What are those things in your life about yourself that you try to avoid? You know - the things that you try to push into the far corners of your mind so that you won’t have to think about them? Perhaps because they cause you too much pain to examine? We all have them. There is no perfect person – not one, and you can bet that at times we are up against people or situations that bring those things up front and personal until you realize that you’ve been backed into a corner and have no choice – but to face it/them. Like the famous Tombstone “OK Corral” gunfight, I have found myself facing circumstances where I have felt challenged, as if I were reluctantly being forced into a duel I didn’t start or want to participate in. Have you ever felt that way?
Like a school bully pushing you and pushing you and pushing you until you have no choice but to say, “Okay! Enough!” and push back, or you realize that the only way things are going to change is if you address whatever it is (situation, weakness, problem, person) and deal with it head on.
I think that sometimes this may be God’s way of telling us, “Kelly, before you can move forward you need to face this. You need to deal with it. You need to make changes so that this wound won’t become infected…” Or perhaps it has already become infected, and in order to stop the pain and allow healing we need to consider what caused it and what needs to be changed.
The consideration can be painful. Most of us try to avoid pain, but sometimes the hurt has to occur before it can get better. Sometimes we need to work through the hurt before we can move forward. When we examine the hurt we can ask ourselves what we need to do to make it go away. Maybe part of the healing is in knowing what to do when those “red flags” come up. What are your red flags? They are symptoms like a fever is to an illness. They are not the problem – but they are signs that there is a problem occurring. We treat a fever with medicine and then we go to a doctor to try to have them figure out what’s wrong. What’s wrong? What is bothering you? What can you do to “fix it?” The Bible tells us in Matthew 22:39
“Love your neighbor as you love yourself.”
But do you love yourself? Loving yourself means you take the time to examine when you are feeling hurt, depressed or angry – whatever it is that has caused you to feel that way. It takes caring and patience and perseverance and love to work through certain things. If you would do it for someone else you “love” why wouldn’t you do it for yourself?
I’ve been thinking about this a lot with my own life. Ironically the more I’ve tried to avoid it, the more it has come “front and center” till it is unavoidable. Till I can't get around it. Kind of like a giant elephant is in the room. Have you ever been in such a bad mood that you don’t even want to be around your own self? What’s bugging you? What needs fixing? What battle is raging inside your head? Maybe it’s time to face it head on. So that after the dust settles after the battle (you are having within your own self I might add…) is over, you can get back on that horse called life and mosey on off into the sunset. Tipping your hat as you go, feeling happy that whatever battle you just came through has ended. It’s worth a shot…
No comments:
Post a Comment