Author: toseealife

To be a princess.

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My siblings and I just finished reading “A little princess.” That story is a riches, to rags, to riches one. The heroine of the story, Sarah, tries to remain a princess even when she is reduced to poverty and maltreatment. Call me old-fashioned, but I’ve always liked the idea of true royalty. Money and glamor don’t distinguish the royal from the celebrity, nor does title. A title is meant to tell us something about the person in the position. Prince Charming has been reduced to a joke in our culture, we forget that he used to represent real virtues before people made him out to be too cliché. Of course being charming isn’t necessarily a virtue, just like beauty alone doesn’t mean someone isn’t a beast inside. But it used to be a prince was charming because he was good and a princess was beautiful from the inside out. Bad-boy isn’t really attractive, and neither is mean-chick, maybe some people embrace those ideals because goodness seems too boring and cotton candy. But I fail to see how the ability to rise above your adversaries is boring. As King David put it “My head is lifted up above my enemies.” Rising above petty offense, and above letting yourself be bothered by vain and ignorant people’s cruelty is a strength of character few people attain. But if you don’t rise above such people you will become one of them.

I know, I know, in a society of bringing everyone down to the lowest level to be equal, suggesting rising above someone seems arrogant. I’m sure you’ve heard of this phrase though “He who does not punish evil commands it to be done”–Leonardo da Vinci. I would further add that he who cannot rise above evil will succumb to corruption by it. To not punish evil is to say you agree with it being okay. To let it dictate your behavior is saying it is stronger. Royalty is one example of rising above evil; but when they do not, they become the worst perpetrators of it. Just something to think about.

Remember royalty is not who you were born to so much as it is who you devote yourself to; and what you let become you’re domain (field of expertise), but your domain influences you as much as you influence it. So if anything from drama and whining, to riches and ruling, is your domain, beware. You become a slave of it as much as it of you.

But rising above that is possible, in my experience, only with divine help. “For in the day of trouble he will conceal me…he will lift me up on a rock.” Psalm 27:5

How to handle disappointment

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I usually post about positive things because I hate being depressed, but let’s face it, not everything that happens is happy.

If you’ve seen The Princess Bride you might remember two of Wesley’s lines, one being one of the most depressing in the movie. “Life is pain, highness, anyone who says differently is selling something.” The other, said to Inigo in reply to a question is “Get used to disappointments.” I don’t like either of these two lines, they reflect a view of the world that bugs me. Whether Wesley meant them or not is really beside the point. many a cynical laugh has occurred because on the first one. and even the second is rather dismal when you think about it.

Should we “get used” to being disappointed? it can’t be denied that we are often enough. Our plans don’t ever pan out the way we expect; people make promises to us that the don’t keep; we resolve to change and we stay the same.

Sometimes it takes people their whole life to come to the very obvious conclusion that we are just not smart enough to control our lives. If a person could make money by sitting at home, watching TV, not talking to anybody but the made up characters (we all do that,) then there are plenty of people who would give up on life and do it. But even if they were surrounded by plexi-glass with air conditioning and ready made meals, one earthquake, one bad storm, one disaster… and their whole world would fall apart. We’re really good at building intricate card houses. Even card castles. We’re geniuses at lining up domino bricks in our lives, each activity leading neatly into another; but the more work we go into the more fragile our homes are, and one little blow knocks the whole thing down.

Jesus once used this example: The wise man built his house upon the sand and when the rains cam and the floodwaters rose his house collapsed; but the wise man built his house upon the rock, the rains poured down, the floodwaters rose, but the house on the rock stood firm. Sand may be anything we pick that’s unstable. You can build your house out of the finest materials this world has to offer, but it’s still a house on a bad foundation. Now we seldom build with good materials anyway.

Maybe I’m alone in this but I feel like in America we’ve given up on what really matters. Family and friends are too much work, so we’ve made them a side, and who’s number one? Us and our needs. Who cares about the other guy? Let him do all the work and we’ll get by with as little as possible…and we wonder why we feel like losers who have no joy in their life.

