pride – thelifeididntchoose

Well, It Finally Happened

Yesterday was not an especially busy one in the sense of places to go or timely appointments to make.

But it was full of activity and people and chores and the need to use creative juices and exercise lots and lots of self-control.

It was also the day I take my weekly (very potent) medication for rheumatoid arthritis which normally doesn’t bother me much. I get a little tired, sleep it off that night and wake refreshed and ready for the rest of the week.

Last night, though, it hit me hard.

I got home from church and realized I hadn’t set up a post for early this morning (it usually goes out automatically to subscribers and is posted on my Facebook page just after midnight). And for the first time ever-EVER-in four years, I just let it go.

I didn’t try to quickly cue up a repost of an old post. I didn’t grab a meme or image off the internet and write around it. I just crawled into bed and went to sleep.

Pride is a terrible thing.

It often goads me into pushing my body, mind and spirit beyond physical, mental or psychological endurance. Sometimes it tricks me into thinking I’m leaning on God when I’m leaning on my own willful stubbornness instead.

I’m all about not giving up, giving in or giving out when faced with something a little harder than I like or even something miserably more difficult than I can stand. But I need to practice discernment and learn to let go of things that are more about my proving a point than walking worthy of the calling of Christ in me.

I love writing.

I love every single heart that chooses to read what I write and sometimes comment or just pass it along so others can read it too.

I hope I don’t skip another day any time soon.

But if I do, I’m going to practice what I preach and just let. it. go.

Even though it hurts my pride to admit my limitations.

When It’s Hard to Give Yourself Grace

My little congregation is hosting a volunteer team blessing us with a new roof for our leaking sanctuary.

What would have been absolutely impossible if we had to rely totally on our own resources is happening right now!

The week after my daughter’s wedding.

Which means that I am especially exhausted as well as depleted emotionally, mentally and physically.

I’m simply unable to participate like I want to and feel I should.

I’ve brought food up to the church each day but I can’t stay to help serve because my family is still doing leftover wedding tasks. My heart is torn between what I know I have to do and what I would like to do. And it’s impossible to do both.

It’s so much easier for me to extend grace to others in similar situations. I am often the first to say, “Don’t worry about it! We’ve got it covered!”, and mean it. The last thing I want to do for any struggling heart is add to the burden.

Yet here I am, knowing full well that the smart thing, the right thing and really the only thing I can do is accept the same grace from others I’ve extended in the past and I can’t stand it!

I’m pretty sure it’s pride stopping me from admitting my limitations. I’m pretty sure it’s selfish ambition that goads me into trying to finagle a way to be in two places at once. I don’t want to be the one person who didn’t show up all week, meet the volunteers and tell them face-to-face how very much we appreciate them.

How my heart can twist things!

These past six months have been hard ones. Goodness-the past almost two years have been one crisis after another, more travel away from home than in the decade before, more heart-stopping, mind-blowing moments and challenges than any other season since the first year after Dominic ran ahead to Heaven.

And still I will cling to my pride.

I need to accept the abundant, overwhelming, free-flowing and never-ending grace of Jesus.

I do no one any good by refusing it.

Least of all me.

Repost: Learning Limits

An exchange with a Facebook friend got me thinking.

How much of my struggle in life is a result of ignoring my own limits?

How much pain do I inflict on myself because I won’t admit I need help? Why do I insist on living to the edge of endurance and emotional capacity?

Why, why, why do I try so hard to keep up a front of invincibility?

Pride.

Pride goads me like a whip.

Pride makes me say, “yes” when I should say, “no”.

Read the rest here: Learning Limits

Worse For Wear, I Don’t Care

I have never been one of those women who lied about her age.

My weight…well, you will have to threaten me with something that matters to get THAT number out of my lips.

But I’ve noticed this year more than others since Dominic left us that the wear and tear of years and tears and life and loss are showing up on my face as well as my hips.

I am definitely the worse for wear.

My daughter is getting married in May and for the first time in my life I am religious about applying under eye cream and moisturizing lotion to my face each morning and night.

I don’t want to be the sore thumb in the family pictures!

I’m not sure it’s working. I’m not sure anything can erase or roll back the marks that life and love and loss have etched on my face.

I’m not sure I want to.

Because each wrinkle, each line, each saggy, baggy skin flap says, “I loved, I lived and I am surviving-even though it’s hard.”

Before Dom left I was camera shy. I still am, a bit. But I’m trying hard to suck up my pride and my insecurity and let those flashes pop. Memories are made one day at a time and photos help preserve them.

So whether I’m at my best, at my worst or somewhere in between, I won’t say no to a Kodak moment.

I wish I had more of them from “before”.

