"Don't pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults— unless, of course, you want the same treatment. That critical spirit has a way of boomeranging. It's easy to see a smudge on your neighbor's face and be oblivious to the ugly sneer on your own. Do you have the nerve to say, 'Let me wash your face for you,' when your own face is distorted by contempt? It's this whole traveling road-show mentality all over again, playing a holier-than-thou part instead of just living your part. Wipe that ugly sneer off your own face, and you might be fit to offer a washcloth to your neighbor.” Matthew 7:1-5 (The Message)
I love this, and I love this version, though I wish lately that I had been taking it a lot more seriously, and actually taking action.
I have this friend in my life, someone who is so much more than a friend. They are my other half as some people say, and I agree completely. We laugh together, cry, when they hurts, I hurt. But I hadn’t realized how much I had been hurting them lately.
Something has been going on with me lately, something that I refused even to acknowledge. I had been convinced that all the “problems” we were having was because the other person changed, changed too much for the “bad”. Yes, they had changed, but this person could never change for the “bad”, they have Him, therefore, it’s not even possible. But while I was all along “criticizing” them, telling them they needed to go back to the way they were, I didn’t even notice, I refused to watch myself change the exact way that I was accusing them of changing, if that makes sense.
I was the one that was changing, and needed to watch myself more, and question what was going on with me, and my attitude, because my attitude has grown, in a five year old temper tantrum way. This is what I have understood what I had been doing. I had been blowing up everything this person said into something way bigger and unneeded. I was doing this because then if everything was their fault, then we wouldn’t have to look at my “problems”, the REAL reason that all of this useless fighting was happening. I was letting my guard down too much, letting myself get hurt by stupid things that I would never in my right mind let hurt me before. But I certainly wouldn’t be such a jerk about it.
This person finally brought this to my attention this morning, Valentine’s Day, and I believe this to be the best Valentine’s Day present that I could have ever received. What more could I want then honesty? Because honesty, in the deepest way is LOVE. And isn’t that what this whole day is about? Love in the deepest level? Not culturally it isn’t, but it SHOULD BE! This morning we had the stupidest fight ever. It was about why Valentine’s Day is stupid, and now I am realizing that I was so wrong. My whole argument was stupid, and they were completely and entirely right. Everyday should be Valentine’s Day.
You shouldn’t love someone more just because Hallmark designates a day for it, you should love someone as much as you can. every. single. day. I am a Christian, and I’m not afraid to say it, not at all, and I should be loving as possible, to everyone. every. single. day. But I haven’t been. I’ve been hurtful. Nobody has been hurting me, only myself. I have been getting hurt because of myself. All this person has been giving me since we met is love. UnCONDITIONAL love! I have messed up a lot since we met, but no matter what, they are always still there, loving me more than they did five minutes before I messed up. And what this verse is saying is this; you should treat this person the way you want to be treated, and that’s what I’ve been getting. I’ve been treating them like crap, though I’ve only been getting a taste of it back. I can only imagine what it is like to be this person, and hurt like they have been hurting because of me. Because I refused to look at the log in my own eye, they have been hurting, and I will never be able to fix that.
I don’t want to make this a “public apology” because I have done that, and I don’t want to use this place for those kinds of things. Everything that we do should be for Him, and that is what I try to use this blog for, for the glory of Him, through me. Writing stuff down and letting all my thoughts out, has always helped me see how I need to changed to glorify the Lord more. This has been a really hard blog for me to write, I think mostly because I have had to admit that I am wrong, but this is something I need to get better at, this is one of the things I used to be better at, and am now refusing to do. So this will be my starting point to change, today, February 14th 2010, I am going to work harder to see the things that I need to work on, and not tell others to look at themselves before I examine myself.
This was really long, and I can now see, it was another blog mostly for me, but I haven’t written one in a long time, and so maybe I need to look into myself, and what I need to change more, and dissect it like this. We’ll see where it goes.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Holding on; the time to LET GO
People are interesting creations.
There are so many things that we do that are just so hard to comprehend! We talk, we love, we hate, we worship, we connect, we have RELATIONSHIPS.
