Sitting on our thumbs

I totally understand the art of whining being a black belt in the sport myself.

What I do not and will more than likely NEVER understand is doing nothing after the period of whining is over.

I try very hard to be an understanding and sympathetic person to the difficulties of life that people wade through from dawn till dusk on a daily basis. My ears are listening to their problems and circumstances without trying to turn on the inner knob for quick answers and problem solving in their behalf. That's hard.

And without making things be greater than they are in their own natural setting, I diligently attempt to sort out the vagaries of what information is being told me realizing that I am only getting the side of the truth they wish to share.

What is a constant source of frustration is seeing people who DO have the power to alter their destiny and course waiting for external forces to take the helm and chart the course their personal ship of state should take as if that would somehow absolve them of the responsibility for the heading.

I have experienced the darkness of feeling like you had no options. But like I was talking over with my extremely long-suffering husband tonight, I may not be heading in the right direction, but, by God, I am MOVING to do something about my circumstances.

This doesn't mean I don't find my own ship wrecked upon the sandbars and submerged logs of life from time to time and am compelled to bail bilge water from the hold of the ship in order to prevent being scuttled.

But I can't wallow in it. I just feels dirty and unnatural.

I credit my parents for that.

They didn't make it an attractive option to just sit and whine over my life without having a plan once the tears were dried to tackle the problem, however insurmountable it seemed at the time.

However, it seems that we have become so interested in societal wallowing that we have misplaced our personal responsibilities to do our best even when we aren't really making visible progress.

That is the real issue here. Because we can't see just what progress has been made, we tend to negate anything as being 'too minor' to count.

And in doing so, we make our journey forward that much harder.

No one wants to feel like they are going it alone. We need each other. But when that needing turns into desparation that prevents motion without the interference of a committee, it has become enabling and not support.

Though I have my days where I have misplaced both the boots and the bootstraps which I am supposed to pull myself up with when down, I try not to make them the sole feature of my existance. I know people who do create that lost boot scenario. It's like there is never anything they can possibly do for themselves.

While that works some of the time for a little while, it isn't sustainable. Sort of like keeping a garden variety helium balloon forever. Eventually, it shrivels and looses its form to the ravages of time and osmotic pressure.

We suffer the same sort of issues ourselves. If we whine without a purposeful plan of what we can do for ourselves, we loose that inner fullness and certainty of our mission and become emotionally deflated and adrift.

I have nothing against whining.

What I have something against is whining about the same thing, in the same way, all of the dadgum time without being willing to take the bull by the horns and MAKE something different happen.

And when you grab the bull, you sometimes get gored for your trouble. Which is precisely the reason most people shrink from the task.

The comfort of a familiar misery is infintely preferred over the nebulous quality of what if's that may or may not occur. We don't like change.

But, like the quote says, "Sometime, the best helping hand we can give someone is a nice, firm push."

I look in my mirror sometimes to see if I am the one needing the push and then I pray for the courage to recognize it and be humble enough to try something - anything - new in my direction.

It helps.

Life still isn't perfect, but at least I am learning.

As my English teacher from high school used to say to "Get over yourself!"

We are often our own biggest stumbling blocks on the highway to heaven. And we tend to dig our own potholes and then complain about the bumpy ride.

Asking for help is a great thing. But being willing to do the uncomfortable to change our ways is so much harder than it looks on television.

There aren't any magic potions to rub over our crises and make them all better in 30 mintues. Some take a whole lifetime to solve and some just never get solved at all. Because in the final analysis, we have to determine ownership of the crisis at hand and be willing to say, "That isn't mine!"

Our job when people have lost their way is to offer them an hand up and a push toward a new heading. We don't help them or us by making their problems ours.

That job has already been taken by the ONE who is mighty SAVE. Only Jesus Christ can take the weight of another's burdens and carry those burdens for them.

All we can do is share the load by being there when needed and standing back just enough to let them learn to walk independently.