Living

If Forgiveness Was Easy Would It Be Forgiving?

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Remembering my plants 2023

Hey, Y’All,

It has been a while since my last blog post entry. It seems I say that starting every entry.

Going through my journey has taught me a lot of life lessons. Some of those lessons I keep repeating. Some lessons I cannot seem to grasp. It is very similar to banging my head against the wall.

Before I share my experience lesson with forgiveness, I want to share I did celebrate 19 years of sobriety and clean time. You see this time is not possible without the work put into it. It is done because people have helped place tools before me and their help in guiding me.

Forgiveness comes down to letting go of my thoughts and realigning them with harmony in this life. It takes prayer and asking forgiveness for myself. Even in what I imagine as harm to myself I can cause harm to others. In most cases, I have done just that.

I must realize once more that I am powerless over people, places, and things. My dependence upon God in this lesson is vital yet, I feel far away. I am asking for his help and again letting go of the rock that will for sure drown me.

Forgiveness is akin to going through grief to process everything.

This weekend may not be the healthiest I have been coping with the sadness by eating comfort foods and being thankful for the same plants that were destroyed through what I perceived as harmful to me.

Someone else gave them to give me happiness and hope. I went through anger and perhaps some anger is still left. I am mostly sad and feel bad that I allowed it to make me angry. Then I cried and felt bad that perhaps I even appeared ungrateful for the original gift. I am grateful I was given the chance to grow something living.

My tomatoes were just beginning to grow, and the peppers were just multiplying. To have it all stopped by things beyond my control was heartbreaking!

All of life and living things and beings are a gift. How blessed we are to experience life in different ways.

Just like anything else you work for and work through, forgiveness means freedom.

Forgiveness has become another lesson in freedom and once more doing the next right thing. It is important to be the best version of me I can be.

The best version of me means being good to others and myself. It means taking care of myself and doing what is necessary to heal physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Forgiveness means I am not blocking any healing.

Change is uncomfortable but necessary. I must do whatever is necessary to make it through this situation at hand. Including finding a healthy closure so it can be put to rest. It will take physical work to make the symbolic pieces laid to rest. I want peace more than being right. I must remind myself of how often I have been forgiven.

This has been one of the hardest lessons to walk through.

Colossians 3:13 (ESV)

13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.

Thank you for reading!

This has been another blog post entry by Boxcar Mike, over and out!

God Bless Y’All, Everybody!

Letting Go Of What Weighs You Down

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My Plants June 2023

Hey, Y’all!

Today I want to share about how we can create the life we want to live. If we want something, we must work for it. We must let go of negative thoughts that weigh us down so that we can build meaningful lives. We build a bedrock for us to live life on purpose.

We begin by choosing what we want, instead of drifting along hoping something good falls in our laps.

I am taking stock of my own life as I write this blog post entry.

Stopping the behaviors that no longer serve us frees us that much more. Letting go of resentments and bitterness. Yes, even jealousy and envy of others who have made their lives doing exactly what they want. Instead of being jealous, we can see them shining a light on our pathway instead.

We can make our dreams a reality if we do the work needed.

We take the necessary actions regardless of how we feel. Our feelings and moods cannot make our dreams come true. Being honest with ourselves about our feelings, moods, and resentments is the practice of self-awareness.

If we write it all out and make a conscious choice, to let go and forgive what has been done to us. Admit what we have done to others and ask for forgiveness. None of us are innocent by word, thought, and deed.

We get out of all the negative and start working on the positive such as having something we can be grateful for.

Exercise is also important no matter how much we get our body moving and stop being a lump in our bed.

No matter where we are presently, we can say to ourselves, “Things will not always be this way.” I can tell you my life has gotten different since learning to say this and learning to take direction from others.

The next thing I am presently learning along with placing boundaries for self-preservation is, “Happy people do things that make them happy.”

I want to be happy and dream big without letting life just slide past me.

