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happiness, life, Self development, Uncategorized

A whole lot of what ifs

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When i grew up, life was simple. We all go to school, get good grades, get married, pro create and work your ass of till you retire. After that your job becomes taking care of your grand children. I can’t really say i ever had an opinion about this, its just what we did. However as the years went by i realised that it wasnt so easy. I do remember once when i was 16, looking at one of the girls in my class, lets call her Sam, Sam was every motswana parent dream daughter She was the perfect student, comes to class everyday, well dressed, and punctual. She was well organised, quite and knew all the answers. Now at age of 27 she’s in a management position at one of the big banks, still the good girl she was in school. I used to, and i think the little girl inside of me still, look at her with envy. Why can’t i be like her? why was it so difficult for me to just follow this set path and be happy?

I struggled with  this set path when i started high school. Being faced with the reality that i have to look foward to couple of years pursuing a science related career when i couldnt even stand the 3 science subjects i had to deal with on a weekly basis. After the end of my first year i was faced with what looked like the best yet felt like the worst thing in this life. Choice.

Having moved to Australia, finishing off my high school education, it started with wondering how i’m going to choose what to wear everyday, yes i missed the uniform. At the registration meeting for my new school l i was handed a long list of subjects and told English and Maths are compulsory, you have to choose 4/5 more to add to that. (Mind you there was 3 different types of English and at least 4 different types of Maths). I was overwhelmed, confused and there began my love/hate relationship with choice.

Before i moved to Australia i felt lost, i felt like i hadn’t found my place with my family in addition to that i wasn’t much of a social person so friendships weren’t easy either. I thought that being and living with my mother would help, i had dreamt of a life with my mother but it was nothing like i expected. Feeling lost became somewhat a part of my life driven by indecisiveness, i never knew what i wanted in my life and the feeling was becoming frustrating.

Until now, that is. I’m in a figured it out position, I got the good, love my kids. I have discovered the Peace of God, that has come with being able to see where I’m going, allowing God to plant in me his desires and plans for my life. I know where I am and where I need to be.

Be that as it may, im now im left with a whole lot of what ifs; what if the pieces fall apart? what if i lose one of my girls? what if i can’t hold us together? What if i can’t make them happy? I have lived with fear most of my life, i had a terrible fear of failure and shame. No doubt this has led to a lot of missed opportunities and wrong decisions. In my experience working towards a fear of failing is easy, i dont know, how does one deal with fear of losing everything she has ever wanted and needed?

 While I may be right in middle of my walk with God, it feels strangely unfamiliar to not be worried and not to be constantly trying to gain control and keep it together.

Surrendering is a challenge. One we must overcome.

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Forgive or be forgiven

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Once upon a time a man named Peter asked Jesus how many times we should forgive our brothers and sisters and Jesus replied by saying not 7 but 77 times .  For centuries many Christian have prayed the Lord’s prayer and said ‘forgive our trespass as we forgive those who trespass against us’. Sure everyone knows forgiveness is important in life therefore everyone wants to be forgiven but how easy is it to forgive when you have been wronged?

I must admit I’m one of those people who liked to preach forgiveness and quite frankly believed myself to be very understanding and very forgiving. Recently I realised that its much easier said than done when it matters the most. It’s really easy to ask for forgiveness or really demand it, everyone who has arrived late to a party or not turned up to a pre planned meeting knows that. Sometimes you even have a hard time understanding why someone doesn’t just believe you are sorry, forgive and move on. I have been guilty of hurting people and simply said sorry and expected to be forgiven.

Not long ago LF did something that cut me really deep and I really struggled with forgiving her. I tried everything I knew to do, I understood, I put myself in her shoes, I allowed myself to feel the pain and I even tried to bully myself to doing it. I just couldn’t quite reach it.  In all honesty I wasn’t hurt by what she did, not directly anyway, I was hurt by the realization that after 4 years of knowing her word to always be true, enduring a complete lack of certainty or hope of, because she refused to make any promises unless she could guarantee it, she actually broke a promise. I was mad because I felt now I have to take everything she says with a grain of salt, 50% chance of it being untrue. After 4 years I was used to believing her word completely and now with everything she says there was a voice at the back of my head ‘remember that time when she didn’t do what she said she would? What makes you think it won’t be the same?

I read a qoute somewhere that said ‘forgive easy, anger, resentment,  distrust and jealousy are all negative emotions that hurt the person carrying them.’ No one tells you what it takes to forgive, I have discovered I cannot forgive if I keep the memory of the pain fresh in my mind, I cannot forgive if I focus on the wrong done and the pain felt. It wasn’t until I focused on love that I was able to learn the true nature of forgiveness.

The devil likes keeping you in cycles and chained up to your pain, it’s wonder it’s so easy to remember the one bad that’s happened and forget all the good that existed before.

As the famous wedding verse says, Love is patient Love is kind(v4)….it keep no record of wrongs(v5)….it always protects, always trusts, always hopes always perseveres(v7)

I believe when Paul said in verse 13 ‘and now these three remain faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is Love’ he was trying to teach us that we need to Love first,  then forgiving will be easy.