Is This a Time for Rage?

I just finished reading a nationally circulated article that told me that “this is a time for rage”. It was speaking on some of the recent events of the political landscape and the current sexual investigations that are taking place.

I am no stranger to the current world we live in and it is no great surprise for me to see rage, but this was something new. This was the first time that I had actually seen a writer not just speak in a state of rage, but recommend it as the best option as we move through these difficult situations.

I could not believe it.

Really? That is the best that we have?

With all of the tools, emotions and communication styles we have access to we are going to select our rage?

Is that what people really think?

That rage is going to get us through?

Rage is our savior?

Not for me.

I don’t have faith in my rage.

Rage is an emotion, it is not a solution.

When we feel enraged, we feel like we have a purpose. We see the path ahead and we have no doubt that we can conquer it. It makes us feel brave and important.

Our rage makes us feel powerful.

Our rage is an understandable emotion that arises as we journey through some of these difficult experiences, it makes us feel like we are seeing crystal clear, but it actually blinds us. We are unable to see anything else but our emotion and our perception. When we feel rage we are often incapable of listening well and uninterested in learning because we demand to be heard.

I do understand that rage can be quite productive. It can be a great influencer, communicator and motivator to get people in action, but let’s be clear, the action that rage will spark is not one that will bring beauty to this world.

While rage is easy to grow, it is not easily controlled and the more it spreads the harder it is to keep in check.

Rage is loyal to itself and not even the cause at hand.

Rage is not a superhuman power to get things done. It is an ineffective strategy for creating positive change.

We have leaders instructing their followers to take up anger as a tool to solve our problems.

Umm… no thanks.

Rage can ignite fiery passion and can cause intimidation, but is this really going to give us what we want? Is this going to create the environment that we want our children to grow up in?

If encouraged, our rage will produce hate, intolerance, and violence.

Rage has no peace to offer us.

Rage has no answers for us.

Rage is not the solution.

Being unable to control our temper is not our strength, this my friends is actually part of the problem. Rage may have to be a part of all of this, but to credit it as our strength would be a mistake.

Our bitterness, our rage, and our anger will never heal us or create peace in this world. The healing that we find after our rage will.

We will heal this problem by sharing and listening to the experiences that have occurred. We will heal as the stories of darkness get brought to the light. We will heal as people who have found healing share the way. We will heal in our understanding. We will heal as we connect and support one another. We will heal as we become equipped. We will heal as we forgive.

We will heal as we speak to our youth and educate them on these things that have gone unspoken in generations past.

We will heal as we teach people to do better.

We will begin to heal as we better understand the mindsets that have let these actions take place repeatedly while staying in the dark generationally.

We will not heal because of our rage. We will heal despite it.

We need to do better.

Not just with our sexual misbehaviors, but with our response to them as well. We must find a different way to navigate these difficult experiences.

Rage may be a step along the journey, but should not be the destination. Make no mistake about it, we want to keep moving forward.

We want a better world for every woman and every man. We want a better world for our children.

If we want better, then we all must do better.

Our culture needs an answer to this problem and I am sure that rage is not that answer.

No matter how we feel, our rage is not actually effective for us to get what we want.

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Living the Dream, One Nightmare at a Time

If you would’ve asked me when we got married what our lives would look like in a decade I would’ve said something like this…

I saw Carter and I married with a handful of kiddos, both through pregnancy and adoption.

We would be living outside of a small town, with a bit of land and owning a pet or two.

We would have travelled the world.

 I would be staying at home with my kids, possibly working a day or two outside the home. I thought Carter would be working in the finance world and I hoped that he would enjoy his job.

Of course, I planned on being more in love with my husband than ever.

You want to hear something crazy?

 Every single one of the things that I hoped for my life is my reality.

However...

Even though so many wonderful things have happened, I can honestly say that in the past decade there have been so many things that I did not expect to be part of our journey.

I never expected to come home one day and find that someone had broken into our home. Stealing several thousands of dollars’ worth of memories.

I never expected to wake up one morning and realize my house was quickly becoming an island. We had minutes to get out of our house. One car already totaled from the water.

I never expected our house to catch on fire.

I never realized how many days would be dedicated to the broken appliances and a car that needs to go to the shop.

I never anticipated our dog getting hit by the car and the kitties running away.

I never expected Carter to lose his job after the recession hit.

I sure never saw the friendships that would be no longer.

I never expected to take it so brutally hard when we had our failed adoption.

I didn’t expect the whole parenting thing to be so challenging. I never expected so many tears to come with it, both from my children and myself.

I didn’t realize how many different seasons you experience as a married couple. The moments where you look into each other’s eyes and question one another’s actions, intentions or love. I never thought that I would have days where I really questioned the whole gig.