Doing the smallest thing to make ourselves feel better. Making our lives simpler is also key. Getting rid of the clutter in our minds and home helps us be able to build brick by brick.

Sister Theresa first said, “Do it anyway.”

A lot of us have had lives built on fear, at least previously. Broken, messy, stuck, and alone.

It is by acting on changing our lives just even by changing our thoughts to positive thoughts and to be encouraging to others and ourselves. I desire to live a real and happy life.

In the picture above are my two plants, the one on the left is a Mammoth Jalapeno Pepper Plant, and the one on the right is a Beef Steak Tomato Plant. A friend started these for me. It is now my job to enjoy these plants and help them grow by nurturing them and watering them.

They are thriving. And so it is with my own life, my job to grow and nurture the good life within me so I can thrive.

I can be the future me by doing simple things.

10 Reasons why I want this for me:

  1. I want to be happy.
  2. I desire a change for more positivity.
  3. I love me.
  4. I want to light the path for others as we walk each other home.
  5. I want a legacy.
  6. It is worth it. Because I am worth it.
  7. Proof that change is possible.
  8. I want to grow and thrive by the choices I make.
  9. I do not want to be stuck.
  10. I believe God will help me do better.

Jeremiah 29:11-13 (ESV)

11 For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare[a] and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. 12 Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. 13 You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.

Thanks for reading!

This has been another blog post entry by Boxcar Mike, over and out!

God Bless Y’all, Everybody!

Remembering I am A Spiritual Being Inside Flesh

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Photo by cottonbro on Pexels.com

Hi Everybody,

Here I am in the first eight days of this new year. This time I may be going a little deep and getting to the root in my spirit, first purposed by God creating me. This is based on my beliefs.

This is all part of my journey because I believe coming into this world with harsh realities and not always having the support and care needed, we become conditioned, destroy our spiritual side.

Now that cannot be my excuse for who I am today. I have learned to take responsibility for my own behaviors that become my self-defeat.

There came a point where I knew life had to be better but somehow could not grasp on to the positive and loving reinforcements of love, care, and nurturing.

I have run so far from me in the things I previously sought out to escape the pain, hurt, and terror.

I bought the bitterness, rage, hate, and destruction because as I believed, it was the only way to defeat the evil that came upon me. I did not always consciously understand that I was being just as damaging to other people, places, and things that came upon me.

I became the tornado in other people’s lives continuing in the vicious cycle of self-affliction, blind and oblivious to the harm and injury I caused. I even called it love, much of the time in believing it was and trying to get others to believe it.

That is not to say it was all blind, in fact, I even had a list of people in my head That deserved the judgment, sentencing, and execution of my wrath upon them. Vengeance was paramount as far as I was concerned.

I kept on drinking the poison hoping the evil people would die.

What I was not comprehending is that all my efforts were killing me. Those other people were going on free as I stayed trapped inside myself and at times taking other hostages with me. The hostages were often innocent bystanders and unintended targets of my wrath.

Oh, the remorse I felt when confronted by my behaviors but often in a state of denial, and outright lying. In most cases, I was only remorseful because it was a negative thing. I had no understanding of the impact of my acting out upon others.

The changes started happening when I realized I could follow directions if it meant saving my own life.

I was in a relationship to have because I did not want to be alone. That relationship was 8-10 years of me waking up every day full of hate and wanting to die. I was incapable of being honest with anyone but mostly lying to myself.

In that relationship it was saying I hate you; I love You; I hate you please do not leave me!

It was a circumstance of convenience, self-preservation, using, abusing, self-indulgent, moments of trying to make a show of love as it became, an act. Mostly it was not comprehending the negative impact I caused upon us both.

It has been years of living amends facing the fact I was a sick alcoholic, and addict desperately searching for love in various kinds of ways. However, I was incapable of loving myself.

Today we are friends, and we get to at least share celebrations and grieve over friends and others who passed away. Life has gone on for both of us. But absolutely cheer each other on.

