Lessons for irritation...

I try not to write when I'm angry or perturbed about something. My thoughts come out way too left field and haphazard. In rereading things that I've written when Ive been upset, I've noticed a tendency to associate too many things outside of what my actual issue is. It's not strange. People are a culmination of their experiences and I'm not different. However, my thinking in how I see those experiences has been changing lately. This discovery has put me on a path that gives me pause in choosing a feeling when I may be upset. I tend to breathe, mull over, give it the benefit of the doubt, and then choose if it's something that truly should garner my anger. Most things, I find, can be summed up in being a form of "righteous indignation" at the situation and not necessarily for the people involved.

I've said all this to say, in my contemplative and deep thinking way, I am irritated. I'm so deeply irritated that I can say that I'm miffed!!! That is all.

I can't even explain the entirety of it and I don't want to. I believe in a few things, though. I believe that in my irritation lies the key to solving the problem. I believe that all irritations are character building opportunities. I believe that no matter the level of anger or irritation, it's nothing that lasts.

As a woman who had a temper that was easily ignited, I took what I saw as a flaw and used what I knew as my precursors and antecedents to change my thinking and to change my mind. The transition was difficult but all things are possible for them that believe. I learned well my personal triggers, taught myself how not to let those triggers rule me, and how to trust God for the lessons I didn't realize needed to be learned.

For most people, self-correction is a struggle. I've seen destructive forces take over a person's life because they refused to correct themselves or to be corrected. My suggestion is to look at yourself hard and believe that God can correct anything. Do not agree with every one's assessment of who you are but trust God's assessment of who He made you to be. People are flawed and may have no idea of what potential is on the inside of you. Trust what the heart God put inside you tells you about what you are and what your personal truth is. In the long run, no matter how God sees you, you have to see yourself as a creation of greatness. You, ultimately, have to fix what you believe to be a problem. Man can enlighten you to a behavior issue but the majority of the time, you know within what your own issues are whether you wish to admit it or not. Even before all this, you must have a relationship with God. Spend some time getting to know Him and who you are. Jeremiah 1:5 says, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations." Nothing comforts me more than knowing that God knows, above all, who I am.

For this reason, I can say, I'm irritated and know exactly that it means, that I'm irritated! I'm allowed to be that way at times.

Brain Scan

I believe that to be inspired, one needs to have an open mind. Not too difficult, right? The other thing that's needed is an open heart. Therein lays the rub! Open hearts are much more difficult to come by. Hearts are bruised, beat up, broken, turned away from love and can be turned to stone through hardships. Hearts can also give you courage you never dreamed possible, will lead you to love like Christ does, and if shared correctly can change the world.
I never thought of all of what a heart could be until my Daddy told me one day where he believed the heart very literally was. He made me sit down and think of where your heart is by asking the question: "Where is your heart?" I immediately, as most people do, thought of the heart beating in my chest but knew he was asking something a little more involved. In that question dawned the realization that my heart wasn’t where my "heart" came from! He must have seen the light turn on over my head because he said to me, with a smile on his face, "C'mon, Tonda, where is your heart?” I answered timidly, "In my brain or my mind?"
In his question lay a simple truth that people don’t think about too often. The location of where your "heart" is. Your physical heart is not the seat of your emotions. It’s a continually functioning muscle that you can’t even say you control though it beats steadily in your chest. Most of our bodily functions, if functioning properly, we don’t have the insight or the know how to try and coordinate to peak efficiency, let alone control one aspect of. It still makes me laugh when people say that they're in control of anything. You don't control how your body functions, how are you in control?
In deliberating on my father's question, I quite quickly discovered the mind that God gave you is where your heart lives. Your mind is the seat of all the things that make you "you" and is one of the few things you control.
It cannot be denied, no matter your religious preference, or lack thereof, that there is more to you than just a body. You are not just cells, molecules, DNA, blood, bones, and flesh. Inside you there is an inevitable truth that you are more.
The unfortunate thing about this is that people forget what they are. I believe that we are spirits that live inside a body. We can be influenced by and are highly aware of things in the spiritual realm because we are spirits ourselves. The Bible says in John 4:24, "God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth." and Genesis 1:26 states, "Then God said, Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness…" My Pastor has been drilling this in my head since I've been under his teachings. This is the center of my belief that we are spirits made by God. So I'm not just thinking wishfully when I say that I am of the same spirit that God is. I'm not delusional because I'm sure that I am more. All of these wonderful and amazing things that God made me can be found firmly seated in my mind. My chest, my hands, my feet, while they are all remarkably capable, are not where my heart lies.
The knowledge of what and where your heart is will lead you down a path of questioning (if you're anything like me and my "super thinker" buddies) that if God made me in his image, is my heart made in his image, too? You betta believe it… now, what is my "heart"?
I don’t claim to be an expert yet but, I can say that the journey into self and into the idiosyncrasies of how God has built me to be a direct conduit to Him is the most interesting thing my heart has heard in a long time.
I started this blog off with a completely different topic in mind… :) Ill blog again when God tells me what my "heart" really is.
 
 

What's beautiful today...

I'm experiencing my life on a different level. My sense of what God intends for me is heightened as is my imagination for what can be possible. In the simplest terms, He loves me and never have I felt such a deep love. Is it any wonder I love so hard? I'm trying to be like God and loving that I fail to love as much as He does!! What a love...

