Decisions Leading to Circumstances

I've been thinking a lot lately about the role we play in our own circumstances. I listen intently [I know, surprising] as people explain how life keeps knocking them down, how they can never get ahead, and how unfair God is in his plans. 

And while all this may be true, I wonder how we can turn that around. Here are a few theories. 

God does give us a bad hand from time to time, sometimes many at once, however there is nothing dealt to us which we cannot handle. How different could our circumstances be if we changed our attitudes or the way in which we conduct ourselves?

Many times, these same people [including myself] fail to realize the decisions they've made that have lead them to this point in their lives. How many of us take a good look at how we spend our money? How we save our money? Or the job we've chosen? I understand that to have a job is a blessing - and if that is the only job you can find, ask yourself if you chose to live above the rent you can afford. Ask yourself whether you need to buy a 6 pack of beer each night. Ask yourself whether getting your hair done every 6 weeks or your nails done every 3 is really something you can afford. 

In fact, add these things up. How much are you spending on superfluous things when it's hard to even pay the electricity bill each month?

Next we face savings. A lot of times when life knocks us on our ass - it happens to cost money. We may ask "where on Earth am I supposed to come up with that?"  When the question should be, why wasn't I putting more money into savings? If we saved more of our money, life would be a lot less daunting when it hit us with some huge financial punch. We'd simply dip into our savings and pay whatever it is off. That being said - emergency savings are just that, emergency funds - I pretend the money in my savings account isn't real money at all. It doesn't exist. It's simply a number on my computer screen when I sign into my account. I cannot spend it, it is not real.That means it's not there for my nails, or my hair, or that cute purse. It's not there for that last minute concert, or for 6 bathing suits for one vacation. It doesn't exist. 

What a fun sucker, right? Well - I have a solution. I had been reading lately about having multiple bank accounts - one for fixed expenses, which for me comprises 98% of what I make, making savings difficult - but necessary. Next is for emergency funds, and then - wait for it - fun money! This money is the ONLY money that can be spent on fun like nails, clothes, or vacations. Which percentage of savings is allotted to emergency and to fun depends on you - just remember, your decisions now effect your stress level later when life gives you lemons. 

This requires not only a spending change, but an attitude change. If every time we put money into savings we feel sad that we can't spend it. Or if each time we put something back we're depressed. Or if each time we have to pay off an emergency we get angry - obviously saving will feel terrible. However if we tilt that attitude to smiling every time we save up because we get to go on an awesome vacation next year, or when the car breaks down we KNOW we have money put away, it's actually a wonderful feeling!! 

Someone leaves us or does us wrong. We lose our job. All of these things seem to happen to us, not as a result of our own doing. However, how many of us failed to work on each aspect of our relationship while we were in them? People are making fun of me for reading relationship books and watching sermons/seminars on relationship building. Anthony and I watch some of them together, and talk about our ideas later. Silly us! Trying to solidify something that could potentially become life long! 

I know this seems to be a simplistic view on changing circumstances. However I disagree. I truly believe life is only 10% what happens to us and 90% what we do about it. It obviously doesn't happen over night, but if we continue to live life as we always have - with the same attitudes and the same spending habits - we'll continue to have the same problems when life knocks us down.

We only have today to change our tomorrows. It won't happen over night, but ask yourself if you've been doing the same things over and over again, expecting different results - and then change it!! :)

Wedding over Marriage

I stumbled upon a Yahoo article about a couple who had been married 73 years before the man, Pop Pop,  died. Their granddaughters, along with the woman, Cutie, decided to write a book about their love - titled How To Fall in Love for Life. Naturally, I bought the book and naturally, I am hooked. 

While reading the chapter on their marriage I was surprised to read what their wedding entailed. Not only did they wed after only 5 months but their wedding was a traditional, simplistic wedding. One in which Cutie's father planned - one where they only knew about 30 of the 130 guests in attendance. She didn't pick out her dress, nor did she pick out the menu. Obviously they didn't choose the guest list either. 

She points out that today, they wrote the book in 2012, weddings become a huge headache. Often times the details muddle what the day is truly about. It's about two people coming together in love - to become one, to build a life together. 