I wish I hadn’t’ been so darned particular about what I looked like, what I was wearing and whether or not my wrinkles or big butt showed.

Worse for wear?

Who cares?

This one wasn’t made to last.

❤

For instance, we know that when these bodies of ours are taken down like tents and folded away, they will be replaced by resurrection bodies in heaven—God-made, not handmade—and we’ll never have to relocate our “tents” again. Sometimes we can hardly wait to move—and so we cry out in frustration. Compared to what’s coming, living conditions around here seem like a stopover in an unfurnished shack, and we’re tired of it! We’ve been given a glimpse of the real thing, our true home, our resurrection bodies! The Spirit of God whets our appetite by giving us a taste of what’s ahead. He puts a little of heaven in our hearts so that we’ll never settle for less.

2 Corinthians 5:1-5 MSG

When Help Doesn’t Look Like I Thought it Should (or Hoped it Would)

I suspect I’m not alone in growing up with stories of a handsome prince coming to the rescue on his white charger.

If you hear the tales often enough they burn an image in your mind of exactly what help should look like-brave, bold and unmistakably obvious.

Trouble is, real life rarely plays out that way.

Oftentimes help doesn’t look like I think it should or even like I hoped it would.

Sometimes, in fact, it’s pretty much opposite of what I had in mind.

And that means that if I’m set on preconceived notions, I might just miss out on precisely the aid my heart is hoping for. In my prideful arrogance I can overlook the hand that’s reaching out for mine.

This past November, my youngest son thought of a wonderful way to spare my joints while I did the chores around here. I spend a good part of each day walking, toting buckets (and other assorted stuff) and tending to our animals and our property. While the walking is great for my health and my bones, the carrying isn’t. So he suggested I think about getting a golf cart to make things easier.

Can I just be honest here?

My idea of someone who used a golf cart to go a mere half mile or so was that they were L-A-Z-Y. (No offense to any readers or friends who use one. ❤)

I was NOT going to be THAT person. I was going to carry my big behind and feed buckets up and down the driveway unassisted. I needed the exercise and, after all, I was plainly capable of doing it.

But after talking it over, and after my husband generously agreed to purchase one, I gave in.

I absolutely, positively LOVE it!

It makes all the difference in the world to my hands, ankles, hips and wrists. I still get plenty of exercise but I’m no longer wearing out my joints doing daily tasks. I didn’t realize how carrying buckets, wood, limbs and other random things for a distance was impacting the swelling and pain I experienced on a daily basis.

And it made me think of how many times I may be missing out on precisely the help God is sending me because I don’t like the package it comes in or my pride is preventing me from accepting it.

Since Dominic ran ahead to Heaven I have needed so. much. more. help.

Things that used to be easy are hard and things that used to be hard are harder.

Sometimes that help has come from people I least expected to offer it. Sometimes that help has come from people I (frankly) didn’t want to be beholden to.

Sometimes I’ve waved off the very help I need because my pride has reared its ugly head and won the battle for my heart.

What foolishness!

So I’m going to try to finally let the lesson sink in.

Every morning as I hop in my cart and go, I remind my heart that pride is folly and proffered help should be received as the gift it is-whatever it looks like, ❤

NO One is “Strong Enough”

I’m kind of an overachiever.

I grew up in a family where the motto was “You can do whatever you want to do if you want to do it badly enough”.

If you promised to go somewhere, do something, make something, provide something-well you better go, do, make or provide.

NO excuses allowed.

That kind of work ethic does set you apart and help you get ahead.

But it can also set you up for ultimate, catastrophic failure.

Because there will come a moment in every life when events beyond your control overwhelm your heart and prevent you from going, doing, making, providing.

And if your self-worth is built upon a foundation of never letting anyone down, never asking for help, never being needy-well, then you go from feeling worthy to feeling worthless in a heartbeat.

Before Dominic ran ahead to heaven I had short seasons of helplessness due to illness. Those few days and weeks were hard but I knew that I would soon return to the woman I was before and could resume the work that was essential to my feeling worthy of love and respect.

These last years since his departure have proven to be an extended period of helplessness and brokenness that continue to prevent me from doing, doing, doing.

And worse, that have required me to ask for help-over and over and over again.

But you know what I’m learning? I’m learning that my worth is not based on what I can give.

I do not have to earn love. If what I’m getting from others is because of what I do for them, then it’s not real love.

I do not have to justify my existence by working myself to death. If that is the only reason people want me around, then it’s a lousy one.

I’m also learning that refusing help is pride. Pure and simple.

I can wrap it up in any excuse I want, but the root is self-importance and insistence that I can “do it myself” like a defiant two-year-old.

NO ONE can do it all themselves.

We ALL need help.

Asking for it and receiving it gracefully is strength, not weakness.

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