If hope is gone- what then?
When you lost your way- what do you do?
When all seems lost where do you turn?
“So my spirit grows faint within me; my heart within me is dismayed. I remember the days of long ago; I meditate on all your works and consider what your hands have done. I spread out my hands to you; I thirst for you like a parched land.” – Psalms 143:4-6
When the bad stuff has hit the fan and the remains of all that you thought was real, true and whole in your life is scattered around you like death and a stench hangs from your nostrils and for the life of you- you can’t seem to sense God anywhere- What do you do?
This is a vital time because it will point the way to your recovery or continued pain. This is a very valuable lesson I have been blessed to relearn a few times and this scripture really brings home- so the answer for me is this:
I meditate on the Love that He has provided and is providing!
This is the only way I know that is a sure fire way to stay out of pity party mode and see His Love in each moment.
Here is an exercise and I hope it helps you as much as it helps me. This works while eating alone and doing a different one with each bite or sitting in a quiet place or busy place as long as you can stay focused on the moment. Take several deep breaths to relax and just get focused and then begin to find moments or things that have happened in the past or are happening now and exist now for which you can be thankful and just breath and talk to God. Here is my list recently with each breath I started a new one:
“God thank you for that tree”
“God thank you for a wonderful Aunt and Uncle that love me”
“God that was an awesome mountain you created that I got to see last week”
“God Your Son did so much for me- Thank You!”
“God You gave me a great dog and I appreciate it so much”
“God thank you so much for this breath and letting me see that rock”
Practice this way for about 20 minutes a day for a week and see if your outlook on life doesn’t change- I dare you!
Don’t Worry- Be- Grace-Full!!
When the chips are down, it’s then we also need to pay attention to our thoughts and be aware of what we are saying in our mind. Is it negative or positive? If it’s negative, we can be aware of that and begin to turn it into positive. This is not an easy task. Self awareness is key to know thy self to begin repairs. 🙂
GREAT point! The chips are in your mind when they are up or down but the anchor, God, is everywhere- the breeze blowing through the trees, a childs laughter. I think things going south remind us of whats important in life.
Thank you for sharing this!
Thank you Bob. 🙂
I got called out by karma with this comment….
You know the things we’ve talked about my daughter? Well, a lot more drama came my way today that brought back my hateful feelings towards her. The anger starting building up inside to the point of wanting to ban her from my life…
Long story short, with out self awareness I would still be angered simply because I would be unaware (Perse) of my thoughts running in automatic mode.
I stopped myself and handed it over to God.
I realized that this is something beyond the scope of my understanding and was/is not able to use my own intellect to find a way out of the anger and anxiety.
I told myself:
“Reality, you need to knock it off! You’ve done everything in your power to help her and to help yourself deal with here, let it go and let God handle it.”
And that is what I’m going to do, start letting God handle things when I have done my best on my end to resolve various problems.
One has to be aware of a possible/clear and present problem to ask for help as well as working in tandem with one’s own intellect to work the problem out or hand it over to God. 🙂
Great post as always! Love your work. 🙂
THANK YOU BROTHER!!
This meant so much to me! You have so much to give and share and I am so very blessed to call you brother and know you!
I was blessed also with an “Aha” moment this morning when I suddenly realized how my thoughts of others thoughts and my judgement of what I thought other people were thinking has so very much affected me over the years! Much of my guilt and shame that I carried like a huge cross on my back was self imposed as I was concerned how others would see me.
Then I started to think- Did Jesus care how anyone percieved Him? Or did He just Love like there was no tomorrow?
You have blessed me again Brother and I thank you for Being, Here, Now!