Forgiveness is to Forgetting as......nope, nuthin'

January 6, 2018

By: Becky Ogle




Forgiveness.

     


Grudges.  One thing I know is that I am AH-mazing at them!  The worst being when someone I love is effected by the sharp tongue or actions of others.  My kids and my husband being the top of the list.  There was a time within the last year that my husband was on the receiving end of a tongue lashing.  He was quiet and let the person finish as it appeared they needed to say it.  I was witness to it.  It took everything I had to not say anything.  After all, he is an adult and we would talk through it later.  The fact is, the people we were around were people that had I said something like that to any of them, they all would have let loose on me.  But you could hear a pin drop after all was said and done.  My heart hurt for my husband and turned to fire when thinking of the attacker.  Since that interaction, there has been few words I would utter to them.  After all, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all, right? 

Remember my previous post about "anger"?  Yeah, like a fire in my belly with any interaction.  Still one that continues today.  I am the same with anything with my children or my parents.  However, the previous example is the one I will focus on with this post. 

This is my thought process as I read the quote above.  "First to Apologize..." - I will take the low road and I am okay with not being referred to as "brave".  But let's be real, I don't need to apologize because I was a bystander.  I was out of the conversation all together.  "First to Forgive..." - yeah.....that's not gonna happen.  End of story.  And I know I am "strong"...strong-willed.  The last one, I might have the biggest issue with.  There is no way that people can truly forgive.  "Move on" maybe.  But unless you use the red light flashy thing from the movie Men in Black, there is no way people can forget anything.  That is a legitmate belief; I do not believe people forget. 

Now this is a fairly fresh grudge and I often will tell myself a time that I have to be over it by.  Example: I am mad at soemthing that happened at work = 24 hours to be angry and then I need to move one, etc.  Not forgive.  Move on.  Suppress.  Talk to my husband and get some insight.  And move on.  Did I say, move on? 

The Bible says....

Matthew 7:12 The Passion Translation (TPT)

The Golden Rule

12 “In everything you do, be careful to treat others in the same way you’d want them to treat you, for that is the essence of all the teachings of the Law and the Prophets.”

DANG IT!  The Bible strikes again.  My question is what if the person treated you (or someone you love) poorly first?  Can one simply avoid the person?  In my case, unfortunately, I can't.  So, this verse implies that I need to "kill her with kindness".   Couldn't I simply avoid them and not talk to them at all?  I mean, it will only end badly when words are spoken.  Silence speaks volumes and might be safest form for my anger.  I am literally beyond answers and I don't feel as though this verse is truly helping me.  It isn't something that I can approach the person about because that means at least 5 other people have to get involved.  They are defended and I am not.  Again I ask, WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO!!!!!??????  I am out of ideas, even in my irrational mind. 

This post ends with no resolution.  No more ideas.  No more clarity.   Because I am still - very much - a work in progress.  And so tonight I will go to bed and pray for resolution and I will again and again until things are revealed to me.  It is all in God's time. 

I leave you with this.....

Having an unforgiving heart leads to bitterness, and a heart that is bitter can not love as it ought to love.

Anxiety with Living

By: Becky Ogle

Anxiety.

Anxiety is one of the many things I struggle with in my life.  Over the course of this blog I am going to be as real and revealing with my life.  Obviously, I don’t have to but I believe in order to start healing, this is what I need to do. 

Anxiety can be crippling but mine isn’t or so I tell myself.  What it did for me was create this environment where I would be able to function but I would constantly be worried something would happen to the people around me.  An example would be having a nightmare about something bad happening to my dad and I would want to puke and cry all at once thinking he was going to die that day.  About a month after my third child was born, there was this voice in my head every single day saying “he isn’t going to be with you forever.  He is going to leave this earth early”.  He is 8.5 now and I still have it pop in my head – like literally just happened today.  That is the perfect example of anxiety causing anxiety.  But I was always able to function and by function, I mean hide everything inside my head.   Putting on a “good” front is easy when people are used to your unique demeanor but like you for your inappropriate humor. 

Anxiety also showed itself by taking away my words.  One of the less common side effects that come with anxiety is the loss of normal everyday words.  So I would know what I wanted to say but my ability to come up with them was malfunctioning or I would end up saying the wrong thing and promptly feel like an idiot.  Do you wonder what happens to a person with anxiety that then feels like an idiot when speaking?  Yep, more anxiety and an increasing anger towards having to be a person affected by this illness.  But how do you direct your anger to an illness?  Not a clue.  I will let you know when I figure it out. 

