Last Day of August, 2023

This was part of my journal/prayer time this morning: 

God, I have made so many mistakes and taken so many missteps in these years of being a widow.

not with the intention to hurt anyone, not even to hurt myself.

I did what I thought best at the time.
- for everyone in my life, for me. Due to circumstances and situations that were very difficult and different than anything I had ever known. 
It was the biggest and worst mistake of my life.
I live with the regrets and sorrows every day.
- Contrary to what I was taught in churches, forgiveness doesn’t mean it all goes away.
- when mistakes are made, when missteps are taken, there are consequences to be lived with.
- just like when a leg is broken. Whether by accident, or by intention. There must be a setting of the bone. A healing time. And then, that leg is never just as it was before the break. It becomes a point for arthritis to set in. It may leave you with a limp or an ache. And it doesn’t matter how much you forgive yourself, or others, for whatever caused the break. There are times, even after the healing, that the hurt remains. 
The only sanity in all of this for me is to hold to the promise that YOU have forgiven me: 
- that YOU have taken my sin away, as far as the east is from the west
- that YOU have cast my iniquity into the sea of forgetfulness, to be remembered no more forever
- that there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of life in the Spirit has set me free from the law of sin and death.
God, will I ever be truly forgiven by others?

- We will always now walk with a limp, with an ache. But will we walk together?
God, how do I forgive myself?
- will there ever be a time I don’t feel like I need to somehow pay for my mistakes and missteps?
O GOD
Father, forgive them, 
- even though they don’t want to be held to their mistakes and missteps, they tend to hold me to mine. Or at least that's how it feels to my soul. 
- even though they don’t want that elephant in the room to be theirs, they don't seem ready to help me get rid of mine. 
- even though - - -
Father, forgive them.
Father, forgive me. For all my mistakes. For all my missteps. For all my screw ups. 

I have grown. I have changed. 
God, please help me find YOUR Way thru all of this.
Lord, move in my life, or move me.
- please, help me find YOUR Way.
In Jesus’ Name i cry out

I really do believe that one person can make a difference. And that we should work towards making, being, that difference. More often than not, the difference needs to start in our own hearts, and homes. First. 

I also believe that each one needs to do them - and give each other the tolerance and allowance to be them.
When I don’t know every answer, how can I effectively judge?

When I see rotten fruit, it’s time to cast it away, get rid of it. In order to protect the fruit around it.
Is everything not perfect to me rotten?

I look horrible in turtleneck sweaters - but does that mean they all should be destroyed, and no one allowed to wear them?
I see clothes every day that I would never think of wearing - some that make me shake my head and wonder how anyone would wear them - but is that a good and right reason to make everyone dress like me? Or to judge people for the way they dress?

There are foods I do not eat - some because I do not like them, some because honestly, I cannot afford them. Some because as bad as my teeth are, I cannot chew them. Some do not agree with my stomach issues.

But just because I cannot eat them, or choose not to, does that mean they shouldn’t be on anyone’s table and plate?
There are things I do not drink - for the same reasons as the foods. Does that mean that no one should drink them? That the stores ought not sell them?

There are medications that I cannot take because my body will tolerate them. Medications that go against my thoughts - for me. But is that the reason these medications should be removed from the shelves? 

There are things that I will not do, because my body can’t. And things that I will not do because I see no sense in them - for me. Does that mean that no one should do those things? 

Momma used to say that if everyone was just like me it would be a very sad and boring world.

When I was a kid, even as a teenager, that hurt my feelings.

I couldn’t figure out why she would say something so mean to me.

Didn’t she like me?

What was so wrong with me that it wouldn’t be a good thing for others to be like me?

But as I grew up, and wiser, I realized the meaning of those words, and the truth with wisdom that those words hold.
I need to take care of ME.

If I do what is good and right, and you do what is good and right - and we offer tolerance, allowance, and acceptance, to one another - wouldn’t that make for a better world?

When I see someone buying foods or drinks that I won’t eat or drink - do I judge them? Or do I remind myself, that it’s not my plate and glass they are fixing?

When I see someone driving a vehicle that I don’t drive - do I judge them? Or do I remind myself that it’s not me making the payments, or doing the repairs, or wondering if it will get me from point A to point B?

How quick I have been to jump to conclusions and make assumptions about why someone is wearing those clothes, or have their hair styled that way, or drinking/eating what they do, driving the vehicle they are in, living in that house!
And how many times, most of the time, almost every time, it is none of my business!

Someone made a comment to me (more than once) about why would "he" ever marry her.

Then that someone sat there and picked "her" apart, all the negative things that they could think of to say about her.

I sat there and listened, for a while.

Until I could no longer hold my tongue.

I stood up, placed my hands on the table and asked this one question -

“Has he asked you to take her to bed and f**k her?”

The shocked look on his face - and he stammered, “Nnnnooo”.

I shrugged my shoulders and said, “Then I guess it’s none of your business as to why they got married. I hope they love one another and are happy together. I know they have a better chance of it without your comments.”

I think that could be said about a whole lot in life.

Father, forgive me for being way too judgmental these days.

When I see people who don’t “fit” in my cookie cutters of life and living.

When I am too concerned about what they eat or drink.

When what they wear, or how they do their hair (or don’t) makes me snarl in my heart, if not on my face and in my words.

When what they drive makes me shake my head and wonder “how?”

When their choices and decisions make little to no sense, rhyme or reason, to me. 

I don’t know the road they are traveling in this life.

I don’t know what brought them to where I see them.

I do know that there have been those who have judged me at one time or another, for all the same things.

And how hurtful it is to see the judgments in their eyes, or to hear them as they talk and maybe even laugh a little.

So many times I am not in my “best” when others see me, for whatever reason.

Times when I’ve been hard working and a lot sweating, haven’t had time to fix myself before being seen.

Times when grief and life has punched me to a new low.

Times when other people and situations have taken precedence over me caring for how I look or appear to others in that moment.

And then, the times when I am more at my best, or when life isn’t so hard to live - I do the judging, without knowing all the details.

Lord, help me be more concerned about the heart and soul of a person than what they look like, or what they eat and drink, or what they live in and drive.

Lord, help me not even to judge those who do the judging.

I’ve been on both sides of that fence, too many times in my life.

Lord, please, just make me more like Jesus, and less like me.