Did we choose this because life disappointed us? As kids, so much seemed possible, we could do anything and be everything, but along the way we found out people expected us to be a certain way. We were compared to other kids and found lacking, so we tried to measure up or we rebelled, neither way seems to have helped. We’re still part of the statistic as adults or teenagers. More so than ever in fact.

Well I hate to break it to you, but you will never be safe in this life from statistics and people who put you in a box. The best thing you can do is to stop doing the same thing to yourself and others. when life disappoints you don’t accept defeat as your inevitable goal. You aren’t a percent, no one can tell you that this is how far you will go and no further. No one except you.

Life is not pain. Pain is a signal that something has gone wrong and is not as it should be. You didn’t always feel it and you don’t always have to. But facing disappointment takes courage folks. In the words of this song:

You believe in freedom, but you don’t know how to choose;

You’ve got to step out of you feelings that you’re so afraid to lose; 

And everyday, you put your feet on the floor, you’ve gotta walk through the door, it’s never gonna be easy;

But it’s all worth fighting for.

You can’t control your life. Period. So stop trying. Disappointment if often the result of false expectations. You had no right to expect your plans to work out if you made them for the wrong reasons and based them on the wrong goal. Your mind can’t figure out life, you can’t even figure out yourself for crying out loud. Your plans are a house built on sand.

The good news is Jesus is the rock. Psalms 138 states “The Lord will work out his plans for my life.” God alone can successfully plan our lives. You may not like me coming to that conclusion, but tough luck, it’s the truth. If it helps, God’s plans for us are way better than our own. “For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11.) I know someone reading this may scoff, a lot of us have doubted God’s good intentions. To that person I would say this, you don’t even know yourself, you don’t know everything about you house, you car, your neighborhood, your country or anything close to you. But God does. How then can you claim to understand what He is doing? I guarantee that whatever your grief is, it is not what you think. That doesn’t mean it isn’t horrible, or painful, and you shouldn’t grieve it. It’s okay and healthy to mourn over our pain, but don’t be stuck in it, don’t think you see all of it. It takes awhile to get to the point where you can see past you hurt and disappointment, but if, for now, you can at least believe that you will get to that point, then you’ll be okay. I do speak from experience.

If it would also help, know that God feels our pain and is right there with us even when we can’t see Him. He doesn’t despise us for feeling that way, but He won’t pity us more that He should. He won’t lie and say we ought to have set our hopes on anything other than Him. He’s God people, wouldn’t you take that over a house of cards? I hope the answer is yes, but even if not keep watching for more posts, I may be more cheerful in the next one. Honestly though, I do hope this helped somebody. Have a good day–Natasha

Let it go

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Okay confession time: I was planning to do a mystery post. But I found out, I do not write good mysteries. So I say “forget it.”

I wrote about not giving up in my last post so this is ironic. But I did admit that there is a time to give up. And there is a reason why. No one is good at everything, all the time. If you keep trying to excel at something that’s just not important, you’ll wear yourself out and feel guilty, which take your mind off other things you should be doing. writing mysteries is not my gifting nor am I really that interested in it, and trying to finish that post which isn’t that good to begin with will just waste my time.

But that is not to say just because you aren’t good at something you shouldn’t try. In this case I’m quitting because the story isn’t that good, nor inspired, but if you commit to something keep that commitment. Also it takes time to get good at something. I wrote stories for years that were boring and commonplace before people actually began to enjoy my writing. Currently I’m struggling with Geometry. I hate math, especially Algebra, Algebra 1 was not pretty. however I’m refusing to accept defeat this time around. I do have a secret to success. I can sum it up in two verses:

“Don’t worry about anything, instead pray about everything.” (Philippians 4:6)

“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” (Philippians 2:13)

I haven’t told many people this, but my writing improved after I prayed about it; and doing math is easier when I pray through it. Most people would call this positive thinking and yes, that’s important. You have to have the right attitude. But positive thinking won’t make you understand it better. Which is what I needed. You can think that it was just me, but my personal belief is that God gives understanding. Not to mention ability. And that’s actually the number one reason to not try to do things you are not meant to do. You have no ability because it’s not for you. Or you have ability but you feel driven and empty in your actions. There are a lot of reasons people feel like their lives are meaningless, don’t let participating in activities you don’t have any joy in be one of them. As my title states: let it go. It’s okay to be bad at something. It makes accomplishment sweeter.