They got married in 1937, after only knowing one another for 5 months. Yet they lasted 73 years before one of them died. Besides all of the wonderful advice she gives about accepting your partner for who they are and taking time to yourself when you get too angry - she points out that she could have cared less if her napkins matched the groomsmen's socks - because that's not what a wedding is about. 

I wonder how different marriages would be, how different the divorce rate would be, if we went into a wedding with the goal of marriage in mind rather than impressing everyone in attendance with our fancy table settings. 

I wonder when the wedding became all about the woman and never about the man involved. When they decided to sit back and watch as their future wife took over everything. I wonder what it would be like to make every decision together - or at least most of them - just as you would once married. 

How different would a marriage be if planning for the wedding was a practice run for marriage? 

I understand that many people say that those people stuck it out even if they weren't happy - and today we believe in our own happiness 100 percent of the time - and I haven't gotten to the chapter on their hardships, but i'm sure there were many. 

Maybe the difference is that they saw themselves as two children going in to a life together, learning together, and growing together - always with the other's best interest in mind. They made it work - because they were both brand new, they were both just as scared, but they were both just as thrilled. 

And two became one. . . 

Religion vs. God

I stayed home from church today and instead watched a sermon from Andy Stanley, titled Intimacy with God. It's funny because the part that stuck out to me most was when he brought up religion versus true intimacy with God. Most Christians abhor religion as much as the nonbelievers - however it never occurred to me how religious I could be. 

Andy started out by asking us to imagine a situation where we yearned for a deeper more meaningful relationship with another person - be it a husband, wife, brother, sister, parent, friend - anyone. We give one hundred percent of ourselves only to be stiff armed every time we try to get closer. God is that person, trying desperately to get closer to us. We've opted for religion over intimacy with God. 

Religion teaches respect for God. We learn the formula. Get up, go to church, don't swear, say 50 hail Marys, fast for lent, etc. But religion leads to two things - self centered and judgmental people. Religion teaches us to judge, because we "know what God is looking for" in other Christians. So we judge those people and in turn begin to hate them. Religion teaches us that if we do a b and c we will get d. We become selfish. If only I do this, God will give me this. 

Then when we don't get what we want, we are surprised, we get angry with God because "the God I believe in wouldn't have let that happen" - but we don't really know him. 

Some of the greatest pain comes from religious people. In John 6:2-3 Jesus tells his followers that religious people will "put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service. ³ And these things will they do unto you, because they have not known the Father, nor me." They commit acts based on what the church has told them God wants. 

The sad part is, I became one of the religious people in that moment. I thought of several people who have judged and condemned me because of what they "believed" God wanted of me. Because of what they thought a good Christian should consist of. And then something amazing happened, I hated them. In that moment I felt disgusted and instead of doing what Jesus calls us to do, I did what religion calls me to do - I hated rather than loved my neighbor based on their actions. I did the very thing that I hated in that moment. 

I want intimacy with God. Which Andy points out requires three things: time, transparency, and submission. Time uninterrupted, prayers not littered by politeness but instead by the absolute truth because God knows the truth, he just wants it to come from us, and giving one hundred percent of ourselves through submission. A truly intimate relationship, with God or with man, requires that we put the other persons needs in front of our own all the time - and God has already done that for us. 

I want to continue my life in a constant and passionate pursuit of intimacy with God. I want to know Him, not just what religion tells me, but who the Father really is. I want to give all of me as he has given all of him. And I want to show the world the love that Jesus sought, not the condemnation that has forced so many out of the church. 

I want more than ever to be closer to God. 

Andy Stanley - Intimacy with God

Hard to comprehend

How do you handle tough situations? 

We all handle them differently. When we find ourselves faced with difficult times and don't know where to turn we often turn to those we care about and trust most. During the past few months and through hours of research into the types of people we surround ourselves with I have figured out a couple things. 

One of those things is that not all of our friends are helpful. Not everyone should be a source of support and advice. For instance in the book Boundaries in Dating the doctors who wrote the book specify that those you reach out to during relationship problems shouldn't be the people who only take your side or beat up on the other person. 

