a call, I no longer sit in the living room on my couch, but I try to find a quiet, private place so I don't bother him. He shuts his office door frequently when he's in meetings, probably because we are way too loud! Of course we are glad he's not one of the millions unemployed or one of those trying to work outside of our home while there is still a virus out there. But working from home has its challenges too. Lots and lots of things have changed. Having a daughter in college among an outbreak, having a graduated daughter trying to figure out what she's going to do about getting a job while companies are either shut down or not hiring-these are not just our challenges, but the challenges of many. Add to that health problems, mental health issues, family issues, and the unspoken issues many of us are keeping to ourselves. It's been a pressure cooker. A pressure cooker with many blessings, praise God. 

Truth be told, I don't want to make any of those calls. I don't want to go to any of those appointments. I don't want to dry my apples, make applesauce, freeze all that squash, fill out my ballot, run to the township office, give the dog a haircut, NONE OF THEM. My body hurts, my mind hurts, my soul is tired, and sometimes I just want to surrender. Today is that day. I'm here to tell you that sometimes I can only do things after I give them up. I finally say to God, I can't do any more things. I hurt everywhere. It's too much. My mind is overworking again. My spirit is weak, and I feel alone. Take this burden from me because I don't want it. And He will take it. All the political garbage, all the physical pain, all the frustrations, and all the noise of my "to-do" lists. Because only God can make things right when nothing feels "right".  And I will guarantee you, He won't say, "You should be thankful because someone has it worse than you." He will say instead, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." Matthew 11-28-30 

Blessings to you as you navigate your path with God. May you see your blessings in your challenges as we do, but also know that it is okay to feel powerless and want to give up sometimes. Simply reach up and ask God to be your power source. He is more than ready to listen and help. 

On the Trail to Love

 Love one another 

John 13:34

In my quest to love better, I have found myself among the lesser traveled, more challenging trails of my own heart. I am both checking myself and checking my relationships to see exactly what I and they are doing in terms of loving. It's easy to love people who love you back, isn't it? It's simple to give out blind trust to those who are trustworthy. You don't even give a second thought to the ones who always seem to respond when you reach out. They are just "easy to love", aren't they? They do all the "right" things. Even if a mistake is made between you, because there is security in the way you feel about each other and treat each other, it's really not a big deal to just talk it over and move on.  I love and relax in those kinds of relationships and I want to be that person to those special people for whom I care.  

They seem to just love you when you need to be loved, give you praise or honor when you need to be lifted up, respond in truth when you need a response, commit to you in whatever way you have asked them, show up when you ask them to show up, offer help when you need them and often before you need them, and a whole host of other "loving" behaviors that just tell you, "I don't need to wonder. This person just loves and accepts me." My mom recently told me that my sister said she adores me. That just warmed my heart. To be adored by anyone is a blessing, and I adore her as well. I love my family and my close friends. 

How many of those people do you have in your life? Are you a person like that to someone else? Is there anyone in your life who just gives you unconditional acceptance? Someone who you just don't have to jump through hoops for? Someone who just looks at you just the way you are and says, "you know, you are just amazing and I can't imagine my life without you in it." I have a limited amount of those people and I have people I look at that way, thankfully. But I know I can do better and I know I have "danglers" in my life where there are some uncertainties about my place there or what they are doing here. Do you have anyone dangling around that you are not sure of? 

In having conversations with others, I sometimes hear, "This person just rubs me the wrong way every time I talk to him or her. I just always seem to get my feelings hurt" or "I try to communicate with him or her, but he or she shuts down and won't respond so we never get anything resolved. I don't know where I stand. I keep bringing things up so I become like a nag to this person and I'm not like that with anybody else. It's frustrating!" Why is it in certain relationships, we try so hard and it just seems fruitless and in others it is just so effortless? The biggest question is why are we letting it bother us so much? Can we learn to just let people do what they need to do and we can just move on until they do? Or is it not that simple? It must not be, because relationships are a big source of contention with many people. To me, the common thread is love or a big lack of it. 

Are they "hard to love" or are we having a hard time loving? I don't like the term "loving the unlovable" because I feel everyone is in some way loveable to someone and to be honest, some days I just feel unlovable myself! But just like not everyone will like us, we may not ever be able to fix a relationship to the point where love becomes natural or "easy". We have to know one thing going into any relationship with any person: we are not always "easy" either. Someone has had to "work" at loving us at some point because we gave them a run for their money too, or maybe we are right now. 

As I've pointed out before, God commanded us to Love one another. It wasn't a request because He knew we would struggle with this. Some of us would not be raised in healthy loving environments and would take those unhealthy habits into the next relationships. Some would take their rejected hearts and go and reject others, wondering why they always feel rejected. Some would take their self hate and pain and project it onto others. All of these things and more create all kinds of unhealthy situations, making it more and more difficult to love and be loved. But God knew this ahead of time, and so He encouraged us to love anyway, and especially those who need it the most.  This is why it's so important for us to just take a minute and put our "God goggles" on and look at people and try to understand them before we decide they are terrible, mean people. Most of the time they are just misguided, misdirected, angry, confused, hurt, bad communicators, or they have just never experienced compassion. You get to decide if you go around hugging porcupines hoping they soften or if you want to protect yourself from them. 

