While driving today, I was thinking about some people I know going through rough times and I just couldn't get over some of their circumstances. WHY do these people so unnecessarily complicate their lives??!! WHY would you continue to make choice after choice that adds stress and chaos to your life??!! WHY torture yourself in such a way??!! I am perplexed. I just can't wrap my mind around this process. We all know people like this, right? And we see them on the news all the time. Really, 18-year-old-boy-who-just-tried-to-steal-a-30-pack-from-an-Allsups? Really? You have no idea how complicated your life just got. Don't get me wrong. I have unnecessarily complicated my life before.....
.......Like the time I ran my bank account down to nothing and had to ask my parents to bail me out (okay, okay, that might have happened a few times but I was young). Or the time the keys to my Jeep were 30 miles away from my Jeep, in a friends car (sorry Mom). Or the next summer when I got said Jeep stuck in river rocks because I was somewhere I shouldn't have been (sorry Dad). Oh, or my 21st birthday....oh that was a disaster. I don't even know who to apologize to for that one..... The list is long, for sure. I'll have to think about some of the other interesting ways I have unnecessarily complicated my life (and decide if they are for sharing!). Maybe that will be another post.
Anyways. You make mistakes in life. And I wish mine was mistake free because I can only imagine the care-free, stress-less life that comes with that. But, I'd be really dumb had I not made mistakes in my past because they forced me to learn and grow! And, I'm human, and I continue to sin. Sometimes a small mistake, sometimes a large one; it's all equal in His eyes. {So, wait. My sin is equal to the sin of these people I've been thinking about and praying for who are making such bad decisions? Yep. Mmm....Have a piece of humble pie.} I'd like to believe that I'm trying hard though, to make good choices. I want to make the right decisions that will hopefully only bless our family, not stress our family.
What drives me nuts about unnecessarily complicated people is that in order to seemingly uncomplicate their lives, they find it necessary to complicate yours. Unnecessarily. What I'm saying is: I absolutely hate it when the bad choices of others affect your life negatively. And I know it's easy to say, "Just don't let it!" or "Just let it roll off your back!" Blah blah blah. NO! "Quit affecting my life so negatively through your bad choices" is what I just want to SCREAM! How do they creep in and unnecessarily complicate your life? By making their stress your stress. By dragging you down with them. By sucking you in. Because, ultimately, I believe they are jealous of your fairly uncomplicated life. And that is where I have so much growing and learning left to do. Many prayers yet to be prayed for my heart to be changed. Because, I'm a mover and a shaker. I stand up for what is right. Silence is acceptance and I rarely accept being silent (sorry, honey). When your bad choice hurts me or someone I love, expect me to get rattled. And that is what I have to change.
I'm not going to apologize for my simple, happy life. Though we continue to make mistakes, and we always will, I am grateful that the Lord has instilled a strong spirit of awareness in our hearts. We are aware of the decisions we make. We apologize if they are the wrong. We pray. We grow. Sometimes not enough. We pray harder. But, as I stated above, I do feel like we are trying to live a virtuous, simple life and I must work on not allowing these unnecessarily complicated people to complicate my life unnecessarily!
