- Not The Only One!
- Post # 131
- 2 May 24
- ” Always The Same”
- Howdy!
- Thanks again for taking the time. I think that for the most of us we love those ” gotcha ” words of always and never, but in actuality that is rarely true of most things in life, regardless of how much emphasis we put on it , when we throw it out there. ☺️☺️. Truth be told we all have a slant in life towards seeing things a certain way and it usually falls under the banner of selfishness or what we are most comfortable with ☺️. I feel as if the words “always and never” should be reserved for death and taxes, as in people always die , and we never get bang for a buck with our tax dollars ☺️☺️.
- We could possibly find a couple who has been married a hundred years or so, and who ever usually takes out the garbage, the other one could proudly declare that the other one never does it , but I can assure you that there has been sometime when that was not true. It may feel like an always, but it’s a mostly true and maybe even more or less than you would expect ☺️☺️. This mundane choice of who does what chores is just one example of how we have a tendency to cap things from our view point. Perhaps we could say that women always birth the children, but there are people out there who want us to rethink that process as well ☺️☺️. I kind of want to buy in on the whole gender thing but I still can’t get past now ” women ” having to get a prostate exam when they turn forty ☺️☺️, but I digress, not here to punch holes in flimsy illusions ☺️. We find exceptions in nature, but not with people so much. We can say that the sun always rises in the east and sets in the west and that would be absolutely spot on. Even people who have some form of OCD, and have to have things in a certain order or it drives them absolutely nuts are not a hundred percent with whatever their compulsion is. There has been something out of the realm of there control be it health, weather or just an act of God to foil their efforts ☺️☺️.
- Last weekend we had the opportunity and the pleasure of celebrating my mom’s 85th birthday. It’s always a cute thing that regardless of how old you get, the perspective of you being an older individual is always just a little ways further than where you currently find yourself ☺️☺️. When I Was in my twenties, I thought that being forty was really old, and guess what? I was really wrong about that one!!☺️☺️. My mom has had a good run full of ups and downs just like most, and she has ” Always ” consistently been my mom. She has mellowed some, but for the most part, who I’ve always known her to be. I know that some of you guys have walked the dark road of dementia or Alzheimer’s with your parents and they have become nothing like what you remember them being, and for that I’m deeply sorry. Even my mom with her sharp wit and her no nonsense approach to life will someday come to an end. I will be left with the memories of who I always knew her to be, but not with her. I say that just like I know that I’m going to out live her☺️☺️, we shall see ☺️.
- I have been on record before about how I think that we throw the “L” word around to loosely, and sadly many people not knowing what true love is at all, and that goes both for the receiving and the giving of love. Way to many people are hung up on that, “I don’t feel it thing “and love is so much more than just a feeling. It’s about an act of Your will to be there through the good the bad, and the ugly , and whether you feel it or not . The feelings will ebb and flow just like happiness , but true love stays and flushes out the unrealistic over time. Stop! Letting Hollywood define what love is for you, it’s only entertainment and amusement ☺️. If we can miss what true love is all about, primarily because of selfishness, then maybe we are missing the mark with always and never as well. However!, there is an area of life that it does apply.
- There is this tremendously bold proclamation that I have found to be absolutely one hundred percent of the time true. God says that He is the same yesterday, today, and forever! God is unchanging, while we are constantly waffling through life with our emotions and opinions ☺️☺️. God also says that He will never leave us or forsake us…..hmmm, how so? Maybe this is just me, but I do want to point out the name of this blog and bring it to your attention ☺️☺️. I have done my homework and spent time in reflection and found God to be true to His word. Looking back over the decades, God has been that one constant presence, and as much as I would like to be able to say it about other people, places or things, the only things that even come close in a distant second is my persistence towards folly and selfishness ☺️☺️
- If we are honest with ourselves, we can say that jobs come and go. The days of forty years and the gold watch have long flown away. Even people with incredible credentials , with an amazing company and what was thought to be a recession proof occupation, find themselves doing some networking or pounding the pavement…and yes I know that people don’t actually do that any longer, but You get my drift.☺️ . Have you ever lost what you thought was a BFF? Yeah!, friends can be another area in life that when we look back in the rear view mirror that we see there has been a few interchangeable peeps☺️☺️. There are so many reasons and ways to loose a friendship. First up, I think because many of the people that we consider friends are actually closer to being an acquaintance. If you haven’t walked through something hard with someone, such as a divorce, a death of a child or love one or a bankruptcy , and if You all have never been vulnerable with one another, or relied on them for something or vises versa, they may just be a buddy that you like to gossip with. Often a true friendship will be marked by tears that have been shed together . After actually being there for you in your time of need, when it hits the fan ☺️☺️, the number one thing that makes someone a friend is telling you the truth. The things that show up in our blind spots, that we most often don’t want to hear or acknowledge, but they say it anyway. When jobs disappeared for one reason or the other and sometimes the people who I thought that I could count on, proved to be flimsy like a wet paper towel…God was there. He is always there.
- I’m pretty sure that I’m not the only person who has ever bound my hopes and dreams into things as in possessions. That is something that is way in the past, but I still meet and see people who believe that they have somehow arrived because they live in a slinky house, in a plush neighborhood, with a sort after zip code☺️☺️. There is a reason why there is an eagle on a dollar bill , and that’s because it has wings and can just fly away. ☺️Please hear my heart, there is nothing wrong with having really nice things, be it homes, automobiles, jewelry, or whatever floats your boat, but it’s about the role and place those things hold in your life. I have a very dear friend who lives in the northern part of the state with a beautiful home on the lake. Their health failed, ran through all of their savings and is now facing a short sale. So!, health is another area that can come and go. It’s nice when you have it, but when you don’t, you would trade almost anything to get it back. This friend of mine is finding peace and contentment in this situation with God. He’s the one who provided those incredible views from across the lake, but they don’t and can’t compare with Him.
