What is courage? I wish someone would teach me how to get it. Pastors and church leaders tell us to ask God for courage and let him be our strength, but I need step-by-step instructions for what that looks like. Jesus has never just miraculously given me anything when I asked for it. Instead, he walks with me on my darkest days and supports me as my experiences mold me into a better person. He encourages me to choose to be courageous when I am hesitant to do so, but He does not give me courage.
I have no idea why people tell me I’m strong for not letting what happened to me destroy my soul. I’m not strong. I spent days debating whether or not I should give the man I married yet another chance after what he did. I was going to let him hurt me and take advantage of my unconditional love for him again and again, even though I chose not to in the end. I whine just as much as Jonah did when God told him to go to Nineveh. In fact, I wish God would throw me in a whale, too, and take me where He wants me to go. That way I would not mess it up. I’m no different from anyone else. I struggle to do what God tells me to do because my stubborn heart fights against it. I’m pathetically weak, but Jesus is my rock.
People say I'm strong because of the choices I made after the man I loved left me, but what if I am not actually a person who makes healthy decisions? What if I just accidentally make choices I will not regret in the future? What if the only reason I did not attempt to numb the pain with illegal drugs, was because I was too poor to purchase them? Maybe the only reason I did not eat large amounts of junk food every time I felt abandoned these past few years, was because I could not afford to buy it. What if the only thing stopping me from becoming an alcoholic is my tongue? My taste buds are thoroughly repulsed by alcoholic beverages, but what if they weren't? What if it liked the taste of alcohol and I was bored one day, decided to drink and never stopped?
Over the past year, God has been working and teaching me to appreciate the journey as well as the destination. When my life changed forever, everything that previously occupied my time was gone. No more endless piles of laundry, heaping mounds of dirty dishes were no longer surrounding the kitchen sink and thirty-minute trips to the nearest grocery store were no longer required of me. I am learning how to relax and be at peace with my life.
I am learning how to be patient. I try to enjoy the present and wait expectantly for the future. However, it did not come easily. Jesus did not give me patience when I asked for it. This did not happen overnight. God did not suddenly change my heart without any effort on my part. Some people seem to think Christians should change as soon as they are saved. They do not know how to respond when that does not happen.
I am continuously put in situations where I am given the opportunity to choose patience. When someone cuts me off in traffic, the automatic response of, “Oh my gosh, what the…” is cut off mid-thought and I am reminded to be gracious. I force myself to let it go because I am not going to fall for that. Not today Satan. Not today. I will not let him steal my joy.
I have to run every thought through a filter. When I think, “Kayla, you are only twenty-six years old and you are already divorced. What a life...” I have to ask myself if this is the whole truth. Yes, I am a woman who got divorced. However, instead of thinking I am divorced, I remind myself that I got divorced and it is in the past. I am also a child of God and He can still use my story.
I could be consumed with obsessing over things I cannot control. Or I can accept the things I cannot change and decide what I can do about them. I couldn’t change his heart, nor could I stop his choices from affecting my life, but I could control how I reacted.
When thoughts of annoyance or frustration pop up, I think about what I can control instead of what I cannot. Since I cannot control being stuck in traffic for an extra forty minutes on my way home from work, I can choose to get angry or I can realize it is not worth the energy. Instead of getting mad, I turn up the volume, hit play on my Jesus playlist, and praise God. I cannot control the doctor’s busy schedule which causes an extra hour of waiting, but I can read Battlefield of the Mind or The Invisible War and use my time wisely because getting aggravated would ruin my entire day.
For me, patience is not about learning how to obtain this virtue, but about focusing on how to avoid anger through created distractions. In order for me to be patient and control my feelings, I need to take a methodical and mathematical approach. First, I recognize my frustration or impatience. Then, I ask myself what I can do about it other than getting angry. Being mad is not an option. I either listen to music, read a book or exercise to distract myself. I wish someone told me how to think this way when I was younger. People say to trust God and let him give you strength, but they do not tell you how to do this.
I am still working on being courageous. I have not quite figured that out, yet.
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