“Nothing is better for a man than that he should eat and drink, and that his soul should enjoy good in his labor. This also, I saw, was from the hand of God.” (Ecclesiastes 2:24.)

Go one more.

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Sorry for the long time with no post, I’ve had Author’s fever and have been busy writing other stories.

Today I want to write about something I want to learn personally. Which is to never quit.

A little known (or little practiced) secret to success in any area of life is to never give up trying.

I’ve sure felt like giving up. On myself, on other people, even on my faith. I think some people never realize that being a Christian is not just an opinion, it’s a fight. Anyone who thinks it’s easy isn’t one. To be fair, in some ways it’s easier in America, but in other ways it’s harder. I’m not writing this to complain though, I’m glad to live in a country where I won’t be killed for believing in God and Jesus.

But there are many who aren’t so fortunate. (At least what we would call fortunate.) If I may be so frank, I’d like to say this article isn’t about persevering at a job or in a class. If I may just speak from the heart…last year was a difficult year for me in my faith. I suppose a non-Christian won’t understand this, but I felt distant from God for around six months, straight. I’ve never been through anything quite as painful as that experience. But what it proved to me was that my faith is about way more than feeling good, because I didn’t. I felt depressed most of the time, last September was the worst of it. I would get up and just feel this weight on my soul, and I couldn’t understand it, I’m supposed to have the answer for getting rid of weights and sadness. Right?

Actually Jesus never promised us a painless life, He didn’t promise us an easy one; He promised us an abundant life. Abundant means to have plenty and not be lacking. Even to have more than enough for just us, enough to share. sometimes you have to hurt to know how alive you are, and you have to face death to realize how precious life is. Or you won’t want more of it. Ever meet someone who’s life is no bigger than their job and their TV and cellphone? Or whose life is so choked with activity that it’s more of a slide show than a life? one thing I learned is that nothing in this world can possibly take the place of God in my life; it’s a joke to think it can.

Even knowing that, it is still hard to resist those feelings of worry and discouragement that come when a fight is not being won as fast as I want. But I have a reason for not quitting, if I quit on this, I quit on everything.

There’s a song by the band Superchic called “Go One More,” and the lyrics pretty much sum up what I’m talking about:

It feels like I have lost this fight, they think that I am staying down, but I’m not giving up tonight, tonight the wall is coming down. I am stronger than my fears, this is the mountain that I climb. Got 100 steps to go, tonight I’ll make it 99.

I have everything to lose by not getting up to fight. I might get used to giving up, so I am showing up tonight. I am my own enemy, the battle fought within my mind. If I can overcome step 1, I can face the 99.

A lot of things cause us to give up, folks; fears, failures, injuries; I’ve had them all. But what keeps me going is knowing this: It is so worth it. The Bible actually says that Jesus, for the joy set before him, endured the cross. That joy was us. If He endured all that for us, then we can live through this life for him. That’s my take on it anyway. And one year later I can definitely say that I have joy in my faith now. I wouldn’t change what I went through. And I believe God never left me, actually my problem was I stopped trying to see Him and was only trying to feel Him. When I write about things like never giving up, on this blog, I mean it. Even if there seems to be no reason to keep going, don’t stop trying; because often we don’t know the reason for continuing until we’re on the other side of it.

We are stronger than we think, giving up in a choice every time, not something we’re forced to do. Being stubborn can be a really good quality.