- There are times when this is sadly true about family as well. Some spat took place and sometimes we can’t even remember what it was all about in the first place, but toes were stepped on and panties wound up in a bunch ☺️☺️. The ramifications of people being bitter and taking anger literally to the grave with them is just such a sad state of affairs. The one thing that I have learned is, it doesn’t matter who was right or who was wrong, it’s just not worth the riff of peace in the family and people having to choose sides. A family can look all kinds of ways now days and made up of a cross section of individuals, and the most important thing is for there to be love and acceptance. I’ve always been a little bit of a black sheep in my family, but when others weren’t or couldn’t stand up for me ….God was there, He’s always been there.
- I kind of saved the biggie for last, but not necessarily the best, unless we are twisted and just want to really embrace the pain☺️☺️. I’m just going to call this one your love interest. Now whether that’s a marriage , someone that you have been dating for a while to a long time, or even a shack up situation, it’s the person that you share and do life with. Whatever your situation is, if you have invested your heart, which is basically your all, then at one time or the other, that person has probably let you down. It may feel as if they used your heart for a door mat, and possibly that they were one of the most insensitive and none caring persons on the planet. There is just this sad reality that we are often hurt by the ones that we love the most. It’s not a one sided affair, and we are also guilty of hurting those whom we say that we love the most.
- There is no greater power or gift than there is to genuinely love someone and to be the object of their affections. The balance of power in life makes love just as destructive, when it’s twisted, distorted, or abused in some way. If you have ever had a vision of spending your life with someone and believing that the two of you could Conquer every obstacle that life had to throw at you, but then it was somehow snatched away, I feel your pain. You went into the situation objectively, not thinking that it would be all smooth sailing, but that when you got to the end you would look back and say that the juice was worth the squeeze ☺️☺️. When you hear the words, ” I don’t love You anymore ” or ” there is someone else “, or the just ” I’m done!”, and when you have cried out every ounce of water in your body and think that you have nothing left….God is there…He has always been there. Loves and lovers can come and go as well, and even if you are one of the few brave ones, who make it to the end…..people die. I know women who have buried three different husbands, and while each marriage brought its own unique intrigue and mystery, it’s still a heart break of some proportion. And , yes there are women out there who want to know the secret of being able to bury a husband without doing jail time☺️☺️
- Looking back, God has always been there for me and in my corner. He’s been the one picking me up off of the canvas, when life thinks it has dealt a knock out blow. He is the one who encourages me to continue on and to say it’s not over !, well at least not yet anyway ☺️☺️. God is the one who has always been there through all of the disappointments of life. When there is no lasting joy in possessions. When marriages fall apart. When friends are not all that You need them to be or hoping that they would be. When your job gives you a pink slip on a Friday afternoon, right before a three day weekend. When family looks something like a war zone with no clear rules of engagement. When our chosen partner in life , just walks out with extreme prejudice and leaves us holding a bag of crap with so many unanswered questions….God is there, and He has always been there .
- I wouldn’t be doing my do diligence if I didn’t address the elephant in the room. If God is there and always there and never leaves us….how come so much pain and grief? There is no clear cut one size fits all solution here. God loves us and He gives us free will to make choices in life. It’s not always God’s intent to save us from our own bad choices in picking friends, a spouse or any other decision that you choose to make in life. Everything in life is not the result of a bad choice, sometimes we just have to walk through painful experiences to learn and grow. Believe me!, I have often asked God if there wasn’t some other way of learning that lesson that could be less painful ☺️☺️. Sometimes the answer to that question is NO! Just think back to having to get your child immunized. You held your child down while someone jabbed a sharp instrument into their body, because You knew that it was for the greater good and because you love them, and yes, it was painful to your kid. In our pain and suffering we don’t always see or understand the greater strengths that God is building within us. Things that may have crushed me a decade or so ago, are things that I know how to navigate and to put in there proper place. God doesn’t want us to be consumed by life and it’s frustrations, but to enjoy it as we walk with Him through life.
- God is always the same, unchanging and undeterred by our shifting emotions. He’s the same through all of the highs and lows in life. He’s the same through the joys and pains. He’s the same through our successes in life as He is with us in our less than shiny moments. The kicker is that God is the same through all of my fears and failures and the times that I wrestle with doubt about who He is, even if He’s real or not. When I question does He even care about how much pain I’m enduring. When I question about sickness and death, and knowing that He could just speak a word and it would be undone. When babies die and tragedies take place and I ask where is He in this? How does He let these things stand and go on? When I’m there, He is there as well and He affirms all of it that, yes He is real and yes He is in control of it all , as in He is sovereign over all of His creation, even the parts that really stink. So….He’s is the unwavering champion, and He holds all of it together, even when I can’t see it or believe it, God is working behind the scenes demonstrating His great love for me and for you as well, even when it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. He is always the same, true, consistent, and full of compassion and mercies that never cease. I’m so grateful that God is always the same and not some sliding scale that I have to try and guess and figure out where I stand or fit in. He has been with me in all of my yesterdays, He is with me today, which only adds in the confidence that He will be in all of my tomorrow’s, So always the same!
- Till Next Time ✌️ Peace!
- Sandy The Southerner
- Reply
- ,
- Reply All
- or
- Forward
Send
