Supposedly this ad was on Craigslist, which made its way to Facebook. As I read this ad, I did the little nervous giggle, you know the one that says, “oh, I can’t believe they said that.”  I then felt compelled to write this blog because in reality these are the very children that your children play with every day, or even played with years ago. You may even be friends with the family and it won’t be until years later when some big event happens that you will say: “I would have never known.” or “Where was I, I thought we were friends?”

We cannot turn back the hands on the clock to magically start over when we were born. Nor can we start over yesterday. But what we can do, is decide tomorrow how we will live.  

Now that the venom has been spewed, I am not sure that this person feels much better today, because the challenge is that even though we wrote out our anger, we  are still US and the events of our past, including words spoken over us, will affect our tomorrow.

 We have a choice though, will your tomorrow, have positive or negative actions?

I am sorry this is how this father is.  That is his temperament, that is his choice. Unfortunately though this is probably one of those ads where many will say “oh, I didn’t know your dad and mine were related.” 

We have a choice though, will we allow him and his actions to affect us and the rest of our lives?  The answer usually is YES, becuase we never see that there is another way. We say we will never grow up to be just like so and so, but the reality is we end up becoming just like so and so.  

To the person who wrote this ad or to the person who would like to have written this ad, you have to understand that yes all that has been said, all the letdowns, all the sorry’s that were never said or that were said and not meant, are a part of your life.

They happened and we cannot change that.  But tomorrow is a new day, you have a choice: do you allow all this to dictate the REST of your life in a positive or a negative fashion.  

More times than not, we allow all of this to accumulate and we are a freight-train that has lost control but we just don’t know it yet. That is a cycle called letting life happen.  This cycle gets it start when we continue to hear words like “You’re not good enough”. “You’ll never be pretty enough or skinny enough.” “You are going to be just like so and so.” “You’re a good for nothing, $%&ch.”

Whatever those words are or sayings are that you hear or heard, they become part of you.  They unfortunately become part of your expectation in life. Then it goes down hill real fast when you couple that with low self-esteem, and if you are a female, then you can find yourself in relationships that are toxic or dysfunctional in themselves. 

We have bought the lie that sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never harm me. 

Words impact us much longer than a broken arm or leg. Words are associated with times a day, years or even seasons. We can be many miles away or the person may have even passed on, but that word… that smell… that vehicle…. that mannerism…. can all trigger in our subconscious a memory and before we know it… we are angry…. we are hurt…. we are in that event that caused us so much pain. All those nasty emotions that you thought you had forgotten, come back up with a vengeance. You lash out at whoever is nearby.  

So how do we change this and how do we make life happen for us?  First thing is to forgive.

Forgiveness is to cease to have resentment against. To pardon an offense or an offender.  

I am not saying you have to become best buds and start hanging out.  What I am saying though, is that this forgiveness is more about you, the person becoming whole and allowing yourself the freedom to be free from all the expectations that this person had placed on you by the words they spoke to and over you. 

If you are ready to try the forgiveness thing, here is a conversation that needs to be had by you to God. 

God, I am so tired of these feelings.  I am so tired of feeling like this.  Daddy, please I ask that you will allow me to lay this person and (name all the offenses) at Your feet.  I am so tired of carrying around this aggression.  I want to be freed from the bondage that this person (name here) still has over me.  Daddy, free me today from this anger. May I forgive (name of person) and if I ever start to think about this event again or these offenses, may I be reminded that You Daddy love me so and You gave me (insert whatever place, thing like a butterfly, a deer, a bunny… etc, that you see that God has used to remind you that He loves you more) to remind me that You are so much bigger than (this offense) and that I will live today basking in Your love instead of the dread of the burden. 

Now redo that prayer and put your name in there as the person to forgive.  You need to forgive yourself in order to start healing from your past. 

Now that you have worked through that, and it may take you multiple times of working through that, now is the time to ask yourself:  

What do I want for me?

Who do I want to be?

What expectation do I want to live up to?

After you have asked those questions to yourself for yourself… what ACTION steps do you need to take?

1)____________________________________________

2)____________________________________________

3)____________________________________________

Now that you have your action steps what EVENTS do you see happening from those ACTIONS? 

To the one who wrote that ad for real or to the one who just wrote it in your head,  are you still living by those expectations that were laid out for you by an authority figure? The expectations that created an angry person who doesn’t know who she or he is anymore because they have fallen into the trap of “this is all my life has to offer, so why try?” 

Don’t allow satan to keep you there.  You are worth so much more…. believe me, I know… because I could have written that ad years ago, from a very angry teenager.