- Not The Only One!
- ” Backwards And Forwards”
- Post #152
- 12 Sept 24
- Howdy!,
- I hope that you guys are being blessed as we move into the fall and some cooler temperatures. The fall for years use to be a devastating time for me , over a horrible experience that I had years earlier when I was much younger. Every fall as the summer closed out and the fall began, it would just cast me into a major funk. If it’s helpful for context purposes, think about loosing a loved one around the holidays and, so something that is supposed to be joyous is over shadowed by a gloominess and darkness, that you just can’t shake regardless of how hard you may try. It was like people who can predict the weather based on what their creaky joints are telling them. It’s not something that they set out to do, it’s just what happens ☺️. The same was true of me, I wouldn’t have to look at a calendar, it was just a time that my spirit knew was time to grieve once more. It was as if my soul had suffered a mortal wound that just refused to heal or be consoled. It wouldn’t let me fully live, but also refused to let me die🥲
- I’m not real sure about how people deal with such sorrows and hurts. I know that some turn to substances such as booze or drugs and it’s just about wanting an escape from the pain and the reality of the hurt. We want to separate ourselves from something that was anything but positive. No silver lining here, nothing to look on the bright side about, because there just wasn’t one there. I also know that these situations will often plunge people into deep, deep depression, and just when you think it can’t get any worse, the darkness intensifies it’s grip on you and it rings out your heart out as if it’s some kind of dirty rag just dripping with regret and misery. I didn’t do the drugs and alcohol thing, and while I will confess to some level of depression, my coping mechanism became living wild and free….or so I thought. ☺️ I engaged in all sorts of risky behaviors as an explanation point to say that I just didn’t care if I lived or died. I became a person who went through life with a chip on my shoulder, and I was basically a powder keg and just always just on the cusp of going off. I was the adrenaline junkie and I thought that if I went out in a blaze of glory that it would have been a fitting postscript . Honestly , I was surprised that I was still here when I turned forty. I think that I had brought into the mindset of live hard, die young and leave a good looking corpse behind ☺️☺️.
- Part of the human experience is that we are all prone to making mistakes and screw ups. It’s just who we are. Even with that being a true fact, I think that I must have just hit the ground running in that department ☺️☺️. It’s almost as if I took making mistakes as some kind of personal challenge , as to see who could make the most in the shortest period of time, and by my mid twenties, I was way out ahead of everyone else ☺️☺️. So , no drugs and alcohol, but a few near death experiences which have left notable scars on my body, but it still didn’t offer me the true escapism that I was longing for. I am a man, and I completely forgot about one of our greatest super powers, and that is the ability to compartmentalize and detach from unpleasant things☺️☺️. I took all of that pain and regret and locked in a vault and buried it so deep that it was so disconnected from any part of my life, and yet, every fall it would resurface to haunt and taunt me.
- It may or may not sound strange that I would give considerable brain energy to the thought process, if I had only had a Time machine of some sort. If there was only a way to go back and retrace my steps and make different choices, or a better decision at whatever point it was that I felt the train first started going off of the track☺️☺️. You get what I’m saying because it has this compounding effect, because one bad choice has had so many consequential impacts on so many other things in life that, you think , if I could just keep that first domino from falling, the rest wouldn’t follow suit.☺️☺️ Maybe , I’ve watched one to many science fiction movie and it’s not just about going backwards, but being able to move forward in time, and being able to nullify the past. ☺️☺️. Oh! Wait , now I’m confusing myself, is that science fiction or today’s reality? If I have the super power to rename a school, a war ship , or some military installation and remove a few statues and monuments, then everything that those things once stood for and the meaning behind it becomes null and void? Is that how that really works?☺️☺️ Hmm, that’s interesting, let me ponder that for a moment ☺️. I think that I just stumbled across that great idea that’s going to land me on Shark Tank. ☺️☺️I’m going to find a way to bottle up future expectations with the brain numbing ability to forget and rewrite history into something that is more palatable.
- I want to call that a digression, but perhaps it was more of a revelation than anything else. I don’t know how far I would have to go in the future to distance myself from past missteps. It may be to the point where there is no one left alive, who remembers my transgressions. Yeah, yeah, that’s the ticket. I need to move forward enough to where no one remembers . Well, that’s not going to work either because we just love hanging on to negative energy. I’m confused again, must be having a really special day ☺️☺️. So we want to dump all of the physical reminders about where we have come from, but we want to be able to hang onto all of the misery and discontent of it, so we can pull it out at any time to beat others into submission ” Silence Them”, who truly want to move ahead in life. Did I get that right? No!, that can’t be right either because we are to progressive for that to be true. Yesterday was the twenty third anniversary of one of the most darkest days in our nation. It was dark, but we have had darker days as a nation, but none in more recent years. This is my thought process here and , I wonder if we could even come together as a nation as we did twenty three years ago or are we just so full of hatred and animosity towards fellow citizens, just because they think differently or vote directly, or worship directly , or even look differently, and yes as stupid as it sounds, it’s about complexion or an accent. ☺️☺️
- Whatever happened to the word ” discord”? What happened to us sharing ideas and having healthy exchange of perspectives that didn’t turn into name calling and finger pointing? What happened to us being open to intellectual discussions, instead of being so entrenched into an ideology that it’s win at all cost, accompanied by a healthy dose of gloating. Life has never been perfect, because there are no perfect people and each generation has unique challenges that they encounter. Forward thinking, which isn’t always so forward☺️☺️ and technology often drives the culture and society into different directions. Just think there was once upon a time when we didn’t have babysitters….what? Is that right, yes it is, but we can’t remember a time when that was true or allow our brains the liberty to believe that was once true, so innovation change our culture and our thinking about things. Where am I going with this, well we want to so quickly discard our past and our heritage, that we often take the mindset of throwing the baby out with the bath water, excuse the old fashioned analogy ☺️☺️. Yes there were bad things in our past that gave us a black eye, but there aren’t many , if any cultures that haven’t experienced something very similar. We use to have statesmen and not career politicians. I believe that there was once upon a time when our political leaders cared about those who they say that they represent, but I’m afraid those days are long gone , and now its just about the power of the political machine and personal wealth. We were more civil and of course we didn’t have social media, where every person on the planet believes that they have the right to say any and every thought that fires across the synapses of their frontal cortex☺️☺️. As things heat up politically, we need to remember to pause, take a step back and remember to breathe. The person that You are so vehemently opposed to may be the very same person who is donating blood, that by some misfortune, could end up in your body ☺️☺️, just a little perspective that’s all.
