Living in the moment

When I was in third grade, I remember getting my report card in the late spring and it showed that I had passed to the fourth grade.  Did you have report cards like mine?  They were a little darker and yellower than manilla folders.  Goldenrod is the color, I think.  They were folded into three sections.  The first page was my information, age, address, grade.  The second and third pages were grades, and then the rest of the pages were for notes back and forth between the teacher and my parents.  I do remember one teacher that I particularly liked, so I behaved really well in her class.  At the end of the year she wrote that I was a joy to have in the classroom.  My dad wrote back that he and my mom enjoyed me at home also.

I don't remember being much a source of joy to many people in my lifetime. I was usually too worried about something or another to care about how I was affecting other people.

Back to getting my report card in third grade. My immediate thought was, okay, I made it through third, but I'm not sure I'm going to make it through fourth grade (no lie!). It's going to be a lot harder, and it might be too hard!!

It might be too hard...worried about what's going to happen in the future...that I might fail, or look foolish, or that I won't be able to handle it.

Do you do that? Is your first thought when faced with a challenge is to think of the ways you might fail? It.is.a.waste.of.time. As I said, I've wasted a lot of time in my life doing just that. But I've finally figured out that 9 times out of 10, whatever I've been worried doesn't happen. Maybe I've experienced that often enough or maybe I just got tired, but I'm a little more successful in stopping myself from worrying about the future. That's a big part of living in the moment. You've got to trust that God knows what's going to happen and that he's going to take care of us. Ahhhh...but that means that we have to let go of our control of the situation (or perceived control). The two things are really tied closely together, letting go of control and living in the moment.

Secondly, we have to learn to stop regretting the past. If you're like me, you've made some really bad mistakes in your lifetime. Even now, if there was anyway I could take some of my actions back, I would do it in a heartbeat!  But I can't...

Let it go...show yourself some of the grace that God has already given you  You deserve better than the critical way you view yourself.  Nobody is grading you. You are a lovely person inside (even if you don't feel that way about yourself, God does).  You deserve to be treated with love and respect.

I promise you!! This is the truth!!

So living in the moment can't come until you stop regretting the past and fearing/dreading the future.

As I mentioned in the last blog.  I pray every morning before I get up, giving God the day.  I also pray, I'm going to live this day to the best of my ability, looking to him for guidance.  When my mind starts to wander to things in the past that I'm sorry for...or challenges in the future that I might fear, I stop myself and turn my eyes back on God.

The only way I'm going to be able to bring joy to others, is by living in this moment and not allowing myself to be weighed down by regret and fear.  I think I'm finally learning how to let those things go, and I'm learning to live in peace.

His grace is for this day only, tomorrow will take care of itself.

I spend an hour and a half in the car every day and I spend a lot of that time praying.  If you feel yourself weighed down by regret or fear, please post or send me an e-mail and I would love to pray for you!