"Move on. It's just a chapter in the past.
But don't close the book. Just turn the page!"
~ Anonymous ~
Above is a quote that I found tweeted by my youngest daughter, Sabrina. Wow, I thought when I read it, that's good!
I wonder at how often we fail to move on from the chapter of the past we're still in. We're still stuck on the same page, with the same hurt, singing the same song, pitying in the same party. Failing to heal from our wound, because we continue to scratch its old scab. We won't allow it to heal, because we continue to make it bleed. It's become infected now, because of our continuing to pick at it.
What is it about us that gets stuck in a chapter? I think if we listen to the advise of the quote quoted above we just might could learn something.
We are often our own worst enemy and get stuck in our yesterday's chapter. We refuse to move on because we're too mad, we're too hurt, or we simply stay stuck because we're simply too scared to. All the while, we're blaming the people or the event or the circumstances or situations around us. I think that sometimes we need to realize that it's our man in the mirror that is our greatest obstacle. We could move to a new chapter if we wanted to. Problem mostly is... is that we say we do, but we really don't want to!
I was discussing with the inmates the other day in one of the prisons and I asked, What is it about us that captures an event, a hurt, a wounding, an offense, and keeps it close by us? It's as if we took a snapshot of it on the day it happened, and we've been looking at that same old picture for how many years now? We've been looking at it every day now, since the very day it happened! Then to top that, we've been carrying it around with us and showing it to every person in our path that we can possibly show it to.
It's old. It's worn. The page is torn. And it's silly looking to everyone we know (though nobody says so.... or if they said, we'd argue and fail to listen). "LOOK!" we say as we show them the picture that still stays in our heads, "This is why I am like I am. This is why I act like I act. This is why I'm bitter. This is why I rage a lot. This is why I hurt. This is why I'm mean. This is what happened to me. This has changed my life forever."
When nooo. It's not changed it really. It's stayed it. But you're the one that decided to let it!
This was hilarious.
I was talking to a girl on the phone last night. She was frustrated with her "X" and didn't mind saying so. She told me several things that he had texted her eons ago. And then she said, "I've still got them! It made me so mad, I saved them!"
What???
WHY, pray tell, do we do that???
"Quit looking at it!" I wanted to say.
"Delete the thing! Get rid of it! Throw it away! Don't save old messages that are saved for the very reason to help you remember and to continue to make you mad!"
Aren't we so silly (crazy) sometimes in what we keep?
Another crazy thing is how we'll let someone slap us into yesterday with them in the split of a second. And we'll stew, or fume, or rage, or sulk, or pity, or cry, or fight, or become more embittered, or whatever, once they've slapped us back to that yesterday's year. We've reverted to that old us back then. And we find ourselves living in another era while trying to modern-day dress the realm of our past.
What chapter are you in? What pictures do you show?
"Turn my eyes from worthless things,
and give me life through Your word....
... Open my eyes that I may behold
wondrous things out of Your law."
~ Ps 119:37 ~
What do you be-holding? Where are your eyes turned? And what's its affect?
Our childhood song still applies. Sing it again with me and learn, "Oh be careful little eyes what you see........."
Jesus' advice was, "If your eye offend you, pluck it out!" But surely we don't have to go to such an extreme. Close your lids! Throw it away! Delete the thing! Bury it! Put it behind you! Or simply TURN YOUR HEAD!
Where's your focus? And might you need to change your lQQk?
.
No comments:
Post a Comment