After bouts of drinking, smoking marijuana, pill-popping, and withdrawal somehow, I am staying clean and sober a little over 17 years. It has been at a slow pace but trudging through with changes. The changes are both great and small. But life-changing.


Each day I decide to either keep or rid myself of behaviors that no longer serve me. Make no mistake, it is a choice even living passively making no choice. That is still a choice that has been hard to comprehend.

Challenges gave come and gone. There are challenges that are still present but becoming smaller.

There are tools to help me today and friends that do encourage and support the positive changes in me. The prayer attributed as The St Francois prayer seems to be the way I wish to live out.

The only thing left now is to make direct amends and continue my living amends.

I want to repair the damage I have done and keep sweeping my side of the street. I want to recognize and acknowledge each day. Your side of the street is none of my business.

I am seeking out that spiritual side that heals the human part of me. This makes it possible to repair part of the damage I have caused. There is damage that is irreversible.

There is still a better life waiting.

Thanks for reading!

This has been another blog post entry by Boxcar Mike, over and out!

God Bless Y’All Everybody!

Remembering Family And Lamenting Over How It Was

/ boxcarmike / Leave a comment

Photo by Jonathan Borba on Pexels.com
Photo by Aidan Jarrett on Pexels.com

 

Hi Family and Friends!

I never know what its truly going to be about here in this blog entry until I start typing or pecking away as the case may be.

I mourn a lot about how things once were and how much I have taken for granted over the years.

I have talked about wanting a life plan and trying to take responsibility for my life today.

There is much more to write about why that is important to me today. I grieve over the past with my family and wishing I had treated them warmer and held them more closely than I did.

Nothing has driven the point home more clearly about how I have treated people than living through this pandemic and knowing I cannot be close to family and certain others.

A lot of that is due to how I have treated them and, in some cases, acted as if they did not exist. I really thought that at the time it was about me just hiding inside myself afraid to be present because I did not want to get knocked down

Like it or not, we did that a lot in our family with plain sarcasm or snide remarks. I played in that part. I wish to God I could take it all back and would have been more loving or only plain showed up!

I am lamenting some here over my family and what was and is no longer.

Its priceless when I get to text with my brother and mom. I love them both and their new lives.  I miss my brother’s family and I wish I could give my nephew that hug and share with him about the great things about our family.

The great things are we were all hard workers we grew a garden together. We never hired anyone to fix things we could do ourselves. Some things we just learned as we went.

We did family celebrations. We went to church together. Some where in there was love and I ran away from it many times. I wish I could take back the day when my sister tried to comfort me as we made the choice to let my dad just go peacefully.

I pushed her hand away not because I was rejecting her but because I was trying to ask a question. She never knew that. I never explained it.

I love them all more than anything, but I am not sure we could spend more than a day together at a time.

Just a quick note my dad was going to die no matter what and, in the end, he died on his own terms. I choose to see it that way.

I am writing and confessing this because, there are others out there and you want your family to take all the blame. At one time, before I made peace with my parents, I wanted them to take all the blame.

I will say this because of grace, humility, love, forgiveness, and peace that passes all understanding; I got to love my dad, and my dad got to love me before he died.

Because of this, I also get to love my mom and mom loves me today.

We have a big family there fore I will always have a long way to go in making those lifelong amends.

The other side of the coin for me is I did not know how to be family and I still do not know how. It is just one day at a time. For everything there is a season.

I was told long ago one day you are going to miss this and never get it back. I did not believe them. I wish I had.

I will close with this verse which is appropriate from the Holy Scriptures:

Ecclesiastes 3 English Standard Version (ESV)

A Time for Everything

3 For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

2 a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
3 a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
4 a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
5 a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
6 a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
7 a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
8 a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.

Thanks for reading!

This has been another blog post entry by Boxcar Mike, over and out!

God Bless Y’all Everybody!