Tag: Plan

One Perfect Truth

Who can we trust? Certainly not the news. They don’t report the facts anymore. There may be some facts sprinkled in, but it’s slanted depending on what channel you are on. We are hearing the opinion of the network and only the information that they want us to hear. Fear is the job of most of the news networks and they do a fine job at that. Most of the stories floating around on-line end up being false and you have to fact check everything that you read. Even then, unless you are hearing it straight from the horse’s mouth, could there possibly be another side to the story?

We live in a world that seems to be falling down around us and not to add to the doom and gloom, it feels like that on most days. The nuclear family is under attack, our children are being targeted and the church is slowly deteriorating. We have just been told that UFOs are real and aliens have indeed landed here and we have been studying them for some years now. SAY WHAT!! You can pick your own gender at will and boys/men are playing on girls/women’s sports teams. Right is wrong and wrong is right. In fact it’s all subjective. Everyone has their own truth and is encouraged to speak it and stand on it. We are ridiculed for speaking or standing on THE truth. We are ridiculed for speaking and standing up for facts. No one wants to hear THE truth. Everyone wants to feel warm and fuzzy and live their best life. Well, I’m sorry. No one promised you that you could always be warm and fuzzy and live your best life.

The fact of the matter is sometimes the truth is painful. Sometimes truth makes us uncomfortable. Sometimes I don’t want to hear the truth, but I don’t want to have people around me that just make me feel good and watch me spin out into chaos as I wreck my life. If I didn’t have people in my life that would speak the truth, I would be a drug addict and an alcoholic, probably divorced and estranged from my child and the rest of my family. If you don’t have anyone in your life brave enough to speak the truth, then you need a new set of friends and maybe even family.

There is one perfect truth, and that is the truth of the Gospel. As I look around I am burdened for the world as I see it falling down, but I know thankfully how it ends. I know I am going to heaven and I hope that anyone who reads this will meet me there. If you know Jesus, then you know what I’m talking about. If you don’t, then let me tell you. God, because of his mercy and great love for us, did not leave us in our brokenness. He sent his son, Jesus, as a sacrifice for our sin. He lived a perfect, sin-free life. He willingly, chose to die in our place to pay the penalty for our sin. He then defeated death and rose to life. He did for us what we couldn’t do for ourselves. Merely knowing this won’t suffice. You have to act on this. You must confess your sins, seek forgiveness from God, and follow him as your Lord and savior. It’s as simple as that.

So even as the doom and gloom news and everything else is chaotic in this world, you and I can have hope and know that we will spend eternity in heaven with Jesus Christ. It doesn’t matter how bad things get. God is always in control. He wrote this story from beginning to end. Those that do not accept him will be separated from him for eternity. My prayer is that whoever you are, may you not be separated from God. Now, it’s your job to spread this far and wide.

Conversations With God

I have really been struggling since I wrote my last blog. I think I’ve said it before. I’m a planner. Usually I have some sort of an outline in my head as to what I’m going to write about. Now I will tell you, each time I’ve sat down to write with an outline or general idea in my head, God has taken me in a different direction. The difference is, I had an idea. I had an outline of some sort. I felt confident in sitting down because there was something there. Not lately. It’s like a black hole. It’s blank. I have nothing. I feel like a deer caught in the headlights.

I keep jotting down little thoughts and ideas in my notebook that pop into my brain. Lord knows if I don’t write it down, it’s gone in the next five minutes. Then I start to question myself. Maybe that’s all you have. Maybe you were just supposed to get on here write a handful of times and then move along. Well, maybe that’s true. How am I supposed to know? Where’s my burning bush? Can’t you just give me a word God? Well, that’s the thing. It was pointed out to me the other night in my recovery group that I just need to let it happen. I am listening to the voices of defeat and not even giving God a chance. This oh so wise person said, “You have got to stop trying to plan out everything. You can plan a lot of things but you are going to have to just let God move through you and stop trying to put him on a schedule.” Not planning is along the same lines as going to your job/school naked. Yeah, hermit status for the rest of my life. I want to feel confident before I step out and do anything. I want to feel like what I put forth is going to be met with acceptance and understanding and not get egg on my face or wow did I really say that.

