MAKING AMENDS WEIGHT LIFTED
Morning Everyone.....well its about 4 and half months since my lap band surgery and I am down 46 pounds. This is turning out to be more than an amazing journey. I realize that if I do not change the me...physically, mentally and spiritually... I will revert back to my old ways. My old ways are that I am not good enough. That is the very bottom line that use to be me. Every day I have to face me. I wake up with me. Let me say that I know that I have been responsible for everything ...good or bad...that has happened in my life. I am not the victim but the volunteer of my life. Yes there has been times when I have been selfish and turned the boat into my favor. However cruel I was to another human being, as long as I got what I wanted. Now this behavior hasn't been a primary driving force for me....thank God...but I have on occasion exercised this negative behavior for my own gain. How I would justify it is that I would take one or two small aspects of the situation and say "I deserve this," or "they did this to me so I can do this to them." Ok, I am human and I make mistakes. But there is this one selfish act I committed that has haunted me in guilt for a number of years. I have tried to justify it by using all of the above excuses....but alas I had still been feeling guilty. Recently, I realize that I have to make amends. Maya Angelou says that, "Now that you know differently you will act differently." Well, I do know better now. I know that what I did was not an act of selfishness it was an act of not being good enough. I had pushed people away from me and took from them a settlement that I felt I was justified in taking. This in turn alienated my family from me. It had caused me great grief and stride. I can not go back and change one bit of my bad behavior, I can only make amends and ask forgiveness. This act had caused me great pain in these past few years. Making myself feel lower than a pregnant ant. I ate to dull my pain and isolated myself as a form of punishment. I went to bed and woke up each morning with pangs of guilt.
I am so sick and tired of a lifetime of punishing myself and punishing myself by my own hands. I am not junk. I deserve life and all its promises. God did not make junk when he made me. I have come to realize that I too matter. That I teach people....even myself....how I should be treated. A couple of days ago I sat in my car and I prayed my heart out to God. I shared with him what I was responsible for and that I acted badly...very badly. I asked for the courage to make amends and restitution.
(They say that you should be careful what you pray for you just might get it.)
Well, sure enough, in Gods magnificent way she lifted my burden by putting all the players in place so that I could make amends. And amend making I surely did. Wow, what a weight was taken off my shoulders by letting this guilt go.
However, old habits die hard....I contemplated, "what if this is not enough, what if I make the same mistakes again, did God forgive me or would she keep this in her scrapbook of plus and minus for me?" So, in my usual fashion I asked for a sign..."am I forgiven God....can I let this go....can you God let this go....like a get out of jail free card? Please show me a sign like you did when you parted the Red Sea....let me know that all is forgiven and I can move forward with my life. But above all of me...please let the injured person I hurt the most live a life of excellence and peace and serenity. May all of the cornucopia of life spill into his life and that he live with abundance."
Well, I had to wait a few days for God's Red Sea.....I was nervous thinking.."oh man...I am doomed" but there it was a half hour Sunday gospel message this morning. It was all about forgiveness of self. God had already forgiven me before I did the deed. It was I that had to forgive myself. That I have to pick myself up...dust myself off...and move forward. That I have the breastplate on of God and that I am more than enough. The message continued to say that God want to give me all the blessings that I want for the person I had harmed. He was just waiting for me to get out of the way so that he could continue his work with me. God needed to get my attention and he used this bad behavior to get my attention and as a way to say.....I am enough...always have been.
I feel light as a feather. I feel giddy...like Scrooge did when he woke up Christmas morning. I wanted to share this with all of you.....because if you are going through any of this there is hope and a way out. I needed to set things right. No, there was no happy ending they did not embrace me nor kill the fatten calf that I made amends. It appears that he will not include me as one of his friends. There is nothing I can do to change that...but I did what I needed to do and I have to move on. I do not believe that I will do this again in the future. But I am human and you never know. But I have choices today and I choose to let this go and to continue to work on myself .... "I am enough, God told me so."
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