ClydeStyle

Category: Pain

  • Who really cares on social media?

    Social media has really done a thing on us. Because of how the system is set up and the fact that we use emojis, have “like” buttons and share random opinions, we somehow believe that people care.

    We make the mistake of sharing intimate information searching for acceptance and for the social media community to see things our way. We share our pain and sorrow, our fears and anxiety and we let the whole world know that we are hurting with the hope that atleast on person will give a damn! They don’t. No one does.

    We can use an emotional and divorce ourselves from it’s feelings in a New York minute. There are some who still get off on people saying happy birthday or anniversary while we forget that the system conveniently made that available — no one remembered.

    Is it possible to get an honest answer from someone on social media? Sure. As long as their identity can be hidden. We meet the core of our country on social media. To meet them just simply start a political or religious conversation and let the fun begin.

    What we need to do is first see social media for what it is: An unregulated, bias, greedy community designed to steal, kill and tear you down from the inside out. It robs you of your time, money and steals tou away from the things that matter the most in life. It is not a resource and it cares nothing about you. It needs to be seen as strictly entertainment for everybody at the expense of somebody.

    Enter in at your own risk, buy don’t bear your soul. Protect it and everything that matters to you and remember, social media is not the place for those who care. It’s simple an arena for taking advantage of people.

  • I’m not the Wolverine

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    One of the heroes from Marvel comics Xmen series is a character called the Wolverine. This character has the ability to heal himself at an accelerated rate, making it nearly impossible to destroy him.

    Imagine that. With every hurt comes almost instantaneous healing. No scratches. No scars. No fuss. You cut him one minute and in less than 30 seconds he’s healed.

    This is not a point where art imitates life. It’s the contrary.

    Sometimes we say things to each other that really hurt. The whole “sticks and stones” saying is a lie: Words cut! And the problem is that we are not the Wolverine. We take time to heal and depending on how deep the cut, it could take years.

    Now imagine being in a relationship with someone who constantly cuts you with their words and you do not have a chance to heal before the next cut. And this person does not give you any assistance in the healing. They just cut away at their leisure.

    And then you tell them it hurts and to please stop. You become vulnerable with them and because of the close relationship you thought you had established, you pointed out the areas that would hurt the most. And instead of honoring and protecting those areas, they come at you like Freddy Krueger and continue to stab.

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    To subject yourself to years of that is sick. To think that it will get better is psychotic. And to allow it to continue exposes just how much you love yourself. You enter into a relationship with another person to make each other better, not worse. There are people who bring out the worst in us and there are people, praise God, who bring out the best.

    Life is too short and you are not the Wolverine. You have been taking cuts for far too long. It’s time for you to make some cuts and empty your life of all those carrying knives. This will be the best Independence Day of all!

  • No middle ground

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    We are a society of extremes — and it doesn’t have to be that way. The way things are going we will of course destroy our planet and ourselves.

    There seems to be no middle ground that anyone wants to choose. Think about it? We live in a world where people actual starve to death. And then on the other side of the world there are people so obese that they struggle through their lives suffering from degenerative diseases until they die.

    We have generations of people in poverty living in conditions that are deplorable and then just a few days journey away, there are people so wealthy that it would take 4 generations to spend it all.

    This crazy world has Christians that practice hate, record keeping of wrongdoing and feel murder can be justified, while there are atheist seeking to live in peace and harmony.

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    There are workoholics who hold down two and three jobs at a time while others can’t seem to find one job.

    The question today is what will it take to move us to the center? Get rid of the media? Seek Jesus for real? Eliminate big business? I want to raise our conscious level higher so that we are more sensitive to our fellow man.

    Did it work? I would love to hear your feedback.

  • Can you hear me now?

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    I always thought I was a bit hard of hearing. Growing up my mom would call me two and three times before I would answer.

    I think I even invited the word “huh?” because I said it so much. As I got older I saw how selective my hearing had gotten. I would hear everything that had a direct benefit on my life. My mother only had to call once to let me know dinner was on the table, but twice or thrice to help with dishes.

    I learned that my heart was connected to my hearing — meaning that if I liked you, I would hear every word. If I didn’t like you well that’s the time I discovered the volume control — I could tune you out in a New York minute.

    As I got older and in control of my own life, this listening thing got worse. I decided who I would listen to, how long I would listen and how much I would accept. And I didn’t just do that to the people in my life, I did that to God.

    So when his word was in my favor I heard it loud and clear. The few times I was in the right, I could hear his word like I wrote it. When I was wrong, I convinced myself that his word was misapplied.
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    So today I take off those filters that led to my inner deception. I denounce earwax, a hard heart and self all together. I am now ready to receive the engrafted word which is able to save my soul.

