How do I live with?

You fill in the blank, "How do I live with?"  For years we have learned how to live without parents, exs, best friends, roommates, and more.  But once you are a wife, parent, step-parent or guardian, now you have to ask yourself the question of "How do I live with...?" Not how do I get out, get over or get away!

When life feels like it is getting the best of us, we come to a place in our lives where we start looking for a way to move on, you know beyond our circumstances.  However, sometimes there is no escape, no options, at least for the moment (or for some what might feel like a lifetime).  So what do we do?  We complain, worry, bad-mouth, or act like children who throw fits.  "Why does life have to be so hard?  I never asked for this...why did God make me a mother?"  Smack, bang boom!  That's the sound of a mother's fury!  Her rage for things not going her way.  "I outta...you make me sick...get over here or else...!" 

How do you live with the idea of being married, having another child, relocating, divorcing, quitting a job, getting a new one, or doing something different with your life that impacts everyone that you know...how do you live with...? 

This thought of having to live with someone or something, no options for the time being, came to me while preparing a book about dealing with one's enemies as it relates to the Christian faith.  There are those moments when God will not permit us to walk right, left, or go here or there for our own mental well-being, safety, or for some other reason he may not have revealed to us.  Meanwhile the critics say, "If I were you...and I would... and you should..."  Then when God sends his messengers we hear, "Pray...do what's right...listen to God!"

For those who don't acknowledge a Creator, consider this, if it's not God then your inner being is not moving you to want to do anything but stay put in the meantime and you know this, that's why you haven't done much but run your lips.  There isn't anything special happening right now for some of you.  No exceptional breakthrough.  You are not giving yourself a ticket to go anywhere, because you innately know that the timing, your situation, and those around you wouldn't support you if you should make a move.  So you just accept your life for what it is for now--no fight, no dreaming, no goal-setting--nothing. 

You might as well enjoy this vacation of sorts.  Stock pile some mental, physical and spiritual energy, because you just might need it for a future storm of goodness, sadness or both.  Something or someone is going to enter your life one day and it will be then that you will give yourself (and/or Creator) the permission to spread your wings.  I know sometimes the positivity of the present and future is hard to see when you are raising children, paying bills and helping others.  But one day, you won't have to "live with..." or "settle for" then what will you do?

Nicholl McGuire
Author of Know Your Enemy: The Christian's Critic