Temptations Are Gifts

I have been mad all day! I am short with my husband and my children. I can't even stand to be around me!! I can't get the dream out of my head and its self revelations. Images of the same pattern of behavior plague me. Am I really that dense, that I cannot read a situation and choose a different path. Oh, I think I will recognize the pattern and be able to handle it, that I am doing things differently, THEN- bam- it's just a different road to the same end.

My problem or weakness is that I allow others to have power over me. I don't consciously give it to them, I just make little self-sacrifices to accommodate their need, or help out in some small way, only to realize that my kindness, compliance, and understanding have been mistaken for weakness.

It's not really their issue, it's mine. It pisses me off; knowing that I chose my own hardship, under the guise of service. It is so much easier to blame the other person as being a tyrant, control freak or demanding. That's why I am so mad this morning. The revelations of this dream have hit really close to home. Images of all the times that I have chosen the same behaviors to the same end. Sure the person, circumstance, and situations may be different, but my choices and behavior patterns are the same. UUUGHH!!! I hate it when the Lord reveals something to me that I don't want to see!!!!!!!

I have this saying, "Once you know, you can't pretend not to know." So the Lord revealed this knowledge to me in this vivid dream, and it affected me, not only by waking up but by being angry at all those who love me, including myself. I don"t want to face this truth about myself BECAUSE it causes me to make a choice to change or to stay in misery. To make a different choice, to understand why I do what I do, looking at the underlying motivation for my choices and evaluate it; are they pure or are they sinful?

This particular behavior pattern, at one point in my life, probably served me well and perhaps allowed me to escape confrontation or ownership of my own dignity and worth. But it is an old behavior pattern and the Lord is asking me to give it up and replace it with something new.

This one will be a hard pattern to replace or remove from my life because it will cause me to have to acknowledge that I am a child of God with dignity and worth. Now you may be sitting there thinking: "Of course you are, we all are." But living fully in that reality is hard!

Why? Because feelings, emotions and motivations are fluid depending on how we feel about ourselves at any given day or time. Most of us respond or react without fully understanding why we do so, then kick ourselves later when we realize we didn't really want to do this/that.

The Lord sends us little indications or illuminations of such things, but rarely do we act on them. If we did, we would quickly grow in knowledge of self and knowledge of Him. It usually takes a two-by-four up side the head or in my case an EXTREMELY vivid dream to get the point across.

In every temptation, there is a virtue to be worked on. Our/my job is to ponder the events as they unfold and acknowledge my part in them against the backdrop of the spiritual realm; as the spiritual battle is real and our/my soul is the prize.

This is part of the gift or curse of participating in A HOLY JOURNEY.