We Interrupt The Regularly Scheduled Program...

"Fix Your Own Potholes!"

It's a phrase that's been going around and around in my head since I heard it a few days ago. It was an "a-ha!" moment - so many times we I think it's someone else's fault for things being the way they are. Perhaps there is a part another person contributed to the problem, but ultimately, I have to take a long, hard look at myself and examine my choices. The only thing I can control and change and take responsibility for is myself.

The distracting noise in my life that courts depression has been this frustrated, whiny internal dialogue that wants to place the blame on someone else for things being yucky. As I am working through it and turn to God (via His Word and desperate cries for help!), the same Truth is confirmed over and over and over:

I need to keep my eyes on the Lord; He's the Who, shows me the What, Where and How I should be looking. The filter of the Word of God helps clarify my vision and my thoughts. He illuminates the important and necessary, causing the distractions to fade.

Something that the children and I reminded each other of in the weeks after my mother's passing was to remember that great clouds of witnesses that she was now a part of, which helps give another perspective to the challenges of this life.

Therefore then, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses 

[who have borne testimony to the Truth], 

let us strip off and throw aside every encumbrance (unnecessary weight) 

and that sin which so readily (deftly and cleverly) clings to and entangles us, 

and let us run with patient endurance and steady and active persistence 

the appointed course of the race that is set before us,

Looking away [from all that will distract] to Jesus, 

Who is the Leader and the Source of our faith 

[giving the first incentive for our belief] 

and is also its Finisher 

[bringing it to maturity and perfection]. 

He, for the joy [of obtaining the prize] that was set before Him, 

endured the cross, despising and ignoring the shame, 

and is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God. 

Hebrews 12:1-2

Perhaps a better translation of the opening phrase is:

Ask Jesus for help fixing your potholes.