We should be reaching out to people who openly listen to all of our concerns and problems but are also willing to listen to all of the ways in which we have decided to cope with these difficult times. We should be reaching out to people who have heartfelt messages intended to help both people involved. They should be wise and level headed enough to help us see not only our significant others faults but also our own faults. 

We should be reaching out to people who have our best interest in mind and have mature ways of dealing with issues. Obviously that leaves one question, are you the type of person i'm describing? 

As a friend we tend to feel a lot of empathy when our friends come to us with difficult situations. Sometimes we forget that how we react directly effects how our friends will respond and what they may do. Are we acting out of love and in the best interest of those  involved? Is what you're saying or doing supporting the decisions that person has decided to make? 

When I say supporting I do not mean you agree with their choices and I don't mean that you say nothing to oppose their choices. What I mean is that you give mature, sound advice outlining the pros and cons. 

Often times we get caught up in emotional responses hell bent on anger, not realizing that these emotional responses can isolate the person from the solution they were seeking.

I guess what i'm getting at is that over the past year I have tried to distinguish not only who are the type of people I can really trust in difficult situations  but also the ways in which I can be one of those people. 

Because not even your best friend is the best friend for every situation. 

So, as I sit back watching people attempt to help their friends in unhealthy and negative ways I fight back the urge to assert myself into their moment. Why? Because if i'm going to talk about handling situations maturely, I can't let my burnt fuse get the best of me, as they have chosen to do. 

Marriage is . . .

As many of you know, I have dedicated a year of my life to studying love and marriage. Relationships and myself. I have dedicated a year to getting to the bottom of what it is that creates a healthy marriage and coincidentally a healthy home for my children. 

And over the past few days I've been wondering, what is marriage? 

Here's what I have come up with, from the mind of a never-been-married child who still has much to learn and can only hope to someday have what I have discovered over the past 7 months. 

Marriage is a list of vows. Vows are promises. Marriage is a list of promises. But really marriage is quite simply a promise. 

It is a promise to grow together, to understand and accept change in one another. To hope for the best and prepare for the worst in each other. 

It is a promise to share life with the other, to get excited about the little things, and also about the big. 

Marriage is a promise to make mature decisions about the other. To remember that you are not the only person who matters now [not that you ever were]. It is a promise to think of the other when making life altering decisions. 

It is a promise to treat your spouse as you would like to be treated. To listen to the other person, to talk at no end all about life, love, your dreams, and your fears with the person whom you have chosen to spend your life with. 

A promise to spend your life with that person. You have chosen this person, that one, out of the billions of people on this Earth - you chose them - and you promised that they would be more important than any other. Promised. 

It is a promise to make plans together, to laugh together, to cry together, to cheer each other on, to search out every nook and cranny in the other. A promise to respect the other, to love the other, to value the other - even in their imperfections. 

Marriage is a promise to forgive even the most unforgivable in the other. Because we are human, we will fail. We do fail. Every day. You promised to love the failures and to pick each other up no matter how far you fell. 

A promise to inspire hope in each other. To pursue God together. To pursue life together. To take a genuine interest in what the other would like to do forever, because you promised to be a part of that forever, together. 

It is a promise to recommit when you have found yourself truly separated from one another. To look upon the ways you have failed each other and remember the vows you took on day one - to come back to that love. To take one step forward, and then two, and then three - toward the future you both want. 

It is a promise to remember that this is your best friend. The one who looked you in the eye on the day you wed and said "till death do us part." 

It is a promise that no matter how fun the outside world is, nothing could be better than growing closer to your partner each year and looking back on all of the times you almost failed. A promise to try your hardest because crying yourself to sleep through the hard times is worth the laughter and the love during the good times. 

A promise to remember how much life would truly stink without that person around. A promise to remember that no matter how green your neighbors lawn looks, they have the same grass as you - they just might have taken better care of it. 

So you're promising to water your grass, to cut your grass, and to watch that green grass grow with GLORY.

Because at the end of your life, when you look across the table at the person you gave yourself to years ago, you will see the person who knows you better than anyone, who loves you further than anyone ever will, whose seen you at your worst as well as at your best. 

The person who never walked away from you.
because they made a promise . . .