I never realized that there would not just be hard days… but there would be hard years.

You see, when I looked ahead at my life I saw all the moments of the mountaintops. I didn’t see the valleys.

I saw all of my dreams coming true… but I never realized that the same life that would make my dreams come true would be the very life that brought forth my nightmares.

My friends, life is both extremely wonderful and extremely difficult. We have moments on the mountaintops and moments on the valleys. I don’t think we need to fear the valleys, but I do think we need to understand that they will be part of our journey to the top.

If you find yourself in a valley today. Keep your head up. Try to find beauty right where you are. Where you are today, is not where you will always be, but where you are today is part of the journey to where you are going.

And that my friend, is a beautiful thing.

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I Betrayed Her... Now What?

What do you do when you fail someone that you love?

I could not turn back time.

I could not make it right.

I could not justify my actions or explain my failure.

It was what it was.

Betrayal.

I have a handful of moments that have shaped me as a person. This being one. I sat on my couch feeling quite defenseless and humble. I will never forget the moment that I was sitting in front of her.

I knew what I had to do.

I had to ask for forgiveness.

Why?

Because I had betrayed her.

My friend. That I loved.

I listened first. I agreed with everything she said. What had happened was wrong. To be honest, it was one of the only times of my life I had no justification and no explanation. No defense.

As she relived her experience it was as if her pain lived inside of each word.

I could feel her heartache within me.

And here I was.

Going to ask her for something.

Forgiveness.

It is a humbling experience to look someone in the eye and seek forgiveness. There was no reason that it should be given and no reason that it would be.

I hated that we were here, I wished that I could travel back into time and change what had happened, but I couldn’t. There was nothing left to do, but to seek mercy. This was not a mercy I had earned. No actions or words could take away the hurt.

As I listened, I understood the crossroads that we were at. She would decide if there would ever be an “us” again. The ball was in her court.

She had to decide if I was worth the risk.

I listened to her. She listened to me.

And through great sorrow, she said the words...

“I forgive you.”

She looked me in the eye and told me that she loved me. She was willing to offer me her love even though I had failed her. Even now, as I recall this experience I feel moved to tears. 

This moment changed me forever.

It quite literally changed who I was.

She gave me permission to move forward. Not without regret, but with mercy. Past the choice I had made and into growing from who I was into who I wanted to be.

I will always feel a certain amount of debt towards her. She gave me mercy that I am not sure I would have been able to offer myself without her permission. 

 The pain I caused her will forever be on my list of things I regret in my life.

I know my words of repentance did not nearly carry the power that her words of forgiveness carried. I understood that her choosing those words came at a high price for her. It cost her to release me from what I deserved.

The choice she made did not end that day. Her choice caused a ripple through my life.

 Relationships can suck because people fail us and people betray us, but I want to suggest that it is in these moments that we are given the opportunity to change the world. 

because I was forgiven.

And it changed my world.

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The Words That Echo

I believe that words have great power, but unfortunately, people don’t always use this power wisely… or kindly. It is shocking how much pain can be caused by words. When is the last time that someone said something hurtful to you?

I am amazed at how well I can remember some of the hurtful things that have been said to me. I can play them on repeat, word for word… for years.

We have all had hurtful things said to us. Painful words can echo in our lives for quite some time. It seems natural to remember the worst things that have been said to us while the kind things are all too easily forgotten. We often focus on the negative and hold onto the hurt.

In this life, it is inevitable that people will try to define us. Some people will define us kindly, while others will define us cruelly. Sadly, we often give too much thought to the harshest definitions.

People will define us, but we have the final say on who we believe ourselves to be.

We must not give too much focus to other people’s opinions. Merely because someone says something about who we are, does not make it right. Opinions change by the day. They are filtered through moods, personalities, experiences and perceptions. Someone may fully believe what they say is true, but that doesn’t make it truth.

Unkind things are said in this life. Sometimes they are said with the intention to hurt us and sometimes hurt is not the intent. Either way, we must learn how to process painful words.

We can’t change how people speak to us, but we can change how much we allow their words to dictate our life. It can be hard for us to move past the cutting words, but we should not live with the open wound of hurt for too long.

We need to quit entertaining the words that came into our life to tear us down. At some point, we must know who we are and not worry about who others believe us to be.

We must move on.

There will be people in this life who love us and people who hate us. Some people will agree with us and others will disagree. We will have people who will support us and people who won’t.  This is not always fair, but this is life.

I am sorry for the words that have haunted you, but it is time to let them go.

Let’s decide together to no longer relive the hate and let's move forward. Let’s draw a line in the sand, forgive and move on. Let’s release them. Let’s release ourselves.

stop QUESTIONING HOW OTHERS PERCEIVE YOU AND JUST YOU. because you are enough.