Fighting To Be Treated Right

Sometimes it feels like you just have to fight for everything in your life. You have to fight to be treated right.

For example, when we moved into a house rental upon moving to Texas, we noted everything wrong on our walk-in sheet. Then when it was time to get our return deposit check, we noticed we were deducted a huge chunk of change to fix the very things we’d noted were already there when we first moved in. Damage not caused by us. So we had to stand up for ourselves to try and get the money we were due.

That’s just one example of a long list of things that it feels like our family has had to fight for in recent years.

We’ve had to fight to be treated right.

It would be so easy to give up. It’s so easy to get discouraged. Sometimes the ‘fight’ is draining. It’s stressful and it takes a lot out of you. You don’t even always win. Sometimes you’re treated unfairly and you just have to swallow and move on. But it can be hard.

I think sometimes the world expects us to give up. It at least hopes we will. It can be easy to take advantage of people. Bully them. Walk right over them to put yourself and your needs first.

But sometimes we need to engage in the fight. We need to remind Satan (and the world) that we are warriors and that even though we get discouraged and tired, we have fight in us. We have fight in us especially when it’s something worthwhile that we are fighting for.

Life IS a battle. You win some and you lose some. You get beat up along the way. But to walk away doesn’t mean you win. It simply means you chose to give up before you even tried to fight for what you felt was right.

I do get tired of feeling like we have to fight to be treated fairly in this life. I do get tired of feeling like we’ve been taken advantage of. But I believe in who I am enough to know that sometimes you just have to stand up, use your voice, and say “this isn’t right.”

If you feel like you are in a ‘fight’ for justice right now for yourself or someone you love, hang in there. Maintain your integrity in the process and have faith that whatever the outcome, you are doing the right thing in addressing the issue.

Don’t give those war-wagers an inch more of your heart and life than they’ve already taken.

It's Hard to Give Up What You Love

Have you ever prayed so hard for something but when it finally started happening, you found the transition to be hard?

It is hard to give things up. It is hard to sacrifice.

I found that out.

I had been longing for years to move to a warmer climate. But wanting something and actually putting in what it takes to get that something are two different things.

I loved my home. My beautiful home. My “over 3500 square foot” home sitting on an acre about 20 mins out of town. I loved hearing the horses and the cows in the summertime. I loved the “buffer” zone we had between neighbors. I loved the greenery. I loved my beautiful big kitchen with the huge island in the middle and the openness between rooms in my house. I loved my walk-in closet and my big bathroom.

So wanting something different in locale meant giving up something that I loved. To gain, you usually have to give up something. And that was true in this case.

I was excited to finally be doing something. To be working towards something I’d wanted for so long. But the day we put our house on the market, I cried. I didn’t expect to, but I cried. I realized my house was a part of me. So many memories there. And I was so thankful for it. I knew it was a blessing. When we first built our house, I told God that I would always use it for Him because I knew it was a gift from Him. And I did. I let the youth group have parties at our house, we hosted missionaries, and we opened our doors to others.

Our house sold in two weeks. TWO weeks in a market that was still shaky. Exciting? Yes! Scary? Absolutely. Hard?? Most definitely.

I’d walk around my back yard in the season that I loved living in my house the most. I knew I was going to miss it. Terribly. I had no idea where I’d live next. Would it be a tiny little house? Would I even have a grass backyard much less an acre? Would my kitchen have beautiful hardwood floors? Would I be proud of my house?

And the verse kept going through my head over and over again – “Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”  Matthew 19:24

I never considered myself rich. But I finally FELT and understood the words in this verse. It is hard to give up blessings and good things in life. It’s hard to give up material things. And it is at that point when it’s hard, that we have placed them too greatly in our lives.

Sacrifice is always hard. No one said it would be easy. But if we refuse to do it at all, then we are just like that rich man who values what He has more than He values God’s kingdom.

I still had a hard time letting my beautiful house go. But from that moment on, I could look at it and see that a house is just a house – no matter how much you love it. It’s the family that lives within those walls that makes a house a home. And that can be done in any building.

I don’t want to be like that rich man. I don’t want to be too selfish to give up the beautiful things in my life. It may not be easy and I may trade them in for something that isn’t quite as beautiful; but a rich life isn’t in things….it’s in people. And it’s good to remember that.

I'm Ready For This

Have you ever felt like you were truly ready? Ready for that job to come along, that amazing ministry opportunity, that baby, that romance, that (fill-in-the-blank?)

You. Were. Ready.

I know the feeling well. The feeling of the thrill that might reveal itself just around the corner. The feeling of anticipation, which is usually accompanied by impatience. The feeling of “this is right for me.”

It’s a good feeling. That feeling of knowing you have put in the legwork, and you are ready. Only problem is; sometimes God doesn’t agree with us.

I then look back and wonder, just what it was that was incomplete in me. Lacking. Ill-equipped. Flawed. Why wasn’t I picked? Why wasn’t I right? Why is it so hard to get what I want, when I want it so that I can simply feel blessed, and joyful in celebration?

When I experience those feelings, the frustration and depression that comes along with them…. I realize the reason God didn’t agree with my point of view, lies in the questions I ask.

I focused on ME. 

It’s okay to have wishes and desires. It’s human. It’s natural. It’s expected.  But those wishes and dreams can grow to become too important. They become our everything. Our “all.”

