Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Putting It All Together – Part 6 Giving out and Giving Up

There are days when you don’t want to do this. Days when nothing seems to flow and all the little details overwhelm you. You are standing at the edge of a cliff and you are not for sure if you are jumping or if you are being shoved.

There are bills to pay, mailings to do, people to meet, and so many other things that keep you from focusing on the dream before you. Inevitably this is when someone in the family has a medical crisis, the car breaks down, or the dog dies. All you can think about is how much easier it would be if you had a real job, a boss to blame, and a regular pay check.

If you think that you will never have this day, you are lying to yourself. There is no way around it, and you need to be mentally prepared for it. This why you need that group of supporting loving people around you. You need to talk it out, remember why you chose this road, and keep dreaming together. It is what keeps the dream alive. I truly believe this is a central part to overcoming the enemy by the word of your testimony.

We seldom think of telling speaking our dreams out loud as part of our testimony. We think about our testimony as something that is done, not something that we have yet to see materialize, but the dream within you is a major part of you who you are and becomes the blueprint for the testimony you want to have.

Honestly, today was one of those days for me. I did not want to do all the things I know I need to do. I wanted to crawl back into bed and forget about all the stuff that requires my attention. It was so hard. So hard that I really did not accomplish much of what I intended to do today. And at the end of the day, I had to deal with the feeling of being a complete failure.

I wanted to give up and questioned why I do this. Sometimes there are ways to rekindle that excitement. I practice my presentation to an empty living room, give myself permission to read a book or watch television for a while, or simply to sit and dream about how it is going to feel when I finally get to do what I have been preparing to do.

Other times, forget nothing is going to work and you just have to wait it out. At these times, I have to step back and cut myself some slack. I try to put a time frame on it, a day or a few hours, or the next thing you know you have taken up residence in the land of “What might have been.” It is easy to become exhausted and your thoughts become muddled. Decision making abilities fly out the window, and it can affect your whole endeavor. If you can take a short break, do it. If not, go back to the original plan and make sure everything you decide is based on it, and not some by product of an emotional breakdown.

I survived the day, and the progress can only be measured in inches and not miles, but it was progress. I figure that if I don’t give up than I can’t fail. There is no finish line for our endeavors only mile markers that show how far we’ve come. I know there will never be a day when I can wipe my hands and say “There we did it.” The best I can hope for is a chance to ask “So what’s next?” And if I am I am lucky it will be something else equally impossible, and entirely too ambitious. I look forward to it really, because I have found that God is usually somewhere out there in the impossible and that’s the best place to be.

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