Okay. I'm writing on something serious today so if you are down to turn on your brains and think, please read on, otherwise continue clicking on other people's facebook pages while consuming as much useless information about how their weekend went as possible. Or I suppose you can always change your profile picture. People might be bored with you from that angle after three days.
Tonight I'm writing on a thought I've been turning around in my head ever since I walked out of church this morning. The sermon was on forgiveness. Oh how hard it is to forgive isn't it? Especially to those whom we love. How can we forgive somebody for hurting us so badly, and why should we? Well I'll tell you why. Because the dude upstairs does. I'm not talking about the guy above you in your apartment complex. I'm speaking of the one and only Gee Oh Dee. Yep, God. He forgives us before we even hurt him. And we continue to hurt him every single day. Now before you stop reading because you think this is getting too religious for you, (because Lord knows I'm not religious), think about it like this. You have this friend, whom you love very much, so much in fact that you would do anything for them. You have what you think is a good relationship with them but then you notice they start to pull away after while. You watch as they struggle through life and wish you could help them but whatever you have to say is ignored. You still get along okay but conversations become shorter and shorter and before long you are barely spoken to. Almost completely ignored. But then your friend hits rock bottom and suddenly they need someone to turn to...YOU. Would you help them? That same situation happens to God every...single...day.
It happens ALL the time. Except we are the one's doing the ignoring, and not taking his advice. And still after days, weeks, months, and years of ignoring his presence we have the balls to turn to him in a time of need. NEED. Gosh we are some arrogant creatures, we humans, aren't we? We know it all until something doesn't go right. Then when things are bad we find things to blame it on. "Oh, well it's not my fault I'm this way, If blah blah blah hadn't happened in my life then I would be different." or "If she/he wasn't this way then I wouldn't act this way." or "This happened, so this is the way I am now." It's never our fault. We can't even take an ounce of blame. Look how victimized we have made ourselves. We have to go around telling everybody why we are the way we are and even justifying it continually in our own minds. Well, you are the way you are because you weren't strong enough to stand up when life took the rug out from under your feet.
Before you think I'm a total B-word, do know that yes I am human believe it or not, and have spent my share of time wallowing around on the ground thinking I had a big owie that couldn't be fixed. And from time to time I find myself face down in the dirt. But I try not to spend too much time down there because I start to find it quite ridiculous how everyone around me has the same owies and as we begin to compare I realize mine isn't as unique and terrible as I thought. So I stand. And in standing I find it quite rewarding knowing all it took was a change of thought. So look around you, whatever struggles you are facing, you aren't alone. Stop playing the "I'm the victim" game with everybody, because there is only one victim. It's Jesus. Look up a picture of him hanging on the cross and tell me that he's not a victim. That leaves you and I as only one thing, the perpetrator. We are the reason he hangs there, and we are the reason you and I lay on the ground thinking life is miserable. If he intended for your life to be miserable he wouldn't have allowed himself to die for you in misery.
Crazy thing about life is that it's up to you how to live it. And hell, I'm no preacher or religious self righteous figure trying to tell the world how horrible they are. I'm just your average, every day chic who's had her share of ups and downs. And I write this knowing that I too need to take my own advice. But I also write this knowing that in standing you sure as hell can see things a lot clearer than you can from the ground's perspective. Ashes to ashes we all fall down, but who wants to stand up and get over it? It's about that time.