I believe God is excited when my dreams come true. I believe He smiles when I’m happy and celebrating. But I also believe that He knows best. If the timing is not right for me, as frustrated and sad as I may be – the truth remains; the timing is not right for me.  If I’m not right for the position or opportunity; then I’m not right. I can’t “wish” myself into being right.  But not being right for something doesn’t mean I’m not valuable.  Oftentimes, I’ve looked back and seen just why things didn’t work out. And I’ve understood.

So, I may feel ready. And in all reality, I may BE ready.  But others may not be ready for me. God may not be ready for me to put in the time, or work that is needed, for His plan to be fulfilled.  And I have to be okay with that if I truly believe in Him and believe in what He says He wants for me.

I know there will come a day when I will be fully ready for something I’ve been waiting for, and it will all pull together flawlessly. When this happens, all the other days of incomplete dreams will come into clarity and I will feel fulfilled. I will be up to the task.

I will one day be picked; chosen; loved. For ME. And it will be worth every moment of expectation and delay.

The Door

We are in a new place. In a new house. A new room to sleep in each night.  When I wake up, I look at the ceiling, the room, and the door. And I think about all the different places I’ve slept where I’ve looked at different ceilings and different doors.

The door is actually, a crucial part of the home. Something most people don’t even really notice. They just walk through it; focused on where they are headed. But the door is very symbolic.

It is through the door, that I brought my babies home from the hospital to join our family and change our life forever.

It is through a door, that I walked into a room to view my grandfather in a casket and say goodbye. I knew that an emotional moment would take place on the other side of that door.

My husband carried me over the threshold through the door of our motel; the night we got married.

I’ve walked through the doorway of many hospital rooms to love on people dear to me. Some in pain, some experiencing the excitement of new life in a baby.

The door.

You can’t avoid the door. Every room has one.  You can’t enter or exit without going through it.

Just as every life has a door.  We will enter and we will exit.  One doorway leads to eternal life and one; one does not.

Something so commonplace in life. The door. Something we use daily and don’t think much about it. We take it for granted. We ignore it. We fail to see its significance despite what we turn the handle to see on the other side. As in life. We often take our lives for granted and fail to think about what is on the other side.

God says, "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” (Mathew 7:7)

The door. An ever important part of life.

Damaged Furniture

In September 2013, we moved from Boise, Idaho to San Antonio, Texas. I was so excited. I’d waited for that day for 3 years. To move from the cold to somewhere sunnier and warmer.

We’d already gone through a couple of transitions with the quick sale of our house and moving into a tiny apartment 3 floors up. So for the first time ever, we decided to hire some movers to help us move our furniture out and load up the trailers.

It wasn’t cheap.

We thought we were being smart. So many times before we’d done it ourselves; relying on family and friends. It was grueling. Stressful. And hard.

Our “smart” move took forever. Loaders on both ends took forever and made us nervous as they tipped, turned, and moved our furniture in and out.

I know furniture is just “material.” You can’t take it with you when you die. But we take very good care of our things. And we don’t replace it often.  So, let me tell you when my furniture arrived in Texas – how distressed we were to see the damage done to it.

Things were dented. Rub marks from no blankets being used. Scrapes. Things broken completely.

Just about every piece of furniture we owned was now marked up in some way, shape, or form.

I can’t tell you what it did to see the big tear in the top of my hanging porch swing. Something I’d always wanted. Something my husband and I bought together as an anniversary gift.

Or the legs missing from my sofa. The one I’d spent almost a year saving up myself to buy.

The nicks and scrapes out of the precious wood rocking horse we’d splurged and bought over on the coast.

There were broken shelves. Dents and scrapes on my nice black fridge.

You name it.

I was upset. My husband was upset. But he felt what was done was done. We’d hired two different moving companies – one in Idaho and one in Texas. Who was to prove who did what damage? They’d blame each other.

I was going to pursue it. I felt most of the damage was done by the ones who loaded our stuff up. But since we didn’t even get our stuff for a week, and then we had to fly off for a wedding out of state – the normal two week reporting time for damage was done.

And we were left with furniture that would never be the same.

We were “out.” At a time when my husband was unemployed and we didn’t know when we’d be able to replace things.

I WAS upset. But the days ticked on and the sadness dissipated a little. We were all together. We were in a new place. Together. Happy.

And things ARE just things after all.  Yes, I still bemoaned the unfairness of it all. I wanted someone to make things right but I knew that wasn’t going to happen. I was now left with dented, broken, damaged, rubbed, scraped, nicked, and bruised furniture.

It reminded me of how you can’t ever save anything. It gets used. Sometimes it gets abused. But you need to enjoy it. Yes, take care of it the best you can. But nothing lasts forever.

Not relationships. Not jobs. Not people. And certainly not our things.

When we least expect it, we get dented, scraped, and broken. And it’s unfair.
Someone doesn’t always pay for the damage done to us. They get away with it and we are never the same.

We can choose how to react and what kind of attitude to have from that point on. We can sit in the unfairness of it all, or be sad for awhile and then let the days show us what we have to be happy about. We can look on our blessings – as I did.

Life IS unfair. We DO get damaged. But we are still here. And we can still be of use.

Just like my furniture.