    Dear friend, how about you?

  • Another letter to God

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    Dear God,

    It now makes sense to me why people don’t like to examine themselves: Our image is broken!

    I feel bad sometimes when I realize that I live in a country that treats animals (primarily dogs and cats) better than poor people. I live in a country that does not forgive or forget.

    I live in a country that is racist, bias and hypocritical. And I am sadly a part of this country. I represent those who point fingers both ways. I represent those who realize that they are the things they hate.

    Father, l need you to search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Teach me a better way Lord that I might let your light shine through me.

    I am not worthy of your light. I am not fit for your use. I need you, Father, to cleanse me enough to say amen. Give me your words that I may never thirst.

    Heal my heart. Make me an instrument of righteousness that I may serve you with gladness. Help me not judge those who are not where I am. And please let me not covet those in the place where I want to be.

    Forgive me O God for I have sinned. Make me invisible so that those who see my good only see you and not me. Save all of my credit for heaven father. Don’t allow people to ever praise me here.
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    Thank you father for my gifts and I vow to do your name good with them.

    Heal the hurt I have caused and turn my negative to positive. In the name of the one who chose the cross for me!

    Amen.

  • Can you take a hint?

    One of the most embarrassing moments in life is when you have been given hints regarding something about you and it doesn’t register.

    I’m not talking about the simple things like your pants are unzipped or there is something hanging from your nose. I mean really embarrassing things like you are obnoxious or you dominate the conversation so much that people hate to talk to you. Or something worse like your kids are bad or your spouse is cheating on you.

    These things can put us in very awkward positions and it really defines our true friends. I mean after all it’s our real friends who have the responsibility for making sure we are in step. Right?

    But what is it that makes us blind to the hints we get from those around us? Why is it that others can see things about us that we cannot see?

    There is a blindness that affects our ability to reason and be self reflective. This blindness comes from our inability to keep reality during a reality check. We already dislike when we are wrong. We don’t like when people point out our faults and we really don’t like to own up to any of it. Add insecurity to the mix and we instantly create a disorder.

    This disorder I speak about blinds our conscious, not our sub conscious. In other words we know these things are true about us, but the pain of this realization is too difficult to bear. So we lash out in denial and become defensive. We get upset and participate in other destructive behavior instead of just taking the hint.

    The hint is actually our help. It helps us to quietly get the information without it being broadcasted all over the place. It’s our last shot a maintaining our dignity and correcting our trouble spots.

    Can you take a hint?

  • Are you wasting the sun?

    On or around June 21, what we call the summer solstice takes place. This is when the rays of the sun will be perpendicular to the Tropic of Cancer at 23°30′ North latitude ( don’t worry, I had to look that up too). This is when we typically get the longest day of the year.

    While enjoying the sun on this day, I often think about the time I have left on this earth. Now, of course, I have no idea when my time is up, but in my mid-40s I think that I might have passed the half-way point. What I’m getting at is this is a good time to take a look at your life and decide if you like what you see. Everyone makes mistakes and some we are able to live with and some we are not. Some of our decisions have caused us to have other ongoing problems and sometimes we escape with just a warning of some kind. Nevertheless, we take inventory to see what people, places and things need not be in our lives anymore.

    The items I’m talking about are those things that would have us waste our time, energy and resources — we’re wasting the sun. Some of us are struggling in bad relationships, going to bad places and continue to give in to our vices. Sadly, there are even some of us who have been wasting the sun for so long that it appears normal.

    With 50 percent of 2012 gone it would be well worth it to salvage the rest of this year by dumping these things that drain us. We have to evaluate whether or not it is worth the time. The best way to do this is to imagine your life without the vice. Even go as far as creating a list of things or events that would take place if these vices were gone. I guess it is possible that you could create a list that ends up looking about the same with or without the vices. If this is the case, then you are the problem — and that’s the good news! Change from within is actually easier than dealing with change that involves outside vices simply because there is too many variables on the outside.

    Whatever your list reveals to you, be glad because it really is the start of something beautiful — you! Your life IS worth it so don’t waste the sun!

  • Good grief?

    Now that the funeral is over it seems like the world has moved on. The problem with that is you are still stuck. Stuck in a pit of sorrow as your loved one is gone and there is nothing you can do to change that.

    You have become angry and depressed about what is happening to you. In the same breath you have the feeling of abandonment from your friends and maybe even family. No one makes a fuss after the funeral. It’s just you and your grief. And you’ve been running away from it ever since your loved one took their last breath.