- Let’s get back to my fall dilemma, yes, that was a real thing and not just for illustration purposes 😅 😄. There is no Time machine or even better yet a magical eraser that would just wipe things away as if they were written on a chalk board. We don’t always like to think about the fact that there is a reason and purpose for every hurt and pain that we experience in life. There is some lesson or take away, and for me personally I believe that it’s something more than just saying that I’m never going to do that again ☺️☺️. Those supposedly dead end roads, road blocks and hard detours all have some association that we often miss. God doesn’t ever waste pain, and for the life of me, I don’t know why we can’t learn those lessons minus the pain and the boo boos ☺️☺️. God did something with my fall depression and my I don’t give a damn attitude, and He turned it into a great joy. It took a lot longer than I would have liked, but there is something in the waiting that is very equivalent to preparation. He is preparing and building in us what is to come. You probably wouldn’t give your twelve year old a brand new sports automobile or any car at all because you know that they aren’t ready for that ☺️☺️, even if they think otherwise ☺️.
- Knocking off the rough edges is often painful, but very rarely is something that we want to go back, pick up and put back on. We are often carrying heavy burdens that we are unaware of, and have no idea how it’s just adding to the miseries of life. Thinking outside the box just a little, those rough edges are often attitudes and beliefs that we carry around that are false and there whole purpose in life is to hold us captive to lies and falsehoods. Ok!, so let’s just go there. So many people believe that they are not worthy of being loved and especially not by a Holy God. They tell themselves that they have messed up way to much and to often and that they could never be accepted or forgiven for some of the things that they have both said and done. Some how God loves other people, but they haven’t done the things that I have done whatever those things are that you believes disqualifies you from the love of God. Here’s a little news flash for you, heaven is going to be filled with drug dealers, prostitutes, liars and even Serial killers, that’s right! I read that Jeffrey Dahmer excepted Christ before he was executed, so …have You done that one, since you think that you are so passed the pail or point of being redeemed? There’s going to be a lot of just good people and good church people who are going to be missing from the party because they thought that they could just fake their way in or they are to busy trying to stack up good deeds that they miss that God has already taken care of everything that needs to be done.
- Many moons ago I wrote and talked about a character from the Flintstones series, by the name of Sleptrock. He was this character that carried around his own personal rain cloud and he just seemed to be always doomed with negative energy. You know, the flat tire on the way to work. The refrigerator or washing machine just up and dies, maybe even both.☺️☺️ There is just one expected unplanned event after the other. Well….that’s life and those things happen, but our perspective and view points can be vastly different. You may be the person that walked away from a horrible accident without a scratch and don’t know how that happened. I’m not saying that God causes such things to happen, but I absolute believe that He works in them and may be, just maybe He’s trying to get your attention. The car is totaled, but you are whole. I’m not going to sit here and tell you that my autumn collapse is completely erased from my memory, but it doesn’t sting as it once did , and I have seen God take those shattered pieces and do wondrous things in other people’s lives, so pain not wasted, and what was once viewed as a dead end road has become a freeway of healing for so many others.
- I guess the question is are you prepared or do you want to shed some of the misconceptions that you have about God . It’s like trying to carry around a facade of who You want others to believe that You are. It gets tiring if it’s not who you really are and it can become weighty and you just never know when you will slip and they will see the real you. The fearful part is , if they knew the real you, would they still accept you and think that you are cool. God sees you for who you really are . He sees all of the brokenness and flaws. He sees the hard to love parts, which is mostly our pride. He sees our insecurities and He sees your heart of not knowing if He is real and trustworthy. Is He a caring God, does He understand me and if He does, why would He want me?
- That’s real life changing question right there, and I’m not even going to ask You to take my word for it . That’s way to important to just take some casual writers word for it.☺️☺️. This may require your first ever real step of faith and that is to offer up an honest and sincere prayer and ask God to reveal Himself to you. It’s not creepy or mystical, it’s just you being honest without any false expectations or pretenses. God is very real and one of His most desired things is to have a relationship with His creation and interact with it, and just in case you missed it , you are part of His creation. God promises to draw close to those who seek Him. Maybe my greatest understanding of this is in approaching God, remember that He opposes the proud, those who believe that they have it all together, ….because you don’t, none of us do. He welcomes the humble and those with a contrite heart . Give it a try and you just may be amazed.
- Till Next Time ✌️ peace!
- Sandy The Southerner
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