2023-12-14 — Curtain’s Up

You know, sometimes it would be nice to be able to apply all of the principles that I learn all at once. 🙃

After one of the better morning routines that I’ve ever been able to accomplish since I’ve begun striving to follow this fabulous but very challenging morning routine, when I went out this morning to start working on everything at the deck, I started losing my perspective.

That lesson that I’ve been learning about expectations… but that I haven’t focused on for a long time because I have so many things that I’m learning all at once and that one has taken a back seat as I try and figure out others…

As I think about it while I’m writing this, there are probably some things that I have added that aren’t as important as working on the expectations principles that I’ve learned and am learning.

Anyway, suffice it to say, the labor of love down at the deck has turned into more of a nightmare for me instead of a labor of love. It’s just taking so long. The progress that I’m making is so painfully slow. Everything that I try and do, with maybe the single exception of the fire pit that I built, isn’t just taking longer than I ever guessed it would, but is taking insanely longer than I ever dreamed it could take.

This ramp that I’m redoing down into the creek… I just don’t have the right equipment for it. A bulldozer would probably get the job done in like 30 minutes. Maybe less. And I have probably spent over a dozen hours on this little mini excavator trying to use it as a bulldozer to get this job done.

There was a perfect bulldozer for sale on Facebook a couple weeks ago. I should have bought it. It was massively well taken care of, and it was a super great price, but… I’m cash poor at the moment with my savings mostly tucked away in an online, high-yield savings account, and buying something like that would leave me with zero, if I even have enough to buy something like that.

Understandably, it sold super quickly.

Certainly would have been nice to have right now, and would be absolutely amazing to have on the property here.

[sigh]

I made the choice not to buy it because I’m trying to simplify and reduce my fleet, not increase it. And maybe that was still the better choice, but my frustrations began to mount days ago with how long the job was taking, and they came to a head today. And the likely reality that using my mini excavator the way I’m using it is probably wearing out and damaging the very expensive rubber tracks extremely quickly. I don’t know that for sure, but given everything that I’m trying to do with it, that seems quite likely to me. There’s mud all over the tracks so I Can’t see the damage that’s been done by crawling over sharp rocks for hours and hours.

Everything is just taking so long. So so long. Certainly, it’s going to look really great when it’s done, but right now the green grass in front of the deck is a chewed up mess from all the heavy equipment, the ramp looks awful and isn’t close to being done, and there’s just so. much. more. to do.

[sigh]

So I first got impatient, and then I got frustrated, and then I got angry, and then I shot my sailor off and lost the Spirit, and that… is the worst feeling.

Cory called right in the middle of all that, which was both nice and crappy at the same time. Nice because I’ve wanted to have good conversations with him recently, but crappy because of the space that I was in that I wasn’t able to get out of during our conversation. I got out of it briefly but slipped right back in as I started looking at the mess around me and how far I have to go before I’m done. I’ve got other things that I want to be doing right now with my life that are on hold because I’ve got this massive project that I’m in the middle of, and I have left a massive mess that I can’t just leave there and decide I don’t want to deal with it anymore. It’s my responsibility now. I made the messes. I need to clean them up, and there’s just so much more that needs to be done.

Ugh.

I spent the entire day out there until dark. Struggling, discouraged. I got the skid steer stuck again, this time in mud because even though it hasn’t rained, the ground I guess is so saturated with moisture, that the skid steer wheels just dig into the ground instead of being able to go over it. That’s where a tracked skid steer would help a heck of a lot more. Oh well. I have what I have.

Gratefully, I was able to get it out last night under its own power. Cory mentioned a strategy for getting it out that I had tried to use, but I think I wasn’t doing it right, because I went and tried it again, and I was able to very slowly, inch it out of the mud.

So at least I got the skid steer out of the mud, so it’s back up and on top instead of in the hole that it dug for itself.

I probably have to let the ramp down into the creek dry out before I work on it with a skid steer. Or maybe I just do the rest with the tractor or by hand.

Haven’t driven the tractor for a good long time.

Anyway…

So after a day of frustration because my expectations weren’t being met (and I’ve realized that perhaps the quickest way to frustration for me is expectations for how long things should take. I think I prize time more than anything else? It also could be how important efficiency is to me, though I guess that’s still about saving and not wasting time. Anyway, so when things take more time than they should, that strains my patience as much as anything can for me it seems.)

Train of thought… Oh yeah…

After a day of frustration, the crappy thing is that I let myself get so far into the anger and discouragement hole, and I didn’t eat any food the entire day after breakfast, nor did I have anything to drink, so I was completely depleted emotionally and physically, and I just wanted to escape… And knowingly, deliberately, painfully, and regrettably, I chose to escape into pornography.

Ugh. 😞

I wish I could just kill that desire. I just get to this place where the more beautiful things of life just… It’s like they fade, they go black and white, they have no feeling behind them, it’s like maybe they are just words and concepts without any connected emotional attachment in those moments? …and I want my escape. And it’s so colorful and full of emotion and drive… and I choose it instead of what I want more.

I’ve got to figure out how to make what I want most more beautiful and more desirable, even in the moments when escaping, and specifically, escaping to pornography becomes a strong desire.

I want to have mastery over my body. And I want to have mastery of my mind.

But I’m trying. And I’m getting up when I stumble and fall. So that’s… At least the road to mastery. 😅 It’s just been a long, long, long time to have spent working on it and to have never been able to fully, completely, finally kick it out.