Something you may not know about me is that I am a Nurse Practitioner.  That means I have a Master’s degree and work independently in a clinic seeing patients and diagnosing them.   That isn’t bragging, it is simply factual for backstory purposes.  Want to know what increases anxiety when people are literally relying on you to “make them better” and you can’t get your words out?   Yeah, more anxiety built.  NO ONE wants to see a provider that can’t get out normal words.   It isn’t that I don’t know the words.  It is simply that my brain is firing so fast that it can’t just narrow down to one or two things.  I assure you that my patients are well taken care of and are always my main priority, hands down.   The truth is, losing my words made my anxiety so severe that I dived deeper into the depression that I have struggled with for most of my life.  I believe I am meant to do this and I am very good at what I do but it is easy to start doubting everything you feel to be true when you aren’t turning to God like He wants us to. 

The verse says “Don’t be anxious about anything”.   That is SO much easier said than done but no direction from God is easy.  Naturally believing that He has a plan and is leading you down the right path as long as you listen to Him is not easy but I believe it could be.  Let’s be real, life isn’t easy.  Failure, learning from the failure, and turning to Him will make it easier.  He NEVER promised an easy, painless, and happy life.  But he gave us a manual on how to help.  Free Will changed everything and He knew that.  He is all knowing, after all.  I have heard the phrase “if life only had a manual” – well I am here to tell you that it does.  The first step is reading it.  Can you put together something from IKEA without their manual?  Kuddos to you if you can but I will tell you that you are a rare breed.  If you don’t have a Bible near you, you can Google “scripture for_____” and it will show you the ones pertaining to that topic. 

I am human.  I don’t read the Bible as I should.  I don’t speak to Him as much as I should anymore.  I don’t trust Him in the storm the way I should.  But the one thing I know is that He loves me anyway.  So, as I struggle and fail regularly, I find that this blog is helping me become more aware of my need to read His word and (as the scripture says) give prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, while I present my requests to God. 

Keep believing you are His and that He loves you without measure.   There is no time you can’t turn to Him.

But.....but....I want it.

January 3, 2019

By: Becky Ogle

Exodus 20:17

You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

Coveting is something we all have done at some point in our lives.  You know what I am talking about; the neighbor has this amazing beast of a boat in his driveway and all you’ve ever wanted since you were 10 years old was to have a boat.  But instead, you are schluping it to work in your two door, stick shift, Ford Escort hatchback AND no boat.  That doesn’t all stem from a real-life experience for me but wanting a boat since I was ten – that was truth. 

I am 36 years old now and still want a boat.  There is nothing wrong with wanting things.  God wants us to want and yearn.  Allowing us to work harder to attain goals, help Him accomplish all He has planned for us, and spread His word to the people.  However, my 36-year-old self has come to a new stage in my life.  Call it mid-life crisis, bitterness, mentally unstable, etc. but I have found myself coveting more than I ever have before.  Now, instead of a boat being top of the “want list”, it is an RV.  To travel the US with my family and see everything together.  Good family bonding and hopefully memories for a lifetime.  That is all well and good until it starts to bring anger (remember yesterday’s post) and envy.  Someone at work is preparing to build a house, friends are going on all these vacations I can’t even keep them straight, neighbors have the best landscaping and yard, etc.  Which then poses the question, “How in the world do they afford that?!”  Or at least it does for me.  What I find myself doing is looking all the ways the things they have were not attained with good financial choices because there is no way they could afford that on their salary.  I completely own my fault in all this, I am wrong in assuming anything about people’s financial situation, and what they do with what money they have is not for me to know or ask.  All along, I don’t know diddly squat about these people, their debt to income ratio or their degree in landscape architecture. 

Life has thrown me a lot of curveballs in my time on earth.  Although now I feel like I am trying to throw them back.  Guess what?  It doesn’t work like that. 

Here are some things to ponder. 

1.      Maybe the “grass is greener” because they work mighty hard to keep it that way. 

2.      Maybe their Facebook pictures and story lines aren’t as they appear in reality.  Everyone is dealing with their own demons and theirs is to put on a front that everything is great. 

3.      Is God trying to speak to you about His plan for you?

4.      Are you listening to God’s word?

5.      Have you been thankful at all for the things you DO have?

6.      Do you blame all of this on God?  He’s out to get you.  He is letting bad things happen.  And so on. 

NEWS FLASH:  We are a broken and sinful people.  We have free will and that allows us to make our own decisions.  But actions have consequences.  And while not all actions are negative in results there still can be a consequence with having done it.  Our free will allows us to sin.  Someone made the choice to smoke, became addicted to it, and then got lung cancer (example only). 