    Grieving is such a normal process. It is really as normal as a laugh, an itch or a sneeze. What all these things have in common with grieving is that our bodies react to them all — yes even your grief.

    So that means that sometimes you will have mood swings. A commercial or song will stop you in your tracks because it will remind you of a moment from the past. There will be days of sorrow that will keep you inside on a very sunny day. There will be times when you don’t feel like doing anything. You won’t even answer your phone. The loneliest times will be when you begin to covet someone else’s happiness as if you’ll never have your own — and this is normal.

    What you have to do is push yourself to move forward. Let those around know that crying is healthy and you may start crying, but you are okay. You just need a timeout and then you can resume. Make every effort to strengthen the relationships with your loved ones who are among the living. This becomes your new focus. With every death, a family should love more. Each death should make us all strive to live each day to the fullest because tomorrow is not promised. We should live as to leave no doubt of the love we have for our family and friends.

    You see, grief is not the absence of happiness, but the presence of healing and you need to allow the grief process to do the work it was designed to do. I tell you this: If grieving is your storm, then God is in the eye of it waiting for you. Allow our creator to recreate somethings in you that you though were lost. Allow the greatest engineer ever to design a stronger heart for you. This new heart loves more, laughs more and cries more. It’s more compassionate than the last and is unconditional. This heart will be born from your grief.

    Allow the Potter to have his way with the clay. A better you awaits and its all because of grief! I guess Charlie Brown had it right when he said, “Good grief!”

  • The someone who is worse

    There is so much pain in this world.

    From spiritual pain to physical pain, we struggle to deal with reality. We all utilize some coping mechanism for others to judge. We can’t seem to understand that we hurt.

    You have heard people say, “no matter what you are facing, someone is going through something worse.” Well, I wonder who is on the tail end of that statement? Who is the final worse? Is it the man in  Iraq who lost his family during the bombings? We called it collateral damage. I wonder what he called it. Or is it the person whose siblings are all strung out on crack cocaine? Or maybe it’s the mother in Africa who watched seven of her 10 children die of starvation? Maybe it’s the 11-year-old boy who repeatedly got raped by his uncle. Could it be the teenager who gave herself an abortion on the bathroom floor? The gay guy who was beaten to death? The recent Black man who suffered lethal injection in Georgia for a crime that seven of his nine accusers recanted their testimony and no physical evidence connected him to?

    I know it’s difficult to read these things. All of these are actual events that appeared in a newspaper within the last 6 years. Unfortunately, there were many more. I keep wondering who would be on the tail end of that quote. Who could be doing so bad as to trump every other bad happening in the world?

    It’s gotta be the person who denies Christ.

  • The resurrection and the life

    Easter Sunday is a day that we enjoy hearing about the resurrection. We enjoy the story of Jesus’ resurrection as well as others whom he saved from death. This power is always an attention grabber because it goes far beyond our human abilities.

    Jesus made this statement to Martha in the Gospel of St. John: “I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live”. I know, at face value the statement doesn’t make sense. Give Martha a break because we know the rest of the story, but she lived it. She saw her brother wake up from the “death sleep” and walk among them as if nothing happened. We don’t read where Lazarus laments about being dead or that the experience was even horrible. He just takes his place among the living. I’m sure he was thankful for what happened. The question I have is that if you die once like Lazarus and you get a second chance, are you afraid of the death the second time?Image

    I mean the fear of death has to not bother you as much. For those who survived Hurricane Katrina a few years back, would they be as worried about the next big hurricane? If you have been shot before should the sound of gunfire bother you as much? If you were about to walk away from a deadly car crash, should you be afraid to drive a car or ride in a car again?

    I want to attempt to crack open this scripture for everyone to have a better taste of its fruit. If Jesus is the resurrection and the life (and he is), then this ability would work on everything, not just death. This understanding was given to us under the death category, but I contend that this verse is more like the master key — it fits every lock!

    So, If I lose my job, I am dead to the job that I lost and I can surrender this dead to the resurrection and the life (A.K.A Jesus Christ) and he will raise up (resurrect) a new job for me that I may dwell (live) in. If I lose my marriage, home, money, self respect, or mind, the Jesus who resurrects will replace the old with something new for me. You see, it was difficult for Mary, Martha and the others to fully understand the power of the resurrection. We struggle with it today as well.

    Let’s not limit the resurrection and life to just a wonderful biblical story. Let’s not limit God’s power to only the measure we understand. Let’s surrender everything in our lives that is dead and allow him to breathe life into it again because he truly is the resurrection and the life.