In the meantime, I’m also trying to do the best that I can to follow the Lord in the other areas of my life where I seem to actually be making progress. I so desperately want to make progress on this porn issue, but I’ve got several decades of failure and habit and addiction and brain chemistry changes and neural pathway wiring that I just fail to overcome again and again. But with these other areas, I can see actual progress, so that’s encouraging. That’s the hope I hold onto more because the hope of overcoming the porn stuff is so… weak. And worst of all, it’s so destructive to my spiritual sensitivity, which is infinitely important to me, perhaps the most important thing to me besides my desire for everyone else to find true happiness.

But maybe my ability to get up quickly lately is actually progress, even though I can’t measure it in days of sobriety.

Anyway, aside from a pretty good chunk of yesterday, I’ve been working to follow the spirit, and things have been absolutely beautiful when I do. Still challenging circumstances to deal with, but the feeling inside of me when I follow the Spirit is peace and light and faith and love, and I hunger for it.

That feeling of having the Spirit with me and being one with God is probably my favorite feeling in the whole world. Nothing can compare, and everything that tries to compete with it… can’t. And everything that I do that takes away from it… brings darkness, in one or more of its many forms.

Butter and honey…

I’ve tasted portions of the best that’s available to me, and I want more. Nothing else compares. Everything else pales in comparison.

So why do I always keep turning back to the instant gratification that is so destructive to my own soul?

It’s got to just be some sort of salve, something that even though temporary can overcome the power of the other powerful feelings I’m seeking to avoid.

But I’m getting back up today.

Again. 🙃

And I’ll just keep fighting. I want the Spirit with me. I want that closeness with God that is so powerful and means everything to me.

He knows the way. He always knows way. And however long and hard the road, if he’s leading the way, it’s the right road.

It may not be a road free of obstacles. It may not be a pleasant stroll across a scenic valley. It may be steep, rocky scrambles, where I slide back down the mountain in my efforts to keep going higher. It may be cliffs that seem impossible, with every direction that I look feeling overwhelming and more than I can bare, such that I feel trapped and terrified of going any direction.

But he is the way. He is the way to real peace, the way to real happiness and joy–for everyone. He always has been, and He always will be.

And so I follow him, no matter how hard.

However long and hard the road.

And I thank God, with all my heart, for his patience with my struggles, a perfect patience, something that I lack for myself. And in those times when I am overwhelmed by grief or pain or fear or anger, I know I can turn to Him, and I know his arms are outstretched ready to receive me, as I am–broken, bruised, imperfect… tentative, fearful, even rebellious… but the moment that I want to be with him again, and I turn to him, there is no anger in his eyes. There is no look of disappointment on his face. There is only love that pierces my soul.

Thank you, dear Lord, for that.

It is in the midst of facing my own challenges that my heart goes out to my friend who made that courageous choice the other day to follow what she had felt she was directed by Father to do.

I think the darkness that so often follows beautiful experiences of light has come at breakneck speed in an effort to darken the experience and swallow up the peace.

Gratefully, darkness can be dispersed with light. No darkness can withstand light. And gratefully, that Light illuminates the way. And no matter how difficult the journey, no matter how powerful the fear, if we hold onto the Light, and follow our Lord, and make our choices from a place of light and truth and faith, we will find ourselves on the right road, perhaps the most difficult of roads but the right road, whatever it looks like.

And the situations that once seemed impossible, and the challenges that once seemed insurmountable, will, one by one, be overcome, and we will look back down the mountain with wonder and awe at the miracles that brought us to this point, where the peace and joy fill us to overflowing, and the Light illuminates and warms all.

And in the meantime, when the darkness presses upon us, we focus on the light we’ve had, and we relentlessly pursue the light still, and we follow it, one step at a time, come what may: “Keep thou my feet, I do not ask to see the distant scene, one step enough for me.”

Looks like I went off a little bit… 🙃

But I’m kind of glad I did, because I feel peaceful and happy now. 🥰🥳😊 I feel like I have the spirit with me again, and that’s really nice after everything that happened yesterday.

In other news, I had this interesting dream that I felt like I should make mention of here. I was going to mention it the other day, but I forgot, and I was reminded of it again yesterday morning… Funny that I haven’t forgotten that particular dream even though I’ve forgotten the others that I’ve had in the meantime. Anyway, it was… maybe a week ago? In the dream, I was laughing and enjoying a conversation with someone I’ve never actually met–the husband of a friend of mine I haven’t spoken with in a good while. Seems a little funny to me that I would have a dream about having a conversation with her husband and not with her. 😅

I know dreams can seem meaningless, but I also believe that dreams can be meaningful and important, and for some reason that I don’t understand yet, I feel like this one’s important.

Anyway, folks, the journey continues. 😊 As I write that, I feel gratitude wash over me for the gift that it is to have such an amazing Father in Heaven, who keeps guiding me and teaching me and loving me (despite my many failings) and giving me that example for how to be with others.

I wait upon the Lord. I know he’s got me and everyone else in the hollow of his hands, taking better care of all of us than I could ever do for any of us. And so I do the very best that I can, and I watch for his arm to be revealed because that’s what he told me to do.

I don’t know what that means or what it looks like or what’s going to happen in the future, but I’m going to go out and serve and love with everything I have 😊, and I’m going to trust that as I do my very best to follow what God has already told me and what he will continue to tell me, that I will be on the right road, however difficult it might be. Bring it on. Come what may. With him at my side, I can do anything that’s right to do.

Love and hugs. 💚

Lift the world.

~ stephen