Relationships are tricky things. And I’m not talking JUST about your significant other type of relationships, any kind of relationship can be tricky. Some are hard to hold on to no matter how hard you work, some are hard to let go, no matter how hard you try. Some come and go without you even realizing it, and some do stay forever.
Recently I have cut a lot of people out of my life that have just been a burden, not helping me in my walk with Him, and just plain mean! But there was one person that I refused to let go of, and now I am not even really sure why I wanted to keep them there. We had gone through a lot together yes, but most of the turmoil that we went through was caused by our own actions, immaturity, and refusal to see what we were doing was not going to help us in the long run. I think this was caused by my own insecurity. What would happen if I let this person go? Would things be different? If so, how? This person did mean a lot to me, and they will forever hold a place in my heart, even though they took what wasn’t there’s to take. But I had to learn that I needed to stop blaming only them and take some of the blame, and take responsibility for my own actions, which I had been refusing to do.
Things went too far out of control recently with this person, and I was forced to come to a realization, that I needed them to be cut out too. It was really really hard to tell them that. And I miss them already, they were one of my best friends. I could go to them about anything, and know that they would be behind me, always. And I know that if I ever need them, they will still be there, I have no doubt. But sometimes these people, the ones that mean the most, are the ones that you need to let go of in order for both parties to move on. I believe that I made the right choice, and yes it is hard, but whoever said that walking hand in hand with Jesus Christ was going to be easy?
I have been dealing with people a lot these past couple of months, all kinds of people and their relationships with me. My best friend called me up today. I haven’t really talked with him in a while so I had a lot to tell him. But I realized that a true friend you don’t need to talk to every single day to keep the relationship going. We’re still best friends, and have been since the 5th grade, and we don’t talk all that much, at least not as much as we used to. But we are still best friends.
So this is what I have learned; you don’t need to be friends with everyone. It’s not going to matter when you leave this place. No matter what, your only TRUE friend is Jesus, everyone else is still going to disappoint you at some point in your life, always. You don’t need to hold onto someone just because you have a past with them, let them go. You are not always going to have a future with them. Some people bring you down, don’t associate yourself with them! Friends are supposed to be uplifting, not bringing you down. And no matter how good of a “friend” they are, if they are causing you to stumble, you need to let them go, and yeah, it’s hard, but in a few years time, you will forget that they even existed, and God heals wounds like no tomorrow. So, no matter what they did to you, he can always take care of it, the end.
There are so many things that we do that are just so hard to comprehend! We talk, we love, we hate, we worship, we connect, we have RELATIONSHIPS.
Relationships are tricky things. And I’m not talking JUST about your significant other type of relationships, any kind of relationship can be tricky. Some are hard to hold on to no matter how hard you work, some are hard to let go, no matter how hard you try. Some come and go without you even realizing it, and some do stay forever.
Recently I have cut a lot of people out of my life that have just been a burden, not helping me in my walk with Him, and just plain mean! But there was one person that I refused to let go of, and now I am not even really sure why I wanted to keep them there. We had gone through a lot together yes, but most of the turmoil that we went through was caused by our own actions, immaturity, and refusal to see what we were doing was not going to help us in the long run. I think this was caused by my own insecurity. What would happen if I let this person go? Would things be different? If so, how? This person did mean a lot to me, and they will forever hold a place in my heart, even though they took what wasn’t there’s to take. But I had to learn that I needed to stop blaming only them and take some of the blame, and take responsibility for my own actions, which I had been refusing to do.
Things went too far out of control recently with this person, and I was forced to come to a realization, that I needed them to be cut out too. It was really really hard to tell them that. And I miss them already, they were one of my best friends. I could go to them about anything, and know that they would be behind me, always. And I know that if I ever need them, they will still be there, I have no doubt. But sometimes these people, the ones that mean the most, are the ones that you need to let go of in order for both parties to move on. I believe that I made the right choice, and yes it is hard, but whoever said that walking hand in hand with Jesus Christ was going to be easy?
I have been dealing with people a lot these past couple of months, all kinds of people and their relationships with me. My best friend called me up today. I haven’t really talked with him in a while so I had a lot to tell him. But I realized that a true friend you don’t need to talk to every single day to keep the relationship going. We’re still best friends, and have been since the 5th grade, and we don’t talk all that much, at least not as much as we used to. But we are still best friends.
