Get it right

I talked with someone today who is going through a rough time. This person is in a place I know all too well: "almost." 

For years, I knew something was wrong. I knew I needed to clean it up, make some changes... You know, I needed to "fix it." But for the life of me, no matter how hard I tried, how good my intentions were or how much it mattered to me, I somehow kept missing the mark. It was an ugly cycle of "almost" getting it. I cannot begin to describe how frustrating this is and the sheer hopelessness it makes you feel after repeating the same process a gabillion times. To put it another way, "almost" royally sucks.

Hearing my friend express her frustration was like listening to myself..."How many times do I have to do this? How long will I have to hurt, how much will I have to lose and how many more times is it going to take before I finally get it?" UGH my heart just broke for her. I know how it feels to be going all along, everything seemingly just like you think you want it, then BOOM it all blows up in your face and you are left lying there, bleeding, crying and wondering, "What the hell just happened?! What have I done?! Must I really do this AGAIN?!?!"  

It was a trap in my thinking and a serious deficit in my spirit, though I didn't know it at the time. All I knew then, just like all my friend was feeling today, was that I felt woefully inadequate. My very best was just never good enough, I never ended up with the brass ring or the happy ending. I hurt everyone I ever cared about, destroyed everything I touched and always ended up shattered into pieces, alone and sad and hurting. Once or twice is bad enough, but ending up in the same place with the same result--PAIN and LOSS--over and over again is enough to drive anyone right out of their mind... especially because you always think "this time it will be different." Yet how many times has "this time" ended up EXACTLY like the last time, and all the times before that? And for some unknown asinine reason, all too often we don't deal with it correctly and barrel on ahead instead of doing something different.

I heard a song this past week that describes exactly what this is like.

Get It Right

What have I done?

I wish I could run

away from this ship going under

Just trying to help

hurt everyone else

Now I feel the weight of the world is

on my shoulders

What can you do when your good isn't good enough?

And all that you touch tumbles down?

My best intentions keep making a mess of things

I just want to fix it somehow

But how many times will it take?

Oh how many times will it take for me

to get it right?

To get it right?

Can I start again

with my faith shaken?

Cuz I can't go back and undo this

I'll just have to stay

and face my mistakes

But if I get stronger and wiser

I'll get through this

What can you do when your good isn't good enough?

And all that you touch tumbles down?

My best intentions keep making a mess of things

I just want to fix it somehow

But how many times will it take?

Oh how many times will it take for me

to get it right?

So I'll throw up my fist

Throw a punch in the air

And accept the truth that sometimes life isn't fair

So I'll send out a wish

I'll send up a prayer

And finally someone will see

how much I care

What can you do when your good isn't good enough?

And all that you touch tumbles down?

My best intentions keep making a mess of things

I just want to fix it somehow

But how many times will it take?

Oh how many times will it take for me

to get it right?

To get it right?

Just like my friend did today, I'd go and talk the issue to death with anyone who would listen. I was lucky enough to get some really good advice. But damned if I ever took it. When I think back on some of those conversations, I realize I was told the truth plenty of times. The problem wasn't that I didn't know it, it was that I didn't want to ACCEPT it and what it would require of me.

It is my prayer for all of you that you never have to reach the same level of devastation I did before I stopped fighting the inevitable and running from the truth. I hope that it won't take near the same amount of pain and heartache and loss that I had to go through before I finally gave up on doing things my way and started listening to Jesus and trying it His way for a change. And I'll have you all know that my life did not begin to get better even one second before I surrendered my will to Him. I'd given Him my heart; but Jesus isn't just to be our Savior. He is to be Lord as well. That was the part I hadn't gotten yet.

And I will tell you as well that the answer to the question, "How many times will it take for me to get it right?" is "As many times as it takes for you to learn to totally and completely surrender to Christ." Why? Because truth is just that: TRUTH. So-called "relative" truth and "situational" ethics are total bullsh&%. Right is right, even if no one does it, just like wrong is wrong, even if everyone does it. God set Truth as the standard. Period. And there's no getting out of it, around it or changing it for anyone. I don't care who you are. Life is full of certain truths that don't yield or change no matter how uniquely special you think you are. "Gravity always wins, the earth doesn't move and God won't pull the ripcord." It is what it is. And it's up to each and every one of us how many times we'll have to go through the same old tired-ass cycle of "my way" before we give up to "His way." He's not being sadistic, either, by letting us repeat the cycle instead of rescuing us. He allows it because He loves us. It's called FREE WILL, and that can be your best friend or your worst nightmare, depending on your choices. Out of His love for us, He will allow us to CHOOSE that tired old pattern, over and over, until we are ready to let it go because He KNOWS that until we do it will never change.