It’s so funny because I used to think I was so confident back when I was drinking. I could talk to anyone, life of the party, dancing on the tables and sometimes the bar. What a false sense of confidence alcohol gives us and oh what it makes us step out and do. Talk about egg on your face or wow did I really say that or do that. We are more afraid of showing our true selves and being real with eachother than we are of being absolute idiots and making a fool of ourselves. That can just be chalked up to, oh, she just had to much to drink. Well that’s not the real me. I am more than that. Why are we so afraid for people to see us? We are afraid they just might not like what they see. It’s like the filters on Snapchat. Ya’ll better stop using those all the time and take some real pictures of yourself. Someone is going to see you in person and not know who you are. I needed to take that filter off. I needed to be me because it got to a point where I didn’t even know me. I had to start finding out who I was again and just where it was that I decided that I didn’t love myself enough.

So I took the advice and picked up my computer today. WITHOUT AN OUTLINE! WITHOUT A PLAN! She was right. That wise person in my recovery group. God knows what I need when I need it. Just like all the other times I have written. I may have felt confident but It was God laying on my heart what needed to be said. It is God writing this today. I just placed my fingers on the keys and started typing. The words just flow and you know what it’s like? It’s really like I’m letting you all in on a conversation that God is having with me. He likes to wait to reveal things to me until I’m typing here. Maybe he thinks someone else might need to hear something similar. My confidence needs to be in God. Not in how well I think I can write about a certain topic, or just how many ideas I have come up with.

It is a process to get to know myself. I have hidden away for quite a few years. I am learning through my conversations with God. I didn’t even realize until tonight that he was showing up in real time and having class with me each time I wrote.The more I remove the filters and remember and find that girl inside, the more I like her. The more I’m not ashamed. I may have done some shameful things but that does not define me. I am more than that. If I could just see myself as God sees me. Whoa!!!! Watch her go. Now that’s a Wonder Woman.

Unchangeable

These last couple of days that my Dad has been home from the hospital have been unsettling for me. I think that’s the right word. When he was in the hospital I had a mission. Make sure he had everything he needed, make sure my Mom was taken care of just generally do whatever needed to be done and it seemed there was always something needing to be done. I’m good with that. I’m good with, here’s what I need you to do and it needs to be done by this time etc. I don’t do good with waiting.

I suppose no one likes to wait. We are just in a holding pattern now. Waiting to go to the Dr., waiting to hear the prognosis, waiting to hear what treatment is available. When we get that information we will know how we need to proceed. I just need a PLAN!!! Wait a minute. I’m not the one who’s sick. I’m not the one who was told that they have a brain tumor. I’m not the one who had brain surgery. Oh, I would imagine the person that received that information would like to know most of all where he goes from here. What’s next, is there chemo, radiation, what is my life going to be like? I just need a list. That’s the way I operate. I need to know everything there is to know so I am well informed and I can plan and know exactly what to do. Meanwhile, my Dad is sitting here with this inside his body. He is the one who is going to have the hardest part of this whole process. I need to slow down and forget about my lists and being so informed that I know exactly what will need to be done each and every day. This is about spending each and every moment that I can with him and making it count. God doesn’t work on our schedule and in all my 44 years he’s never given me a list so I can be prepared for upcoming events and know just what’s going to happen on any given day. Have you every heard that saying, when we make plans God laughs. I’m pretty sure he does. A lot.

As much uncertainty as there is and I’m still pretty sure God’s not going to share his list with me, although he really should I’m a great organizer, there is one constant. This, God did share with all of us and I can write it down on each and every day of my planner and every list I have. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Hebrews 13:8 That I can count on. Things may change from day to day, minute to minute but he is unchangeable. So I need to embrace the quiet chaos that it is right now and stop scheduling and start being so I don’t miss the moments or the man. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xPzTSpbYmk