I read somewhere today this statement, and it’s such a great way to start the new year.

(Yeah, I know we’re 11 days in. I’ve been traveling, but I’m back! 🤣)

The statement was this:

Read this today, and it’s worth repeating:
“You can either have a good life inspite of —— (the issue), or you can have a bad life because of —— (the issue). You choose.”

And there is more truth in these two sentences than I could possibly expound upon! Choices make who we are. Choices create who we become.

We are not victims. We are not helpless. We have a choice, and we need to start choosing, or we give the power to someone else.

Our society has become a victim mentality of “It’s your fault. It’s mama’s fault. It’s daddy’s fault I’ve become who I am. I just can’t help myself, and it’s someone else’s job to fix me and my situation!”

WHY??

Why should someone else fix you?

Why should someone else fix your circumstances?

You’ve got a brain. You’ve got legs. You’ve got abilities. If nothing else, your lungs are still breathing, and your heart is still beating. You’re not dead yet.

So, get up. Get moving. And make a change.

You might have to fight and claw your way out, but you can do this!! You can make it!!

Now, if you’ve stayed with me this far and read this much, I can assure you, there may be some who are offended. Some who cannot believe what I’m saying because after all, I don’t know you, and I don’t know your situation.

You’re right. I don’t know you. I don’t know your situation. And I don’t know you’re trauma or history. But I don’t have to.

I know my own. And I know my God. And that’s enough.

I have a family history full of sorrow, agony and pain. There was enough dysfunction in some places to write a book.

But the past is the past, and we must choose if we will remain in the mud and wallow in it, throwing it upon everyone who walks by to help us. Or do we climb out of that mud hole, by our fingernails, if we have to, and let change come?

It’s time to get out of the hole.

If you need help, then ask. If you need counseling, then find someone who will actually help. Don’t stay in a psychotherapy maze, where they take your money, and nothing ever changes. Find someone who has an endgame lined up for you. Find someone who cares enough to help you get better not just settling for status quo.

Move beyond that past and learn to forgive.

I know. That’s a trigger word. Why should you forgive when they’ve done the wrong?

Forgive because you deserve better. Forgive because it frees you not them. Forgive because that’s only way you can move forward and be strong.

And forgiveness doesn’t always mean reconciliation. Forgiveness doesn’t mean to walk back into the fire you escaped. Forgiveness doesn’t mean to step back into the arena where you were abused to return to the hell you got out of.

Forgiveness only means you take away their power to wound you again. Forgiveness means you remove their authority to bring harm.

So forgive today.

Choose life today.

And for goodness sake, choose to LIVE!!

I personally, I choose LIFE! I choose to LIVE! And I choose JESUS!! Because He’s the only One who gives goodness, joy, peace, redemption, faith and hope! … ie. the good life! ❤️

So for this new year of 2024, what are you choosing??

And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

Joshua 24:15

The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it moreabundantly.

John 10:10

#speakoutspeakloudspeaklife