Coveting seems to come more naturally to me in this stage of my life.  I am not bragging.  I am stating that trying to juggle marriage, work, kids, kids’ activities, and a minimal social life – it is highly likely I dream and yearn for the things I want.  But things are just things.  Houses burn down, floods happen, robberies occur and the “things” we wanted so badly are ruined.  Maybe I can think about the fact that there is nothing in this Universe that can ever defeat God.  Try as they might, and they do, that is the honest truth.   So, when things start to creep up on you and you find yourself angry and bitter about the things others have, reference the 6 items above and see if that takes you out of the funk of coveting.

It’s easy to “want”.  It is hard to “give”.  Be the one that trusts God to handle their demons.

Slow to Anger

January 2, 2019

By: Becky Ogle

James 1:19-20

My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. 

“Slow to anger”.  Ugh.  I admit that this is something I struggle with every single day.   It goes all the way back to my childhood.  When you repress things that long, things are only going to get worse without intervention. 

When I was in nursing school, I worked in In Home Health Care.  There was a couple I cared for and that sweet lovable man was such a slow speaker that it initially drove me bananas.  But in my time there, he would remind me how fast I talked and then as time went on he reminded me how fast I reacted, how fast I drove, how fast I lived my life.  It took awhile for me to realize how right he was.  I found myself contemplating all he said so often that I started thinking before I said anything.  Novel thought, right?  By doing that, I slowed down my talking, my heartrate, and my anger.   I still drove too fast but that is a bigger process.   He and I would have talks about my frustration, not because I was in trouble or treating them poorly, but because he would see it in my communication with others, in my stories, and in my body language.   I moved on from that job when I graduated and he passed on about 4 months later but his words were solidified in my mind and heart forever. 

However, there was a catch.  When you don’t hear something directly to you on a regular basis, the voice in your head tends to soften and then start to disappear altogether.  In the hustle and bustle of new job as an OB nurse, welcoming my third child, and well…..life, that is exactly what happened.  They teach you in nursing school to be confident, let your voice be heard, and advocate for your patients.  Those are not done quietly or at least they weren’t for me.  Things continued to escalate and my anger crept back up to my original level, if not worse.  It is something I recognized but told myself I didn’t have time to deal with right then.   It wasn’t immediate but over my eight years in OB, mixed with graduate school and sprinkled with an increasingly busy family it was inevitable that I would slip back into my old self. 

This year, it came to a head.  I almost always misconstrued the communication I had with others.  It was worst at home and that strained my marriage so much and stressed out my children and even the dog.  No one knew how to help me.  I didn’t know how to help me.   I sought help from a counselor and a psychiatric NP in the past and started again.  I apologized regularly but never enough to my friends and family for my behavior.  Luckily they love me and forgave me.  There were plenty of people that I pushed/scared away that won’t ever come back and I have to deal with that going forward. 

There will always be those people that you know you should just stay away from because they know your buttons and will ALWAYS push them.  But there are also people that due to certain situations that you don’t have that option.  Let me tell you, those are the toughest to deal with because those are the ones you CAN’T say a word because it effects the people around you.  I haven’t mastered passive aggressive nor am I looking to do so.  On the flip side, I haven’t mastered confrontation of any kind that involves rational thinking.  If I were to even dribble out a few words, it would be this volcano of years of repressed anger and all the wrongs done or said to me.  So I sit, quiet, annoyed, and boiling with rage.  That is what I am currently dealing with.  How do you go about calming yourself in these situations?  The answer is easy but still so difficult to hone in on in the moment of irrational thinking.

 

The answer is God. 

The answer is there in the opening scripture.  God couldn’t be clearer.  But HOW do we do those things?  My short answer is self-reflection, awareness of the situation at hand, preparedness if you know you are going to be in an unavoidable situation, and prayer.   I pray anywhere: in my car, my office, with my patients, and out loud with my family.  They don’t always make sense and most certainly do not follow a script.  Most of the time it is a one sided conversation of me talking to God just like I would anyone physically in front of me. 

This blog is my outlet, my self-reflection, and my hope is that through it I find new ways of coping.  It isn’t meant to be an “answer” for any readers but I firmly believe it is a path given to me by God to explore and grow through. 

Lord,

I can’t thank you enough for unlimited chances to change, grow, and heal.  My faith in You allows me to always come back to center and refocus my attention towards You.  Please continue to guide and direct me through this life and learn to be thankful even when everything seems dark. 

Amen. 

My Journey Beside & For Jesus

January 1, 2019

Faith’s a funny thing. 


