Like a prisoner pleading for her life, I am asking you, “Please hear me out!”
I am absolutely humbled by so many of you who took the time to comment, to message and to like my blog posts. For that reason, I sincerely thank you. Although, I needed that to know that my efforts are not just for nothing. What really keeps me going is the fortuitous privilege to be able to connect with you, to listen to your story and to realize I am not alone in this journey. All the thoughts I poured are offsprings of my experiences so perhaps my online journal will help you or perhaps not. Either way, allow me to tell you:
I made mistakes, big and small ones. Some I thought will forever destroy my family. Others, due to their seemingly insignificance, I did over and over again too many times until I learned… the hard way. As you can tell, I have been blessed with rich exposures to poor decision making.
The mistakes I made with relationships:
1. I blamed my parents.
For a long time, I suffered self-pity, all because of my impression that my parents were not loving enough, giving enough and supportive enough. That thought held me back from moving on so it affected my relationship with my husband. My outlook was bleaker than the Colorado snowstorms in history. I was setting my family for failure until I read the book “The Four Agreements” by Miguel Ruiz and took this to heart:
” Don't take anything personally- Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won't be the victim of needless suffering."
I read passages from the Bible and learned stories of people I look up to. Surprisingly, these successful people I know never blamed their hard past but took responsibility to rise from it instead. Oh, how I loved to get out from the pit and be like them. That’s when I grew up. Then I realized my parents were not as bad at all. And I felt the abundance of their love over again.
2. I was a perfectionist fool.
I could clean for hours and still find a speck. Then I come back and clean again. I was one of those who had an undiagnosed Obsessive Compulsive disorder or so I thought. I just wanted everything to be perfect until I couldn’t get everything done and couldn’t even delegate household duties to my husband. It was straining our relationship. At work, I had plenty of pet-peeves and easily got provoked until one amazing lady got tired of my disposition and told me, “The problem with you is you are so uptight. Loosen up a little.” That was the best gift I had ever received at that moment because that had rendered me capable of doing tasks with grace. (I owe it to you, Clyde!)
I have been reminded again as my perfectionism was passed on to my daughter. On the process of teaching her, I am relearning myself. We are both reaffirmed by the story of the tortoise and the hare. The tortoise as the hero as it taught us that “slowly but surely wins the race”, not the hare, arrogant perfectionist fool.
The mistakes I made with our Money:
3. I was a hypocrite.
I had to pay for everything because I’m in America, even if it puts me in too much debt. On my previous blog
I talked about being a giver or an enabler. To be a giver, I have to make sure I am capable of giving; I have to know what the receiver actually needs; I give because I feel the need to give not because I will feel guilty if I don’t give; and lastly, I give by appropriating God’s blessings properly because I don’t own the money. I am simply a steward.
By this awareness, our family thrived. We paid the debt and vowed never to promise anything we can’t deliver.
4. I paid the debt above through my 401K- OUCH!
Dear readers: please, please, please, don’t ever do this. But if you already have, make sure to pay yourself ASAP. You will regret missing the chance of growing compounded interest on that money that could have been there.
It was not the smartest move and we’re definitely not going to do it again!
5. We (my husband and I, he made the decision too) bought new cars.
It was not the lack of knowledge but our weakness to avoid temptation in purchasing anything new. We were like throwing cash right off as they lose their value, the very minute that we drove those new cars off a dealer's lot. Shame on us!
6. We are paying a 30-year mortgage.
Jonathan, my husband calculated and compared the interest between a 15-year loan and 30-year loan. It is substantial. But there’s no point of going back. We are instead moving forward paying our loan as fast we can to reduce the time from 30 to 7-10 years.
You see, I am flawed and I have undergone adversity but those don’t stop me from sharing with you the fruit of what I have learned. It is the best that I can offer to the world. Since the experiences have done me so much good, I embrace my imperfections because it is through them that I feel the fullness of God’s grace.
Last and final mistake I am sharing with you: When I questioned myself, “What have I done wrong that made Luke Autistic?” I blamed myself. But that time, I knew better so I worked hard to find explanations. Only to realize, I find answers in Luke. He led me the way. He has helped me foster friendships with the many beautiful people. He has brought out the best in our family.
Again, I thank you for reading my blog. I hope you find treasures from this piece. I prayed to bless you while I was writing this.
God loves you despite your imperfections!
No comments:
Post a Comment