So this is what I have learned; you don’t need to be friends with everyone. It’s not going to matter when you leave this place. No matter what, your only TRUE friend is Jesus, everyone else is still going to disappoint you at some point in your life, always. You don’t need to hold onto someone just because you have a past with them, let them go. You are not always going to have a future with them. Some people bring you down, don’t associate yourself with them! Friends are supposed to be uplifting, not bringing you down. And no matter how good of a “friend” they are, if they are causing you to stumble, you need to let them go, and yeah, it’s hard, but in a few years time, you will forget that they even existed, and God heals wounds like no tomorrow. So, no matter what they did to you, he can always take care of it, the end.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Life; not another word for "movie"
Sometimes I just get all confused and jumbled inside when things start to go wrong. I feel like I have no control over what I say, and if I’m angry, it comes out, if I’m sad, it comes out, if I don’t care at all, it comes out! So why is this? Why can’t I just learn to control my emotions? Is it not humanly possible? Do I just not try hard enough? What is it, I’m confused, and I wish I could find the answer.
Sometimes I feel like my life is like a never ending movie. The boy who is in love with you, and won’t leave you alone, going to college, the amazing boyfriend she already has, but she can’t get over how the other boy who loves hurt her so badly. Like why does this happen to certain people, and not others? Because I feel like a lot of my friends think that their lives are quite boring. And maybe possibly they are!
This morning, even before nine o’clock, I got into a fight with my boyfriend, and we almost never ever fight. Especially the way we were fighting this morning. I was really hurt by something he said, and then by the fact he said that he was hurt too. But I never let him actually tell me why, I just kept going on and on about how he hurt me. Is there something wrong with this picture?
This is what I have discovered. The world is NOT like a movie, whether or not your life seems like it at times or not. You can’t base your life on things that you see, because in reality, life is not a movie, so what works in a movie, probably isn’t going to work in real life. The same situations might happen, but they aren’t going to end the same way. And I write about this all the time, women wanting lives like the movies, or books or whatever. And I’m so sorry for being so hypocritical about the way I feel about this, because I was the biggest offender of them all. And I want to publically say I’m sorry to Nathanael Joseph Maloney, because you were right, and I didn’t give you a chance to say sorry, and for that, I’M sorry.
I don’t really know why I needed to get this out there, I guess just as a warning to people. Don’t try to run your life on what you see in the movies, or read in books. This is your life, you don’t even control it! He does, so just let him do his will, and don’t try to make it something else that it is not, because 110% of the time, his way is going to be better.
Sometimes I feel like my life is like a never ending movie. The boy who is in love with you, and won’t leave you alone, going to college, the amazing boyfriend she already has, but she can’t get over how the other boy who loves hurt her so badly. Like why does this happen to certain people, and not others? Because I feel like a lot of my friends think that their lives are quite boring. And maybe possibly they are!
This morning, even before nine o’clock, I got into a fight with my boyfriend, and we almost never ever fight. Especially the way we were fighting this morning. I was really hurt by something he said, and then by the fact he said that he was hurt too. But I never let him actually tell me why, I just kept going on and on about how he hurt me. Is there something wrong with this picture?
This is what I have discovered. The world is NOT like a movie, whether or not your life seems like it at times or not. You can’t base your life on things that you see, because in reality, life is not a movie, so what works in a movie, probably isn’t going to work in real life. The same situations might happen, but they aren’t going to end the same way. And I write about this all the time, women wanting lives like the movies, or books or whatever. And I’m so sorry for being so hypocritical about the way I feel about this, because I was the biggest offender of them all. And I want to publically say I’m sorry to Nathanael Joseph Maloney, because you were right, and I didn’t give you a chance to say sorry, and for that, I’M sorry.
I don’t really know why I needed to get this out there, I guess just as a warning to people. Don’t try to run your life on what you see in the movies, or read in books. This is your life, you don’t even control it! He does, so just let him do his will, and don’t try to make it something else that it is not, because 110% of the time, his way is going to be better.
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