How to Get from Here to There (Part 2)

ACCEPT

Okay, so if you read last week’s post and did your ASSESSment, you may have found that life isn’t ideal. You’ve been running around in circles, unable to solve the issues that you are facing. There’s just too much stuff on your shoulders and this may be very frustrating for you. Knowing this is a good place to start, because you cannot find a solution without knowing the problem. However, you have to be able to move past the problem to finding a solution.

We are all looking for answers, i.e. solutions, from how to cook a certain dish, to how to manage finances, how to be a better person, or get over a bad relationship. Most of these we try to do on our own. We live in a DIY society, where you can find out pretty much how to do anything by yourself online. Sometimes, I even feel guilty when I try to ask someone in person how to do something and they just tell me to look it up online. I’ve given the same response to other people. I think it’s made us feel guilty of wasting somebody’s time for something we can find out on our own.

There is nothing wrong with finding things out on your own as there are experts that can tell you exactly how things need to be done. However, there are just certain things that you cannot do on your own via something that somebody said online.

This brings me to our second step for How to Get From Here to There. That is ACCEPT.

What do you need to ACCEPT?

1. You need to accept the fact that you are not strong on your own.

November of 2013 I had an accident that caused a very bad concussion and trouble for my neck. Not knowing much about concussions, and having been diagnosed wrongly for the first two weeks, I tried to go to work a few times, only to end up either in the ER or at my doctor’s office.

A brain concussion is one of the worst things I’ve ever been through, especially, mentally. It’s very frustrating to know that you know how to do certain things, like reading or driving, but not be able to do them when you try.

It was a roller coaster of thinking I was well enough, and then trying to do something that would only give me a setback.

After some months, I finally had to give in to the fact that I really needed to take it slow and that there was no rushing through this process of getting better.

Of course, I still went through cycles where I felt like I was strong enough to do what I wanted or needed to do, only to fall back again.

Then I’d have to accept the fact again that I am not strong enough.

Getting better is not always a matter of doing more of this and that.

It is when I get past the frustration of my demise and move on to accept the fact that I am not strong enough that I find that I am able to rest better and recuperate better.

If you’re answer to the question “Has any of the things that you’ve done to try and get yourself out of your current situation helped?” is no, then you need to ACCEPT the fact that you are not strong on your own.

2. You need to accept the truth that you need help.

It is not wrong to need help. You are not the worst person in the world just because you are weak.

In fact, if you accept that you are weak, God looks at you and sees that you are ready.

Ready for what?

Ready for the gift that He has been longing to give you- your salvation and your help.

God sent His Son Jesus to die for your sins, your shortcomings, your failures. He knows that no human being is capable of saving themselves, so He provided the way out.

Jesus is “…the way, the truth and the life.” (John 14:6a, NLT)

“For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.” (John 3:16 -17, NIV)

3. You need to ACCEPT the gift of salvation and help that God is offering you.

Since there is no knowing when your last breath will be, I believe that the most important thing that you need to secure is your future after death.

When you accept the salvation that God offers, you open up the door to hope. He is the hope we have for the future, the way to eternal life in heaven.

Not only that, but in Him your sins are forgiven, your failures forgotten and you have a clean slate to start your life afresh.

Your problems may not go away in an instant or they may, but I promise you, if you take His hand that He’s reaching out to you, then He will give you strength and hope for each day. He will see you through.

Will you receive His salvation today?

If so, pray the following, “Lord, Jesus, thank you that you died so I can have hope. Please forgive me of my sins. Be my Lord and Savior and lead me to life everlasting. Amen.”

If this is the first time you’ve prayed this prayer, would you share in the comments below? If you are too embarrassed to do so, please send me an email at myfutureisalive@outlook.com so I can rejoice with you.

God bless,
Christine

P. S. To receive future posts via email, please email me at MyFutureIsAlive@outlook.com with your Name.  Don’t worry, I hate spam, so you will only get updates from MyFutureIsAlive and can tell me you no longer want to receive updates at any time.  If you have any question/suggestions, please feel free to include them in the email as well.

How To Get From Here to There (Part 1)

I love AAA.

I don’t know how many times I’ve called them for help over the last few years. (Mostly to retrieve my keys that have been locked in – Don’t judge me!)

That is why I love AAA. You can call them for the simplest of things. But that is not why I bring them up.

I mention them, because one of their slogans, “We’re here to get you there,” resonates with me since they have been very helpful to me.

I realized that that would work perfectly for the goal of this blog, My Future Is Alive.

The idea is to be here for each other, so we can all get there, a life full of hope and not afraid of the future.

To start, I thought of making an acronym for AAA as a guide for our trip. After all, not to be too clichéd, but we all know that life is a journey. In this journey, I believe that there are 3 key things that we need to constantly do in order to “keep on keeping on.” Today we’ll talk about the first A.

ASSESS

In order to reach your destination, you have to make an assessment of where you are versus where you need to be.

This is easy if we’re talking about physical locations. For instance, you may be at home, knowing that you needs to be at work. That then presents a variety of possible scenarios as to why you aren’t where you need to be and steps that need to be taken in order to fix that issue.

When you read blogs about finances and getting out of debt, they tell you to track your spending first, so you know where your money is going. I recently listened to a book that tells you to track your use of time in order to be better at time management.

Tracking is the first thing you do to be able to make a proper assessment.

When we’re talking about emotional, mental, and spiritual states of being, however, it is not quite as simple.

Not simple, because we are, more often than not, good at knowing exactly how we fare in these areas.

It’s not like we can just put a thermometer under the arm and after five minutes, know exactly what our temperature is emotionally, mentally, or spiritually.

We are all different and cannot compare ourselves against each other and find definitive results either.

For our purposes, let’s try to make it simple by asking a few questions to backtrack. (If you don’t know the answers, you might need to track your life for at least a week by using a journal.)

1. Do you feel like you’re stuck? – Life is a mess and it isn’t getting any better. You keep going around in circles and making the same mistakes. You are where you were 5, 10 years ago.
2. Are you discouraged a lot?
3. Is it hard to see beyond your current problems?
4. Do you suffer from anxiety and depression?
5. Do you often blame your present state on what’s been done to you in the past or on the people/person that hurt you in the past?
6. Has any of the things that you’ve done to try and fix things helped?
7. Are you always complaining about the same things?

Now it’s easy to take a pass at these questions and give quick answers, but in order to find hope, you gotta take an honest look at your situation. There is a very good reason why you’re reading this, so go over the questions again and answer them thoughtfully to yourself. No one else is listening, so don’t be ashamed of the answers you have.

If you find it hard to answer the questions, you could try tracking what is going on with your life by keeping a journal for at least a week.

Do you have other questions you can add to the list? Feel free to post them in the comments below.

Blessings,

Christine

P. S. To receive future posts via email, please email me at MyFutureIsAlive@outlook.com with your Name. If you have any question/suggestions, please feel free to include them in the email as well.