A New Year or Same Ol'
Most times I think I write best when I’m emotional, sometimes it's when I’m passionately charged by something that really strikes a chord deep inside, but mostly I think it's when I’m emotional.
I wonder how it works sometimes, I don’t question God, or what He does, or why He does something. I’ve gone through many things in my life that have strengthened my faith and made me, unfortunately not always at the moment, but in hindsight, realize God’s hand in something and how it all works out as it should. But, I think it's ok to wonder. I wonder how God measures our shoulders and how much they can hold. I wonder, sometimes, how God determines how much faith he puts in one person’s ability to shoulder something, but, keeps letting it pile on. I wonder sometimes, when I’m exhausted from what I’ve been through, how, in a moment of thinking I’m at the end for awhile, something comes around the corner. I would not ever think I know better than God what should happen to me; but, sometimes I want to say, "Come on Big Guy, you’re kidding me right? My shoulders are certainly not that big!". Yes, I lived in the days of shoulder pads too …again in hindsight, I have no idea what we wore them for…but they were soft and squishy and I’m certain they wouldn’t hold much, or lift us up like we had hoped! I try, I really try to say, this is my lot in life, this is the plan; but, sometimes I can’t help but scratch my head and wonder. Wouldn’t it be nice to sit and have a coffee chat with God? How many Splenda God? Iced or Hot? But seriously, well don’t you wonder a little, if He met you at a Starbucks how he’d take his coffee? Anyway, I’d like to just sit and chat; tell him I was just wondering…how strong am I? What do you see in me that I don’t see in myself? Am I that capable, that able in your eyes? Do I handle things with a flair? Do I make it look so easy that you think…hmmmm that one can handle a bit more? I could wonder all day, I know, yet I won’t ever know for sure; but, I do pray that maybe someday, I’ll find the confidence, that He obviously sees in me, to handle it.
You do things in life, hopefully for your own reasons, but I guess if we are all honest it's not always that way. But did you ever feel like Stanley Tucci in Devil Wears Prada? That scene where he sits up, smiling, ready to stand to be announced the president of a new business venture and instead the person he has given his whole career to, has been there uplifting and supporting, Meryl Streep, announces a name of her own rival, to save herself; and with grace he settles back in his chair and tells Anne Hathaway "When the time is right she’ll pay me back."; to which Hathaway asks, "You sure about that?". Tucci replies, what keeps us all going; "No, but I hope for the best; I have to.". It is a powerful scene because how many of us go through life playing that over and over in our head while we give and give and give thinking it’ll matter someday?
Whether it's work or relationships; we face challenges, we face doubts, and we look inside and see our inadequacies and ask what did I do wrong. It's a new year or maybe these few weeks in, it has already become the same ol'. How do we turn it, how do we make the flip? How do we get back to that determination we had just a few short weeks ago? It's not easy, that we know. I've already experienced a lot of it; I came out at 12:01am on January 1st ready to make it the best ever! I knew my shortcomings, where I needed to right my wrongs, where I needed to do better, follow what my heart was telling me instead of my mind, which can go into the wrong direction. I guess now two weeks in; and feeling like it has slipped into the same ol' instead of that new I had hoped for; maybe I have to stop, breathe and take it from Stanley and hope for the best; I guess as he said, I have to! I want to!