2021-05-20 — Moving Forward

Hiya, folks. 🙂

Today has been a really really hard day, but I’m here. 🙂

I don’t remember when I got to bed. Maybe 11 ish? 12 ish? I don’t remember, but I got some messages from a friend about 1:30, and then I worried about what the messages might mean so much I couldn’t fall back asleep until maybe 3, and then I was up at 4:25, so I didn’t get much of any sleep in the first couple of attempts.

However, after servicise, shower, prayer, meditation, and personal study, I crashed again (about 6 a.m.), and I slept for a decent bit longer. So… on the bright side, I have four days in a row now of getting up at 4:25. So that’s cool. 🙂

It was really hard, though, I was terrified about hat the messages meant for a good while, and I didn’t get to learn about what they meant until later (tonight), so I spent a good chunk of the day very anxious and fearful. Then I did a bit better for a good little while, and finally (after getting myself out of the house to do one job, at least, I was able to talk with the person who sent the messages, and I learned that what I was afraid of is most likely coming on the horizon, which I won’t mention unless/until it does.

It’s still in limbo, and uncertainty is one of the hardest things for me, but I’m doing ok. I’m gonna choose faith, and I’m gonna hush my fears, and I’m gonna choose gratitude instead of complaining, and I’m gonna just go forward and be the best man I can be and lift the world as best as I can, and let what comes come.

Strength comes from doing the hard things. If I whine and moan and fear, then I probably will whine and moan and fear the next time I have a similar challenge. So… I can just keep whining and moaning and fearing, or at some point, I can say… nope. I’m just going to what the Serenity Prayer teaches: God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

So, faith, love, gratitude, hard work.

Here we go.

#1. I’m grateful for the strength today to choose faith and hush my fears and choose gratitude. It’s quite a challenge at the moment, but it’s a battle I’m currently winning. Thank you, Lord.

#2. I’m grateful for the opposition I face in my life, the challenges that test me to my core. I’m grateful for the hells I go through. Opportunities. They are, all of them, great opportunities. I’m grateful for those opportunities. As the quote goes, “It is not the smooth seas and the favorable winds that [35] make your best seamen. It is experience in stormy weather; it is the ocean lashed into a fury by the winds, until the fretted waves roll mountain high and make the “laboring bark climb hills of sea and duck again and again, as low as hell is from heaven.” It is when the lightning splits the clouds, when the masts are splintered, when the ropes are tangled, and all is confusion, that the sailor learns to control his fear and stand unmoved and calm in the midst of the threatening difficulties about him. Those are the experiences that make good sailors.” ~ B.H. Roberts

#3. I’m grateful for strong friends who see the beauty and the good in hard things as well.

#4. I’m grateful I was able to figure out the one car I did today (at least I’m pretty sure). Her car has been sitting for several months, and I was able to get it started and going for her. Won’t stay running with the MAF sensor plugged in, so I unplugged it, and it’ll stay running, so looks like it’s a bad MAF sensor. So… yay! Didn’t take too long. Only one job, but I figured it out, and I was a little concerned. I did that one mostly because it was a family member here who referred her, and I didn’t want to let her down.

#5. I’m grateful for experiences that wake you up and help you see with new eyes or refocused vision, etc.

Thanks, for being part of my journey, everyone. It continues. 🙃

Loves and hugs to all y’all. 🙂

Lift the World.

~ stephen