What kind of week will this be for you? You get to choose, you know...maybe you don't get to choose all your circumstances, but you at least get to choose your responses, your countenance, your level of joy.
Sunday was the first day of Holy Week for Christians. It is also the last week of my Biggest Loser competition. Faced with a lot of topics for reflection!
2010 has been challenging so far. No complaints - just a statement of fact. Cancer, relationship issues, financial issues - lots of negative energy flying around, trying to bring people down.
This week can, in many ways, be an end and a beginning...a microcosm of life.
I like to imagine this journey being like a train track. One side has good stuff, positive vibes. The other side, well, not so much. It takes BOTH tracks to carry the train - there is no way to get around that. But we get to choose which track receives the most focus. We get to decide if the journey will be marred or even ruined by our focus on the squeaky, nasty track.
One of the primary tenets of our Christian faith is that we win by surrendering, we gain by giving away. Job, a man who had every right, in the eyes of human beings, to despise God instead reminded himself that God gives and He takes away, and still His name is blessed.
Gaining by losing weight has been a physical challenge, but the benefits of the Biggest Loser contest are easy to take.
Not so with everything.
In this week when we celebrate Jesus' greatest gift, I need to remember some things...
People are sometimes cruel and nasty, they bring sorrow and pain...but God will take that, if I let Him, and He will bring a new measure of love and comfort and peace.
Cancer might bring a change of schedule, a number of surgeries, nausea, a bald head...but God will take that, if I let Him, and He will bring beloved support people, laughter in unusual circumstances, joy in being alive, freedom from small things that used to be annoying but are now just inconsequential in the big scheme.
Financial issues can be stressful and scary...but God will take them, if I let Him, and He will keep his promise to sustain me, to care for me, to keep my feet from falling.
When I focus on the sweet track, not the squeaky track, there is no loss that is not offset by gain. I simply need to make the right choice.
I can focus on the challenges or on the sweetness. It can be new joy or old sorrow.
But it's my choice...and yours.
Gotta go...the train is pulling out
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