Listening to that song, and again today to the words of my friend, brought it all back to me... How AWFUL it is to know that certain things are possible and that you need to change but not having the first clue what to do about it. I wish now that I'd learned long ago to just LISTEN. And further, to just truly consider the words that were being said to me. I had to get past how I FELT about what was being said to me and just THINK about what was actually being said. When I did that, when I put my feelings aside and thought about the concept being put before me, that's when things started to sink in a little bit and I began to see some light at the end of the tunnel... Rarely in those moments will truth say anything good about you, and usually you will find that you are on the wrong side of it. But even that is so much better than stuffing it down and denying, just to have to repeat the cycle all over again, and end up in the same exact place, with the same exact results, asking the same exact questions. You just have to reach a point where it doesn't matter what the truth says about you or how it makes you feel; you accept it and act on it anyway, and then you are finally in a position to really and truly make some changes that will last... For me, it was no longer enough to merely survive. I wanted to LIVE. But to do that, first I had to HEAL. And NO ONE can do that until they accept and live according to truth. Otherwise you're just going right back down the rabbit hole.

I am so grateful to Jesus from delivering me from all of that. All I have to do now to "get it right" is to go to Him, be honest about everything, ask Him what to do and then do it. My "best intentions" now yield way to having the right heart before the Lord. If I do that, if I make sure that I am right before Him, then funny how the rest of it seems to take care of itself.

My prayer for you is that you, too, will reach a place where you surrender to Jesus. Because until you do, you can do your absolute best and you still won't get it right. Don't be like me and act a stubborn mule for a couple of decades before you get it right. Do it NOW, today. I hope that it won't take you as many times to "get it right" as it took me.

Whispers

I recall a game we used to play when we were kids called Telephone. We'd sit in a big circle, and one person would whisper something into the ear of the person sitting next to them. Then that person would turn and repeat what had just been said to the person sitting next to them, and so on and so on... until we'd gone all the way around the circle. The person sitting next to the original whisperer would tell the group what had been said to them. Without exception, the words of the last person and the words of the first person were never the same. In fact, I can't think of one single time we played that game where the ending was even close to the beginning. In fact, most of the time it was hysterical how different it was.

I celebrated two years in recovery recently. And I got to share parts of my story last week with a childhood friend I hadn't seen since high school. She called me up for lunch, and it was great fun seeing her and catching up. But it was clear that God had a bigger purpose in mind than just reminiscing.

I've thought a lot since that visit... about what I was like during the time period so long ago when she and I lived around the corner from each other and played... about how much can and has happened in the span of a couple of decades... about how differently life turned out than I thought it would... and about how differently it could have turned out, for the worst, had Jesus not turned it all completely around.

It is so easy--SO DANG EASY--to become complacent, tired, spiritually lazy, etc. When I left my friend that day, I was on a Holy Ghost high because I realized it had been, literally, 3 months since I'd focused my thoughts and conversation on Jesus so intently. Not that I've forgotten Him entirely. I've just been...well, busy. But more than that, I'd fallen into a sleep and I didn't know it. It took seeing my old friend again and recognizing that God was doing something to wake me up.

I've done lots of praying and meditating with Jesus and it has occurred to me that for so very long, my relationship with Jesus was a lot like that old game, Telephone. Bits and pieces, picked up here and there, from this person or that sermon or this song or that book, passed along but nothing really solid. It was a vicarious faith, which really isn't faith at all. 

A relationship with Jesus is a living, breathing thing... it's something that is more real, more alive, than anything you have ever or ever will know. I can explain faith to you, but I can't understand it for you. Jesus is someone who must be experienced, personally, by each and every one of us. Of course we can share, and should, with each other. But until we turn our thoughts, our wills, our feelings, our choices, our actions, over to Him, each and every single day, then our walk with Him will be no more accurate than the words spoken at the end of the circle in that game; it'll be just like those whispers, only pieces of the truth, but never the whole thing. It will not match the original, and that just isn't good enough.

If faith is only as good as the object in which it is placed, then I choose for my faith to be in the one true God, in the REAL LIVE Jesus. I won't settle for the scraps given to me by people who don't really know for themselves, who are only passing along what may or not be true. I want the real deal.

And that is really what recovery and living an honest, authentic life is all about, isn't it? Notice I did NOT say a "perfect" life. Someone who is being honest and real will make mistakes; they just won't be defined by them, and they will do all they can to learn from them and move on.

It just never gets old to me how much I do NOT think about my past. I hate that I wasted so much time doing the same old things over and over again, almost getting it but not quite... That truly sucks, I must say. Plus, what's the point of lingering in cemeteries with ghosts and old stories and wounds once you've examined them for their worth? Isn't it better to let it go and move on? I think so. In the Bible, Jesus doesn't waste time discussing wrong answers with people who screwed up. What's the point of having a struggling golfer hit another 5,719 balls with the wrong grip, incorrect stance or faulty swing? No, Jesus instead pointed out truth. Then He'd say, now go forth and get'er done. 

I'm quite certain kids today still play the Telephone game. I know adults do! We are all guilty of it... settling for sloppy seconds, incomplete stories, half truths... But a half truth is a whole lie, is it not? Let's not settle for mere whispers uttered by others. Instead, let's go straight to the horse's mouth, so to speak, and seek to hear Jesus' voice directly, at full volume. 

Go hard or go home.