Friday, August 17, 2012

Living in the present etc... Kind of stream of conscious lol


I am really convinced that most of the worry, angst and unhappiness of our lives comes from our not living in the present and our natural inclination to control things. Imagine if God granted you the gift, if only for a day, to only be able to live in the present. By noon, without great strain you already could not remember what you had for breakfast, that you were almost late for work and that your kids were screaming for WAY too long. You also couldn't remember exactly what it was you were supposed to do this evening, let alone later this week. How would that change your perspective? You would literally be forced to just focus on the present moment. And if you can't remember... once you accept that you can't remember (we'll move onto that control thing in a minute) then, really the only thing TO do is be fully present, in the present. The things you have to do cannot cause you stress because they are not a part of your NOW, the things that happened this morning cannot weigh on you, because they are not a part of your NOW.... and NOW, all by itself, without all of that other stuff mountained on top of it... really is something you CAN do. But in living in the present, there is a certain amount of control that we lose... and that can be maddening for some of us. There is a sense of false security in thinking that we can actually control a lot in our life... when really we are just seeking knowledge, which doesn't change the inevitable end at all. I imagine, in my “live in the present” day, that pretty quickly I would realize that since I could only live in the moment, if there was something that truly was within my scope of “control” that I should be responsible for, I would write it down when I thought about it in the present so that I could do that thing later... for example, “Take Melanie to the doctor at 5pm”. However, what I probably would NOT do is waste my time writing down things like “Call the agency and see if anything new has happened.” …. Its important to notice where our focus is. At the moment I might be tempted to call our agency, as waiting is no fun, and try to glean some sort of early information (they already do update us every month!) as to where we are on the waiting list. But in reality, all this sort of thinking does, is rob our joy of the present, worrying about something we have no control over. Any information I glean from that conversation will not change anything about our timeline, or the update we will receive in a couple weeks. All it will do is give me more information, of which I really cannot do much with... except feel informed LOL And its so easy to feel like we have some sort of control when we have information. And not to say, there are not many important things to learn. Absolutely! I rarely have my nose out of a book.. Just reflecting today, that in every situation... in the present moment, I have found that normally it is pretty easy to discern if there is anything that you can do about the situation, or if it should be placed in God's hands to handle, because there really isn't anything you can do. I think a lot more of the things in our life fit into the second category. I do believe, for the things that we discern there are things we CAN do, it would be negligent of ourselves to not do them... but for the things that we discern there is nothing we can do (and as I said, I've found its usually clear pretty fast when this is the case).. we need to let go and let God :) He asks us to Trust Him over and over... and its so easy for us to instead, trust ourselves when we goof stuff up all the time.

Not sure if I should reread this... it might be complete confusion as I kinda just tossed all the mess of my mind down LOL But if there is anything that makes sense.. YAY Happy FRIDAY

3 comments:

  1. I think what you are trying to say Carrie is summed up in:

    The Serenity Prayer :)

    God, give us grace to accept with serenity
    the things that cannot be changed,
    courage to change the things
    which should be changed,
    and the wisdom to distinguish
    the one from the other.
    Living one day at a time,
    Enjoying one moment at a time,
    Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,
    Taking, as Jesus did,
    This sinful world as it is,
    Not as I would have it,
    Trusting that You will make all things right,
    If I surrender to Your will,
    So that I may be reasonably happy in this life,
    And supremely happy with You forever in the next.
    Amen.

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    Replies
    1. Love that prayer,Pete! I reflect on it often :) And, yes you are right... it fits right into the mess of my mind at the moment!

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  2. Ya I am not so good at doing this....

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