Oh FAMILY

A lot of people think that I am a very open person.  I tend to talk a lot and very loudly, and I also tend to share some details about my life that other people may not be willing to share.  The truth is though many times if I am sharing it then thats not the real stuff thats the stuff I have already worked through, but I need to try to stop working through things by myself.  Like when the preacher looked at me tonight and he said us and out type-A personalities sometimes have to be brought to our knees because we try to do too much by ourselves.  That hit a nerve tonight.  I try not to talk too much about family business because its not all my business to share but oh my.

You don't get to puck your family and sometimes thats quite the burden especially with one the size of mine.  My dad had 7 kids.  The oldest two with his first wife.  Then my parents adopted their two foster kids after trying for a long time to conceive and not being successful, while adopting my sister my mom found out she was pregnant with my older sister.  It then took almost 7 years and some struggles before I came along and then my baby sister 3 years later.  Some people know dysfunctional families, but I swear the larger they get the dysfunction must grow exponentially.

Right now there is a lot of mess going on with my family and I am trying to deal with it by myself and God so eloquently told me through the words of Pastor Richard tonight to cut that out.  They always say that it is the way that you handle the situations that you cannot control that really determines your true character.  That you can't control the situation, but you can control your response.  Right now I am not responding well.  I am stressing and internalizing.  One of my sisters is particularly good at making bad decisions that affect both her and her children and I don't know why I let it upset me every time there is a new development, but I do, I just can't help it.  I am upset at the situation that she has placed herself in and the decisions that she is making particularly because they do not just affect her.  I am also very frustrated because I am a do-er, I am a fix-er.  I want to fix everything and the problem is I can't fix anything.  And somehow I have turned someone else situation (and this is just the tip of the iceberg here) into an all about me situation.  I can't fix it.  I can't understand it.  I am upset and honestly I am a little bit angry.  I feel like every time that I try to start getting my life on track and I am making healthy decisions for me and my family things happen to derail that train.  I know that God has a purpose for all of this and some of it is to reiterate to me that its not about me.  Some of it is to reinforce this message that my hard headed self can't seem to grasp that I can't do it by myself and that is why I need to submit.  I feel like there is a bigger plan out there for me and possibly a much larger portion of my family in all of this.  We will see.

When you have another set back like this after having one so recently you wonder if you are making true progress.  I guess realizing you hit a brick wall much sooner is some form of progress, though that may have had nothing to do with me and a lot more to do with what Pastor Richard said and that look he gave me.  It all happens for a reason.  I just have to try to do better next time and try not to want to do it all.