Thought...

Im such a science fiction geek. From before a time I could remember, I had the deepest love of what the future would be. With its flying cars, thousands living on spaceships that travel the universe and the amazing discoveries that could repair human beings when they were sick and they’d live longer than ever. I was intrigued by Star Wars, Star Trek (I am still a HUGE Star Trek fan.), Dune, Krull, Tron, and anything else in the science fiction realm. The older I got the more I realized that science fiction was based on more fact than fiction. Products that are now emerging are amazingly like the concepts presented on the original Star Trek and all the Star Trek incarnations. (It’s no accident that the Nextel chirp sounds suspiciously like Captain Kirk’s “communicator”.) I thought I’d found heaven when I realized that the floating candle holders I bought at Pier One were the exact ones used on Star Trek: TNG as Synthohol glasses. (Synthohol: a beverage that tastes like alcohol but with no after effects, which has actually been invented, too.) iPads are Captain Picard’s way of reading reports, though he prefers leather bound volumes of books. Ocular implants are allowing people to see who were never able to see before. I’m sure Lieutenant Commander Geordi LaForge had a hand in that.
The thing that I adore the most about this genre is that someone had to think of these amazing creations to even propose them for television. The idea itself was the inspiration to make what someone had only dreamed of. And, dreams… ah, they are the reality of the future. Dr. Mae Jemison, astronaut and the first African-American woman in space, was inspired by Lieutenant Nyota Uhura, played by the ground breaking Nichelle Nichols, the first African-American woman to have an interracial kiss on television. The imaginings of what the future may be today are the realities of tomorrow.
I say all this to say that no matter what people can think of, they can make it happen. How powerful can our thoughts be that once we think of something, we have the means to create a means to create it? It only takes the initial light of imagination to manifest itself to become actuality. If not in our own lifetime, we set the groundwork for the next. Humans have the amazing and uncanny knack to have an unlimited capacity to think themselves into realities that may help or even hinder them. Their thoughts can bring them to physical pain or, if focused, physical healing. This means to me that we exact an amazing amount of control over what becomes reality for ourselves. We can blueprint our own reality instead of believing that things just happen by accident.
My pastor always says, “You’re not here by accident. You were divinely led to where you are.” If you follow the voice of God to where you need to be, you’ll find the plan intended for you. I believe that through faith we find the blueprint intended for our lives. You can’t build a mansion without a blueprint. You can’t build a tree house without a blueprint! A plan of action is needed, a guide to what you are building. Building your thoughts into realities requires a plan. God has already given you the tools to build with; all you need to gain is the building instructions. Genesis 1:26 says, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” In the struggle to simplify God and make Him more palatable to the human condition, this passage has been interpreted as meaning our physical form. As the human form was divinely created by God, this is an understandable misconception. The passage does not speak of us being made in God’s image physically but by our minds and spirits. Your mind was given to you by God. This is the tool provided to you by God to carry out His plans and this mind that is in us which is also in Christ Jesus is worthy to be consulted. It sounds simple but what you think you are, whether it be good or bad, it’s what you are. As the quote says, “If you believe you can do something or you can’t, it’s true.”
As my studies progress, I find that God has not given you the spirit of fear and has given you an instrument that when focused can change what your reality is. What could you think to do if you discard the fear of failing at doing it? You’d end up with Star Trek sized dreams and iPad, iPod, Pandora Radio, touch screen, voice activated satellite radio, GPS, holographic computer realities. I’m still waiting to see who invents Data!!! That dude was so cool!

Anger

It's time to tell the truth. I live with it all the time and I just cant keep quiet about it anymore. There are just some people who don't understand English and you wanna slap them. I know, I know... its a hard thing to have to admit but the sincere need to knock some sense into them is a force I will no longer deny. So here's a list of the top people I wanna smack this week:

1. Bishop Eddie Long.

I don't know if there could be any more obvious reason as to why he needs to be slapped. He needs to be smacked by someone who is an expert at smacking the sense back into someone. I'll have to call Mike Epps and buy him a huge bottle of baby powder.

2. The guy I'm in love with that makes me feel like crap.

I'm not even going to address this one. I just refuse to love him anymore. It currently sucks to love him.

3. The people who are disrespectful to people because they have an attitude.

These types of people are rather high on the list because I refuse to believe that your mother never taught you what respect was and is. Just because you're over the age of 21, it does not entitle you to act like a child. Get it together...

4. Men who listen to other men's advice when they have no clue about women.

Get a female best friend who's reasonably smart and ask her what women think. Please lean not to your own understanding.

5. Women who have no clue how to teach someone how to treat them.

If you don't want the man to talk about how ya tail looks in jeans, don't wear tight jeans. Being inappropriate is unacceptable and you need to assert yourself in that case and state your dislike of the comments. However, they're men!!! They will always look. They may not speak about it but they will always look. Don't be upset that they look. One day they won't look at all. Me, I say, please look! Just don't touch without permission.

6. Republicans

... just because

7. Bishop Eddie Long

for that pitiful press conference.

8. People who have no real concept of what it means to be a friend.

9. The kids in latchkey who's parents don't smack them enough.

Last but not least,

10. Bishop Eddie Long.

I just cannot get over the super tight smedium T-shirt pics!

There are so many more people to smack but this blog isn't quite long enough.