14 | January | 2014 | betsybeadhead

Look into your hand.
Learn more about the way to be and
let me know what you want.

I was going with a man who was from Ethiopia.
If you want your child to be able to fill their lives
it’s not the sign up that will work
I’ve heard.

Because the way you want your child to be
both
before and
back on a Monday in October

really won’t work.
Rather than being eased,
read more than just the right now.
Remember that it was time for me –

at least it was time for
a few months
after all,

Right?

Yes there is something about being baptized.
You have to get a feeling of being human.
Your knees hurt the more you use them.

(This is a predictive text poem. I used the letters of the word “library” to prompt my Kindle to give me words, and went until it didn’t make sense. I provided only 11 words to this poem, but picked out the choices on the rest.)

Instead of saying “Why does this keep happening to me”, turn it outward. “This” keeps happening to everybody. “This” is life, and it is normal.

Jesus tells us that “It rains on the just and the unjust alike” in Matthew 5. More later on that.

Bad things don’t just happen to bad people. They happen to everybody.

So how do you deal with it?

Thankfulness is a good start. Look at Jonah, praising God while in the belly of the whale.

Look at David, dancing and praising God, even after his son died.

Look at Job, saying that who was he to get angry at God for sending bad things and not to remember that God sends good things too.

Start a gratitude list. Look at the things that you like. Give them your energy, not the bad things. Look at all you have, not what you are missing.

Another idea is to not see things as “good” or “bad”. They just are what they are. The more you resist, the more you fight, the harder life will be. The more you define situations as “bad”, the more resistance you will give them.

Don’t give your energy to the wrong things

Pity parties only are parties of one.

While it is important to acknowledge pain and loss and occasionally say “This sucks!”, it is also important not to stay in that space.

Do what you can to help yourself. Start eating better. Go for a walk.
Feeling bad tends to make us close up and go inwards. That is the worst thing because it is self perpetuating.

Turn your energy outwards.

Go help out people who are worse off than you, not only so you get a sense of perspective, but also because the very action of helping others helps you.

Here’s the full verse of what Jesus said in Matthew 5:43-48
43 “You have heard that it was said, Love your neighbor and hate your enemy. 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons and daughters of your Father in heaven. For He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward will you have? Don’t even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing out of the ordinary? Don’t even the Gentiles do the same? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Don’t run away from the situation. Give it love.