Without A Doubt

All OF MY GIRLS ARE SPECIAL!

This a post from Brooke Benthin's blog, "The Heart of a Country Girl".


"Walk by Faith.... Not By Sight"


Sometimes I wake up and I don't want to keep going, I feel like its this endless battle that I will never win. I walk tall, with my head held high trying to make it on my own... but the truth is everyone has a breaking point. Its being able to drop to your knee's and reach for someone that makes you strong, being able to admit your imperfections. Instead of wallowing in self pitty, and beating yourself up about the things you are unhappy about, do something about it. God created people for people, with the hope that we will work together to make this world a better place and help the strong understand that sometimes its ok to be weak, and help the weak be strong.

Try as we may to make our own plans and organize a fairytale future, God has his own plans for us. Even though we may not understand right away what his intentions are, we must have faith and trust in him because when the time is right we will see the bigger picture. When something goes in a different direction than we would like it to, don't sit and blame god for your unhappiness trust that he will guide you in the right direction.

Most would think I am bitter towards God for taking my father from me, and most question my faith after going through something so dreadful. I am not bitter, and i do not blame God, I never will. I went through some incredibly hard times after losing my father, but instead of cursing God and blaming him. I humbled myself to him, I broke down and prayed that he give me the strength to get through my weak points, because I knew that he wasn't putting me through these things to hurt me, but to better prepare me for what he has in store for me. We all have selfish points, where we blame others for hard times, or we blame God and say how could God love me and put me through this, or we question Gods existence But we miss the bigger picture. Within four months my entire world was turned upside down, I lost my father the most important man in my life, I lost my job, I was carless, my boyfriend walked out on me, and my dogs even ran away. All of that may seem sort of humorous because it sounds like a broke down country song, but it was incredibly hard for me.

Before I had the world at my feet, an amazing family, a well paying job, a supportive boyfriend, and I was able to handle the little things without struggle I thought life was perfect. I had always been known as miss independent, miss she has it all. But God had his own plans, at first when I lost everything I could not understand why it happened, I selfishly prayed for God to take me home to be with my father. Shortly after my father passed I was in my office at home breaking down, when suddenly i remembered the story of Jobe my father once told me. Jobe had everything, wealth, a healthy family, crops, animals, everything imaginable. He was a very loyal man to God, who always did right by God but his children did not do the same his family was not loyal as he was. One day God took it all away, his family died one by one, he become poor, his crops withered, and his animals died. God tested his faith, and Jobe stayed loyal to God. He prayed to God and stayed loyal to him despite what he had lost. In return God gave everything back to him, but 10x's better. As soon as I remembered the story my father had told me i dropped to my knee's and prayed. I kept my faith , and I remained loyal and faithful to him. I prayed that he guide me through these hard times, I asked him to help me be strong and accept the things I couldn't change, and to help the ones who hurt me and let me down. It wasn't easy and it still isnt, but slowly things have come together. I got a better job, a car, found my dogs, met my soul mate, and have the support of my loved ones. The only thing I still don't quite understand is why I lost my father... but I know he is in a better place with God watching over me.

Trust me, life is not a cake walk for anyone we all have our struggles and we all have to work hard to be happy. But its all worth it, you just have to stay strong, and understand that tomorrow is a new day. What we go through today will only better us for what we have in the future, but we must live in the moment. Appreciate every minuet you have, because you never know when God will call you home.


From Paula's blog, "The Masterwordsmith-unplugged"

SOME THINGS CAN'T BE UNDERSTOOD
“I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.” ~Robert McCloskey.

You can’t understand some things,
You may think you can,
But you really can’t,
Especially the why questions,
Other people’s motivations,
And the purpose of things;
There is a clever way though,
In living the answers,
And doing a few simple things—
Growing some patience,
Thinking a little differently,
Relaxing your expectations,
And extending your time frame;
In the meantime, be more generous
With your love and compassion,
For those lost in a dark tunnel,
Or stuck behind a brick wall,
Who don’t have your understanding.

~The author.

We humans do seem to have a penchant for trying to understand everything. The trouble is our brains sometimes trick us into believing we actually have an accurate and complete understanding of something, when in fact we aren’t even close, except in our belief to be so. Sometimes these certainties turn out to be very big blind spots. It isn’t that we aren’t trying hard enough to see reality clearly and completely, but rather that some realities can’t be understood, at least with the type of thinking we are accustomed to using, and within our narrow timeframe.

Consider a few fundamental questions that continually perplex us, to which we often fool ourselves into believing we have the correct answers:

• What is all this for?
• Why do bad things happen to good people?
• Where will I go when I die?
• Why is hindsight better than foresight?
• Why do we have to feel so badly before we know what real happiness is all about?

Coming to a valuable realization of the possibility that some things can’t be understood is mainly a matter of how we think and our timing. And sometimes it takes great patience to see that the main problem to all this is our impatience for quick answers to perplexing problems, the habit of which just creates the misunderstanding or worse yet, the illusion of understanding (which can oddly be the very same thing).

The problems in life that have always bothered me most are the “why” questions and the ones tempting me to try to uncover the real purpose of something, or interpreting the motivations of others, especially when they affect me so negatively and harmfully.

Since most self-talk thinking is unconscious, conscious thinking probably isn’t the way to unravel real understanding of perplexing problems in life, like our short list above. To do this, we have to make a major transformation in our consciousness, which involves a much different paradigm of time. This is what I imagine all the hullabaloo about the end of the Mayan calendar in 2012 is all about—not the end of the word, but a birth of new consciousness. But I guess I will just have to wait on that. Besides it my High School 50th reunion and it’s already on my calendar.

The clue to recognizing this transition in thinking and time, is in sensing a growing tolerance for ambiguity and tentativeness. In the end, the “certainties” that we are most sure about often turn out to be partial and incomplete uncertainties over time.

Take the example of bad things seeming to unfairly pile up on us, despite the courageous and noble effort to be a good person doing good. Going through a very dark tunnel desperately looking for the light at the end of it or trying to get past a brick wall and not getting anywhere, is a dreadful experience and probably one of the most hopeless and helpless challenges we can face in life:

• Losing a loved one unexpectedly and prematurely, especially a child or mate of 50 years.
• Becoming unemployed through no fault of your own, in your only career.
• Having a child fail miserably in life, despite your good efforts to avert that from happening.
• Being burdened by overwhelming physical pain that you can’t do anything about no matter how much time or money you spend trying to do so.
• Trying to escape virtually inescapable abuse, addiction or adultery.

Understanding why this has to happen can only happen after you get through to the light at the end of the tunnel or past your brick wall—and truly understand the meaning of, “what doesn’t kill you will make you a better person.” I am still living after getting lost in more than my fair share of dark tunnels and stuck behind plenty of brick walls of helplessness and hopelessness, so I must be becoming a better person for it.

In the meantime, about the only two viable things we can do about our dark tunnels or brick walls, are:

1. Try to view the unpleasant experience as a very tough life test to inspire your very best response to gain something valuable from the pain—something once you have it, you wouldn’t take all the gold in the world in a trade.

2. Be extra generous, kind and considerate with your love, compassion and empathy for others presently lost in a dark tunnel or stuck behind a brick wall, and not understanding it. Ironically, this may be our primary connection and purpose that turns out to be the actual understanding we are insatiably searching for. Of course I will have to adapt some tentativeness to this tentative conclusion in order to practice what I preach!




One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers, but with gratitude to those who touched our human feelings. The curriculum is so much necessary raw material, but warmth is the vital element for the growing plant and for the soul of the child.
Carl G Jung