Reading:   Days of Deepening Friendship by Vinita Hampton Wright 

Chapter 14: How will you react to the realities of time? 

Excerpt: Women understand time. We live in constant awareness of its passing….Physical signs of aging frighten some of us…our hormonal systems shift according to their own predetermined schedual…We fear becoming plain, dumpy, ugly – or worse, invisible… 

Time forces us to look at ourselves more honestly…Here we thought we had faith and purpose, only to discover we are desperate to fix bellies and upper arms….Whatever out age, we say to ourselves one day, looking in the mirror or struggling to survive yet another shift, “I’m running out of time.” And the fear travels up our spine like a sudden chill. This sort of fear has the power to drive us to craziness…Or we can use the energy of that fear to drive us inward, to the root of our reality. This is a great time to run into the Room. 

WOW!! ok I have a multitude of things going off in my head …I have been noticing that TIME FLIES!!! My daughter is almost 12 and in 7th grade. In 6 more years she will be 18. In 5 years she will be a 17-year-old senior. What a short time we have with our Children to train them up in the way that they should go….and the crazy thing is all that is happening in the midst of most of us being 30 somethings – finding our true selves, finding our passion, our purpose, our calling and we are mostly stuck on SELF. 

How do I look? …smart, cool, interesting, intelligent….pretty, fat, old…what can I change?? 

How do I feel?…angry, happy, content….whats missing?? 

What do I think? ….who are my Friends?? ….are they real?..am I?? 

What do I want in this life? …am I truly living??…am I alert??? …am I ok?? 

and on and on it goes….that is everyone’s inner experience….to some extent…everything relates back to SELF. ( and as I am looking at that list of questions I am thinking …mostly they could be based in FEAR.)  

We know DEEP WITHIN that we have a SHORT TIME here in this LIFE to LIVE IT!!! 

Let that reality drive you to the ROOM….to hear the LORD speak to you about all those questions………so that we stop WASTING our time!!! 

HONESTY is the key!! 

If we can be REAL in the ROOM…..we will gain strength to BE REAL out in the world. I don’t know about you but I have spent many years putting up SMOKE SCREENS about my WEAKNESSES because I was AFRAID that if people knew how weak I was in some areas they wouldn’t want to be near me. ( I know that sounds silly…but these are the crazy things we tell ourselves resulting in our own SELF-SABOTAGE!!!) 

Excerpt: When we realize that we can no longer ignore the limits of time, some of us become almost fearless about faith. No matter what we were taught or conditioned to believe, we are willing to let go of it in the interest of finding the truth. We don’t have time for propaganda and falsehood.  

In the eyes of divine grace, we truly do get better with age…..Time sifts us, sorts our loves, and reorder our priorities. For this alone, we have much reason to hope. 

Chapter 15: What are your harmful attachments? 

These are as Vinita says ….any emotional, mental, or spiritual attachment that gets in the way of Spiritual Growth.  (ohhhhhhhhh I can say I probably got some … :0/ ) 

Here is the list of COMMON ATTACHMENTS  she gives us to think about : 

Standard of Living —   MONEY – How much is enough??? She says this can get in the way big time…by us taking jobs we don’t like just for money….one with longer hours away from family and God for money….borrowing money just to buy STUFF!!  

Relationships — are you clingy, jealous, defensive, fearful…..freak out when your friend gets busier than normal and you start thinking something is wrong ….maybe they are angry with you….you did something wrong….on and on and on…..( I been there!!) 

Much Loved Processes — CHANGE — you like to do it they way you do it and someone above you at work or church or wherever want to change it… are you willing??? or do you get angry …spiteful…or worse …just QUIT! 

Outcome Of A Decision —  clinging to wanting things to work out the way you want them and think they should work out.  ( OUCH!! guilty…I can think of a few things here) 

Geographic Location — We like were we live….or we finally got that house with the cute little porch and gazebo and God wants you to be a missionary….or your mom gets sick and needs help and see lives 500 miles away…are you willing??? 

Well Loved Activities — The things we love to do are important they can feed us spiritually, emotionally and mentally but as Vinita puts it  – Appetites are GREEDY!!  What do you do that keeps you from your family, keeps you from conversation, keeps you from people or God??  –she adds a little example : she likes to ride the train because she can read but she could ride with a friend and enjoy time spent instead even if only for a 30 minute convo. Sometimes our LIKED activities create a tad of ISOLATION.  ( again….BUSTED!!) 

Excerpt: I know that I am too attached to something if I feel threatened by its potential loss….Desperation of any kind skews the way a person thinks and acts – and disordered attachments always have a whiff of desperation  about them.  

BUSTED BUSTED BUSTED!!!  I know we all can identify ours …RIGHT!!!??? 

Excerpt: Disordered Attachments….bad habits…addictions…self-hatred…compulsive need to control people and situations…a need to always feel safe….have approval… We have to deal with these things IN THE ROOM …God wants to show us where we are attached….were we need to walk through things in order to find the healing on the other side.  

Again HONESTY is the Key 

We don’t always want to be HONEST and TRUTHFUL….but in order to DEAL with anything it must be seen for WHAT IT IS!!!  

That’s it for this week …smile its THURSDAY!! 

To go to the next post in this series: https://starleeta.wordpress.com/2010/08/26/ego-resistance/

Starla