When you hear the phrase "Hurting people hurt people" I will bet that someone came immediately to mind. Maybe it was yourself. I know that I thought of a couple people, but I also remember a few things I have done, said, or thought and maybe even recently that were the cause of my own personal pain.  I failed to pray or take my pain to the Lord first and reconcile it with Him before I hurt another person with it. We all do this at some point and it can help us to understand others who also hurt themselves this way. The answer is God's way, which is to love them as they are and give them the same understanding you need when you're being a pain-in-the-porcupine. 

Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. 

Colossians 3:12

 When we are full of love and compassion for others and ourselves, we become powerful. When we are powerful, we can choose to not allow the careless words or others to get to our hearts quite so personally. We can understand that "it's not always about us" though it's okay to have feelings and deal with them in a healthy way. It is with compassion that Jesus healed the people. We can be helpful healers of people as well when we show compassion to them instead of anger or bitterness when they make mistakes or let us down. We can also help heal ourselves when we are tender toward ourselves and our own mistakes. 

Jesus had compassion on them and touched their eyes. Immediately they received their sight and followed him. 

Matthew 20:34 

One of the brambles in my less traveled jaunts is the fact that we throw the word "love" around so easily, but yet it's a very powerful word. To really love someone is a commitment, and I don't mean just the marital type of commitment. I have been told countless times by individuals (hint, I just called them "individuals") those words, "I love you", but did I feel loved by them? No. They were just flippant words. Love requires many things, and not all of them are sweet and rainbow-filled. I lost many "friends" who spoke words of love, but disappeared when the clouds came. Love is being secure, being at peace, being mindful of another, feeling valued and protected, feeling cared for, and the list goes on according to the type of love. If you are evaluating relationships and you find you are valuing people who don't value you, giving care and protection to those who are not caring for or protecting you, not providing you with emotional or even physical peace, I'm not sure how that can be called "love" at all. Trust God to show you who should be in your life by praying for the uncertain people in your life. 

My dear friend Norm Sawyer (sirnorm.com)has taught me many things about friendship, and the differences between friends and acquaintances. This is not good news for the danglers. I just smiled at that statement and I'm going to bet he did too. Sometimes we keep people in our lives for the wrong reasons. We think "But God says I have to love everyone" or "I've had this friend forever" or the one I've been telling myself, "at least this friend stays in touch. It's more than I can say for the others." But those aren't reasons to keep people in your life. Especially if they are a source or a reminder of pain for any reason or if every time you talk to them, they bring out a side of you that is not kind, peaceful, or secure.  We can care about people from a distance, we can forgive them and not have them in our lives, and we can trust God to bring in new people that will treat us better, and pray that God will give them new friends to help them too. But what we can't do is "fix" people, become codependent on them and call it "love", stick around only because you're hoping they'll eventually change and be the person you thought they were, or stick around because you hope they will eventually give you closure and apologies and "make it right". News flash, they probably won't do any of those things as long as you are there, making it easy for them to dangle around getting whatever it is they get from you. It's just not healthy. Get out of the brambles and get back on the trail. 

There are people in our lives who will be there for us no matter what. Those are friends. That may be just one friend and that's okay. Then there are people who will only be there once in a while and they are great people, we just won't connect on a deeper level, and that's fine too. Those are acquaintances, and we shouldn't take it personally when they don't choose us as close friends or choose others instead. Again, when we choose to love ourselves and others and show compassion to ourselves and others, we become powerful. We can then give ourselves and others the freedom to do what we and they need and want to do without conditions. We always need to trust and thank God for the people He has provided in our lives for our benefit and thank Him for the ones he removed too! Both are a blessing even if it hurts like nobody's business to lose someone you thought cared for you or you considered to be a close friend forever. 

This is why letting go is such an important part of love. I don't want to let go of my "dangler" (sorry for this term, but at this point it's working and I'm owning it), but it doesn't really love me. It is simply dangling me around, and I think God has me here for a better purpose than to just be kept hanging around. If at some point this person is open to listening to me, conversing with me on a more personal level, or including me and supporting me and caring about me on a normal level as a true friend, I would be open to that on my terms. But until then, I need to follow God's leading on forgiving this person for the part played in hurting me and forgiving myself for the part I played in returning the hurt. Sometimes we hold on too long and we need to trust that when we finally let go, God will help us move on and heal our hearts. 

 Loving does involve wanting what is best for others-even people we don't like, people who hurt us, people we see as frenemies, because when we are softened by love and compassion, we can be open to accepting the art and blessing of forgiveness. We also need to realize that sometimes we have to take a good look at ourselves and ask God to "fix" the things in us that haven't been working so well for awhile and that involves asking God to reveal some things that maybe we haven't been doing right or well with others. Love takes action and it takes truth if you really want to have relationships that matter and create powerful changes in yourself and with others. 

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. 

1 Corinthians 13:4-8

Be blessed!