For The Good of Them

We all go through pain and hurt and frustrations with our lives and the road we're on. It's unlikely that most I know or will know will tout a problem-free life. Even the best outcomes are dotted with triumphs and reversals. The first thing us God-fearing people...or In-Search-Of-God people do is ask God..."Why?"...


I know sometimes you feel like God dropped you off in a basket weaved from pain...right in front of Lucifer's door...but He doesn't answer prayers like genie wishes. He answers them...almost like a therapist would. He asks you, "What do YOU want?". Now in asking this, He doesn't ask to provide it for you and He doesn't automatically reward you with your desire (for it may not be what it is you need). There are ways for you to get what you [basically] want...and it be what you need as well. He presents you with a way to get what you need by helping Him help you.


For instance: "I want a child..." God may be saying, "MY child...I gave you a child. I gave you a godchild and I gave you some of MY children to mother..." 


How you WANT it...may not always be how you get it. It doesn't mean he doesn't love you...it means He needs you to fulfill a will of His, while fulfilling your maternal desires. If you had a child of your own...would you be so available to mother to the ones that needed you?


(The greatest blessings are when your WANTS coincide with His WILL for you)


He can't help it if you ignore or reject the solutions to your problems. His final will is going to happen regardless...it's whether you choose to ride in the comfort of faith...or in that basket of pain. We have dominion over ourselves and this land He made for us. We're it's protectors and it's main users of it's resources. The way you'd cultivate a crop is the way God wants you to cultivate your life.


We have NO dominion over each other...even though we are our brother's keepers. We're meant to be a solid brother/sisterhood...watching over each other and loving one another as He loves us. Whether or not we do that is somewhere between holding onto pain...and a heightened sense of self-preservation. We aren't meant to lend ourselves to abuse, but we are meant to learn forgiveness and continue to love our naysayers from a distance. It's better for you and they indeed eventually feel the power of your love's void. (I know...but, sometimes you don't always get to SEE it.) You can't control how people see you nor can you control what they do or don't do with, for or because of you. A lot of our burdens would lighten tremendously if we learned to let go of the uncontrollable factors in our lives.


God is showing us daily what we need to do. He witnesses to us through friends, family and yes...even strangers. I can't tell you how I've had a stranger randomly minister to me with a word and be on POINT! We're just some hard-headed, knuckle-headed chillren. lol


The hardest thing to do with a child (of yours) is to parent while dealing with a defeatist or pessimistic attitude. You know it's for the best, but they don't want to hear it. You know your kid needs braces and that for a year or more they will have to walk around with these "railroad tracks" on their mouth.  The fear of peers teasing and out casting...doubled with the growing vanity of a preteen/adolescent keeps them from walking into it with a positive attitude. "For the rest of my life, I'll have GREAT teeth and a sweet smile". No...they see the taunting, the hardships of eating with their new apparatus and having to sleep with a retainer in their mouth every night. How frustrating is it to be doing your parental best and have them resent you for as long as it takes to get over the stigma?


That is how some of us adults are. We struggle against what is best for us...because we want it to be easy. We want to coast. We want to breathe without struggle...but, you'd best believe that the current pains are not thrust onto us from the ether. We've EARNED these trials with a debris of wrong choices.  PLEASE don't get all, "So, I'm a bad person and it's all my fault" on me. That's a pity party I don't wanna go to. I've thrown a few in my time and I try to make those rarities. I take accountability for my life. The decisions I've made and those I didn't make, but were made for me by my indecisiveness.


I also try and understand that if there are people around me whose lives are smoother, easier, less drama-filled, etc...it's because they've taken a more responsible route on their life path. I can't get mad because so and so has more than me, a man, children, etc. I neglected a LOT of things while participating in an unhealthy relationship. My 20's were misused with someone who by all means had LIVED. He had me by 22yrs and I was so swept up in the phenomenon of someone loving ME for the first time that I didn't consider loving myself enough to see my way out of it. So...any fertility issues I may have had, got slept on. The baby I envisioned may not ever happen for me...and I can't blame anyone else. I'm not KICKING myself relentlessly about it either. I long for that baby, but I also have faith that the life I've lived up until now is where I was supposed to be. As a matter of fact...I look at that one relationship and the one before it and the few after it and know that neither situation was ideal for children. I was blessed with the opportunity to not get saddled down with children whose father[s] may have been absentee or dysfunctional. If that is my lone blessing (which I'm sure there are many more "blessons" [blessed lessons] in those missteps) then so be it.


Basically, our lives are navigated by us...commissioned by God. He's the manufacturer and how each product functions is solely up to the environmental strains they're put through. A pair of shoes worn by a walker are bound to get worn down. A pair worn occasionally and only when driving...are bound to last longer. Yet, which pair tell a fuller story? The mint condition pair that have barely been worn? Or the pair that have walked miles...worked in diligence...danced circles...and tapped in happiness? Point? Just because you've got wear and tear doesn't mean you've lived hard...and just because you seem unscathed doesn't mean you've lived easily.


We can never know someone else's path. Where they've been, what they've gone through, who they've loved and lost, what they've sacrificed to get where they are. What you CAN know, is something that I heard Liz say in her movie memoir "Eat Pray Love"..."God dwells in me...as me". Before you go forsaking God and asking what He hasn't done for you...ask yourself, what haven't you done for you.


God bless...Happy Easter!




**I wrote this over a week ago and decided to post it on this day. His resurrection can be YOUR resurrection into new thinking and new life. Be blessed my loves...




I sang this song in church as a teenager...it is my favorite Gospel song of all time. VERY close to my heart. Enjoy...