it's your life. deal with it.

was reading ruth again this morning. i love that book. i would like to say because it's about a woman fully devoted to God, so much so that she does things that are unexpected of her (leaving her own family and people) and things that are expected of her ("go lay at his feet and he will tell you what to do"), without ever complaining or seeking her own comfort. i would like to say it's because ruth receives many blessings for her obedience and kindness. and while those are valid reasons and i value them,.. i do... i think i love that book because it is about two women who love each other so much that they do whatever is in their power to show that love, to honor and to further one another.

i love stories like that.

so i'm in ruth again this morning and as i reflect on her willingness to set aside her comfort and 'what is known' to care for her mother-in-law, i harken my thoughts back to a conversation i had yesterday with my husband about why 'kids these days' expect things given them, expect things done for them, and expect things to be easy and when it is not they would rather walk away from something or cut people out of their lives instead of making the effort to set it right.

but then those same kids read ruth and want what she ends up with: blessing. honor. a good name.

i think it's so easy to look at ruth and want what she got, but it is so hard to look at ruth and do what she did.

i was reading an article recently about how 20% of divorce cases filed list facebook in the suit. it indicated that facebook was causing infidelity.

um.

really?

i thought infidelity was a choice. it's not like there's this facebook highway and when you jump on it takes you where it wants you to go. no!.. you decide what you say, you decide what you do, you decide how far you'll go.

at the end of the article it said that while the number of divorces were slightly down, an increase was expected due to the financial state of our country.

i know marriage is hard. i know relationships are difficult. but if we would start being willing to step up to those challenges and work through them and stop blaming facebook, the recession and hangnails, then maybe we'd have a lot of them remain intact.

we want a ruth-like blessing sitting under our christmas trees, but we don't want to make ourselves second to others in order for it to happen. and when we don't get it, it's someone else's fault. it's never ours. i wonder if we grasp how incredibly selfish we truly are.

i guess what i'm getting at is: you want things to all work out in the end? you want blessings to pour over you? then be willing to live through the hard things. don't run when things get difficult - work at it. it's hard and it hurts and many times you will find that you have to set your own desires aside for the overall welfare of whatever you're dealing with. you have to do it. not someone else. you. facebook doesn't make your decisions, you do. claim your life and work hard at it. and love every minute of it!

i have a sheet of paper from a pad that belonged to a friend of mine whose life was interrupted by cancer. i cannot wait to see her again someday. we'll hug, we'll catch up and then i think we will laugh over that paper that hangs over my computer at work. it reminds me to step up to my challenges. it reminds me that i need to get over myself sometimes. and it reminds to laugh. it says

put your big girl panties on and deal with it