One more thing, giving up on some things is okay, if it’s not going to affect most of your life. But when it’s important, you have to decide just how much it really matters to you. Some things are worth dying for rather than losing, others just don’t matter that much. Which is obvious sounding, but we don’t live like it. We live as if things that will break in four or five years, or four or five months, or even will be gone in four or five days, are so important. And the things that may be here the rest of our lives, we neglect in the name of not having enough time. Prioritize, Persevere, and keep Perspective. That’s my advice for the day.

Good to be alive. Puppet or person?

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“Life sucks!” “I hate my life.” “Things always go wrong for me.” “My life is so boring.”

Have you heard people say these things? I’ll bet you’ve said them yourself. I’ve certainly felt them. But what if you weren’t alive? You couldn’t see anything, feel anything, hear, or taste or smell or know. A robot can hear and see after a fashion, it can move, but it will never feel anything. It’s not alive.

I’m sure the story of Pinocchio is familiar to you. A puppet without strings who can walk and talk; hey, it sounds like a dream come true. He can’t drown. (Or he shouldn’t be able to since he can’t breathe.) It could take a while for him to wear out and he’s fixable. As long as he stays away from fire, heat and cold won’t bother him, anyway. (I had to say it.) So why is he so desperate to be a real boy?

Not that real is a matter of what you’re made of, it’s not. Real is a matter of love. Love is life. And a boring life is one not filled up with love, a bad life is one that doesn’t let love in, and a life you hate is one you haven’t realized the power of love to transform. Being brave and truthful is all very well, but not until you’re unselfish does it mean anything. You can be dying to be something you aren’t (such as a person when you’re a wooden puppet,) but it’s not till you stop complaining and make the most of what you’ve got that you’ll ever change. We’re put in our form for a reason. It may not even be the right form for us, but we are to learn what we can from it.

Your body isn’t what makes you real, it’s your mind. If you are capable of choice than you are already real. But you may not know it. Hence, we don’t taste and see and hear and feel, we just sit around and act bored. Or depressed. Or both.

Suffering is what makes us become more real. You can be a real thing but not be alive. (We use the word real so often, it has different meanings.) When we suffer it forces us to feel and to prioritize, and that’s when we understand what really matters.

If we let love in, and choose to keep it, then we begin to wake up. We start to see that life is beautiful and exciting. Have you ever just been thankful that you could breathe? Or walk? Or see? If you can’t feel thankful yet, than try blindfolding yourself and walking around for an hour, or tying one arm behind your back, or moving on one leg. Or even just try imagining what that would be like. Imagine if you couldn’t move your limbs. Chances are you know or have known someone who’s been in that position. Try something wacky and stand in front of an inanimate object and tell yourself all the things that you can do that it can’t. Take a bite of food and be glad you have taste buds; go outside and smell a plant and be glad you have a nose and don’t have to use your feet like a fly. I’ll bet you’ll crack yourself up thinking of all the goofy things you can do. And that’s good because laughter makes you smarter. I’ll close with a well known scripture anyone would like. “I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are your works, and that my soul knows very well.” (Psalm 139:14)

Being wrong and surviving

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Long story short, when I get it wrong it really sucks. I like figuring things out. I like feeling smart. I like it when other people think I’m right.

But no one is infallible. And I make mistakes. I perceive things incorrectly. And that’s okay. Though it’s also uncomfortable. But it humbles me and reminds me of my limitations.

The Bible strongly warns against not accepting correction. It can get you killed. A person who can never take advice can never mature. And if you can’t say you’re sorry you’ll destroy the relationships in your life.

What if someone else is wrong and won’t admit it? I don’t like it, but sometimes you just have to let it go. Let them be right even if they’re wrong. For the sake of peace forgive and try to forget. But don’t be too good to ask for forgiveness if they think you’re the one who screwed up. (Unless it’s something so morally important that you can’t apologize for it without being a hypocrite.)

This has been a hard lesson to learn, but perhaps one of the most important. And sometimes you have to admit out loud when someone is right about you. That’s not fun. But watch how you’ll mature if you do it.