Last night I picked up the phone and dialed nervously.
It was time to change. Time to finally take responsibility for my choices, my emotions, and my reactions.
It was time to call my dear friend Sarah and apologize.
See Sarah hurt me, she did, but I am responsible for what I did with that hurt. I pulled away from her. I got angry. I did not deal with it well. I called to apologize for my response and my reaction.
I’m learning it’s time to stop blaming God and others for my problems. It’s easy to play the blame game, to tell yourself that you are acting the way you are because of someone else. It’s not your fault. However, I have learned recently that we are all responsible for our emotions and our actions. It sounds simple, but I didn’t use to think this way. I argued with someone over a year ago that I was acting the way I was because of how someone else was treating me. I was wrong in that. I needed to choose a better response and a different attitude.
We all play the victim. We think that everyone else is wrong and we are right. We use this as an excuse to treat people badly and to not respond to them in love. My eyes have been so opened to see all the times that I blamed others for my bad attitude.
It’s easy to blame God and others for all our problems. But if we blame others, we don’t have to take any personal responsibility. We do not have to go through the pain of dealing with our part in it all, but we also don’t HEAL! I recently came to a fork in the road where I realized I could never deal with my hurt and heal until I stopped blaming others. So I started the painful process of looking inward and stopped pointing fingers. God is not to blame for everything wrong in your life and neither is your spouse, your co-worker, or your ex-best friend. It’s time to stop blaming and find freedom.
-Joy
Photo credit: Paul Falardeau and flickr.com