“We can make our plans but the Lord determines our steps”  Proverbs 16:9

I sit here, blankly staring at my computer, for a good few minutes to decide what comes next.  Content, flow, grammar, punctuation, and humor are just a few of the things racing through my head.  I found the perfect title which took way longer than it should have.  So that must mean this is a pointless endeavor, right?  I mean, c’mon, after all who takes five days to decide on a name for a blog?  Then I come up with the first line.  B-E-A-utiful!  Now what. 

You see, I have done surprisingly little research on the topic of blogs.  However, one of the things that stood out the most was the need for a killer first post.  I have to really bring home, in a short three paragraphs, the clearest and most concise way, to draw people in.  It doesn’t hurt to be funny either.  Well, anyone who knows me can tell you that I am not clear, concise, or funny.  So this is going to be fun.  And if you noticed, this is already paragraph number two and I haven’t even touched on why I am doing this.  Off to a great start. 

2018 was one of many very trying years for me.  But as I have gotten older, I have done the opposite of most, I have become more sensitive to the hardships I am faced with.  More effected.  You see, I was always under the impression that as people get older they become more weathered and callused which allowed them the ability to deal with new hardships.  I have found this not to be true for me.  Which left me wondering and questioning so many things. 

Before I continue, do not misconstrue this paragraph for a bashing of the Catholic Church.  That church was the first church in my life and I am a better person because of it.  It is a mere example of the level at which I craved answers and how far I was willing to go to get them.   I was born into the Catholic Church and attended a private Catholic school from K-8^th grade.  Went to church six days a week.  Completed all my proper sacraments.  And all the while, the only thing I craved was more information about Jesus.  I was inquisitive and ornery.  I challenged thoughts the school had about the Bible which in my school, you did not do.  I was in 5^th grade the first time I was sent to the office for questioning the priest on a passage in the Bible and asking for an explanation on why he was right and I was wrong.  I am sure you are wondering which verse it was in the Bible that I disagreed with and all I can tell you or remember is that I was convinced that Jesus “talked back” to Mary, His mother, when he was a teenager by the way the verse was worded.  I simply stated that that would have been breaking a commandment “Honor Thy Father and Mother”, and if Jesus was infallible then the text couldn’t be right and if the text wasn’t right, then what in the world am I doing here.  That wasn’t well received.  I digress, I love that church and not because of its beliefs or prayers or behaviors but because it will always be “home”.  I have changed churches and denominations several times since then and what I still find is that when I need a bigger closer dose of Jesus, I find a Catholic church to sit in.  When I think of Christmas, I think of Midnight Mass with all the beauty and wonder I find when I am there.  Thus starting my love of Christ. 

Over the next several years, I strayed – really far – from the church.  But God was always there.  Always on my mind, I spoke with Him, I prayed, and I knew He was there and disappointed in me when I was making the worst decisions of my life, but I also knew that when I decided to stop being a twit and come back to the correct path, He would forgive me.  Because He is awesome and I am forgiven.  He is awesome and I am loved.  He is awesome and I am blessed.

 

Anyway, fast forward to present day and my family and I attend a Christian church that we LOVE.  But every single day, I attempt to wrap my head around so many unanswered questions I have.  So many problems that seem unsolvable.  So many new problems that I can’t keep up.  All while talking and praying to Him.  But I wasn’t getting answers.  Things seemed to keep getting harder and more complicated.  My marriage was on the rocks, the kids seemed to be imploding before our very eyes, and I felt like I wanted to just go to sleep and not wake up.  There’s that saying, “God won’t give you more than you can handle” and the follow up “I wish He didn’t trust me so much”.  I was the latter.  The ability to let things role off my back as I got older was not happening, not only were no calluses forming, deeper and wider cuts were being made.  And with yet another year passing me by, I realized I needed to look at my life a little closer.  I needed to look at my relationship with God a heck of a lot closer.  And I needed to see where it lead me.  So, I birthed the idea of creating a blog that reviewed many topics but only one a day for a full 365 days.  I am using it to help with my thinking and the ability to look back at the end of the year and hopefully see growth and knowledge gained.  But anything is worth a try to feel like I have my life back in all subject matter (physical, mental, & emotional). 

The overall goal is to use it somewhat as a journal but also as a devotional and with any luck a little hope and encouragement for others.  So, if you actually have read up to this point, I thank you and I hope you find it helpful but I promise nothing. 

If you will refer back to the scripture at the top of the post, you will notice that it is ideal for describing this whole process I am starting.  He is the one leading me to do this, for reasons I do not know at this time.  But I will tell you that I didn't have this plan when I felt the calling to start.  He is always working......always. 

Until tomorrow.