 . . . and kept it. 

Love is a choice

Over the past several months I have been reading many books that delve into the topic of love. One reoccurring theme in each of these books is the difference between love and being in love. Difference you say? Why, what difference is there? 

As C.S Lewis points out, being in love is but a mere feeling. A feeling which brings us on a roller coaster of emotion and feeds into our imaginations and our spirits. But again, it is only a feeling. And feelings, they go away. In his book Mere Christianity, he asks the question "who would want to feel on top of the world every single day for the rest of their lives?" How exhausting. He then leads us into love. Love, being a quiet subtle choice that each of us makes upon marrying our best friends. 

Love is a choice. It is a choice to remain partners when the feelings of being "in love" come and go. It is a choice to stick by the vows you have taken. Which, again, C.S Lewis points out that these vows are promises. Promises that so few really listen to - and so many choose to ignore. To keep these promises is to keep your integrity - to stand by your word to the person you chose to promise your whole life to. 

A choice. A choice to work hard to fall in love over and over again - but to stick around even when the feelings of being in love have dulled to a quiet whisper, waiting to rear it's head when the time is right. 

When we hate, our hate grows stronger and stronger. We choose to dislike - and we choose to become angry. In doing so our interruptions grow stronger. They fill us with a contempt that runs deep. 

But when we love, when we choose to love and to like - to seek out the good in others, we truly love. It, too, grows stronger and stronger. 

C.S Lewis recommends pretending you like someone, then pretending you love someone. He is referring to the scripture "love your neighbor as you love yourself" but I chose to carry this into my love speech. Because  when we choose to love our partner as we love ourselves the same logic applies. We may love ourselves but that does not always mean that we like ourselves. In fact there are many things we don't like about ourselves - but we wish ourselves better people. We wish that others would treat us a certain way. So why, then, do we choose not to treat our spouses with the same respect? To treat them as we would like to be treated. 

As you can tell, C.S Lewis as made quite the impact on me. 

I hear so many people explaining away divorce with the reason "maybe they weren't in love anymore." Well, maybe they weren't - but that doesn't mean there wasn't love anymore. It means that the feeling we had melted away to something, that if properly tended, can grow into something so much more beautiful than being "in love." 

Falling out of love shouldn't be a reason for divorce. It should be a reason to rekindle that love. 

And I am sure that you will find, after all that time, you are still very much in love. 

Too Stubborn For Help

Most of you are aware that I was in a pretty serious head on collision a few weeks ago, which resulted in a broken right hand, a mysterious knee injury, and two brain injuries. Consequently I was having headaches and serious mood swings, meaning that many of my thoughts become very aggravated and I am easily frustrated. The doctors say this is normal for the area of the brain the wounds were sustained. The doctors decided to put me on an anti-seizure medicine to help with my headaches and mood swings, apparently they often give the same one to people with bipolar disorder. 

Needless to say after almost a month I am starting to feel more like me, I'm still suffering from some of the brain injuries but my mood is starting to return to normal. I'm less aggravated and starting to be less frustrated. Which brings me back to my medicine. I was telling my friend yesterday that I wanted to only complete the one month of the medicine the doctors prescribed and then be off of them.  I explained that if I were feeling more like myself I wanted it to be because I was myself not because of medicine. 

Then this morning I thought about how naive that was. Everyone who knows me is aware that I am pretty much against mind altering anything. I cannot for the life of me understand the allure of drugs and being wasted. However this is different. 

I've heard an addict tell me that they don't want a pill to change who they were, although who they were ended up killing them. I've met family members of people with bipolar disorder who have decided against their meds and are now losing people because of their moods. Countless addicts refuse treatment or counseling every year because "it doesn't work," refusing to see that what they're doing is what really isn't working. 

We don't know what my brain injuries will result in, and I can try to see what it's like with out my medicine. But say that I am not who I was before the accident, say that my injuries result in something long term [which is not predicted], I don't want to be too stubborn for help. 

I want to be an example that it's okay to not be okay all the time. Because its refusing mental health issues that hurts the most people around us, including ourselves. So while I will pray that I get back to the old me without these meds, I will not be too proud to seek help if it just doesn't happen.