Overcoming Obstacles

Hello! or as I have learned today, HOLA in spanish ;).

Obstacles. That is a word that every person on this earth understands! I am sure that all you guys have overcome a few in the past and are dealing with a few today.  I personally think there are two ways of viewing obstacles, one way being with defeat and the other way with some form of "go getter" attitude.

The way people view obstacles, often shows how they view themselves on a deeper level. If they approach an obstacle saying, "I don't think I can do it" or "Its to big or to hard" it shows me that not only do they not care about accomplishing it, but also that they don't love themselves enough to try. People who say "I can't" only means they wont or they don't want to.

The people who face obstacles head on doesn't mean that they are better or more loved, it just means that they realize that there are problems in life and they are willing to work on it. So don't think that I am categorizing people into two different groups, because I am sure everybody has been both people at some point of their lives, and if you don't think that you were then you are obviously in denial.

I myself have faced obstacles my whole life, as I am sure everyone of you have as well. I will open up in these next few sentences on some very deep issues I have faced in my life. I am not bragging or trying to make my life sound worse then yours, for I am sure that there are people out there who have faced worse struggles then myself, I am am going to say mine only because I am speaking from experience and am going to show you how I overcame them through Jesus.

I was raised in a Christian home with loving parents. We were always short on money and life wasn't ever really easy. But one thing we never went without was love and that is why I believe I was able to hold on through the hard times, even though I fell once or twice. My father was an alcoholic and drug addict for 20 years of his life or more before he married my mother. He was also diagnosed with Diabetes at a young age, there were times he would have sugar crashes and collapse on the ground, ambulances and hospitals were a regular thing. I think after a while my father started to face obstacles with a defeated mentality, because he just gave up on life. It became so bad that after a while the first response people and ambulance drivers knew our names.

My father loved my mom, sister and I so much and we always did things together when I was young. As he started to become sicker in his body his personality changed, he soon became irritable and was always locking himself in his office for hours at a time. He worked as a chartered accountant, and he would come home every night and that would start the nightly fights between him and my mother, to the point I knew when he got home to take my little sister upstairs and play.

My sister Cassandra and I were home schooled up till high school. I was always the shy sensitive girl, and my sister as well. All the fighting started to take a toll on me, I started to become very extroverted to try and hide the anger and pain inside, and to this day I am very social but for a different reason, which I will explain further in my next blog. By the time I was 13 I was done with all the fighting, and I demanded to go to high school so I could get out of the house for a while so I could forget all the anger for a while. Grade 9, I was the "nerdy loser" people would say, because I didn't realize the clothes I had put me in that category. LOL I to this day don't care, those clothes made me happy so I wore them!

I got into lots of fights, and was almost suspended once for crashing the entire Algoma District School Board, was suspended once for taking part in organizing a school walk out. Detention was where I normally ate my lunch, and I prided myself on being there. In a weird twisted way it felt good to be bad, it felt good to be screwed up that way I got the attention I craved, because I didn't get it at home.

After I graduated Grade 11 thats when my life changed for the worse, I was 16 my father was in the hospital for a month or two during grade 11 due to congestive heart failure, he even had three blood clots in his body. Also during Grade 11 my mother and father were separated for a while because of my dad and his mood swings. Feb 14, 2004 my father moved back in with us, on medication for depression and started to watch his blood sugar more closely.  The anger I had built started to subside and I started to let my family become a family again. Life was good, June 14, 2004 was my mom and dad's 18th anniversary, June 16, 2004 my sister turned 14, and June 18, 2004 was the day that changed my life-- The day my father passed away.

I became so angry and hurt after that day for about two years I began to go off the deep end, I started smoking two packs a day, drinking and doing drugs, anything I could do to fill the void and suppress the anger. To cut this story short, you can most likely agree that this was a HUGE bunch of obstacles in my life.

All of these obstacles I approached for about two years with a defeated mindset. I can summarize everything that helped me overcome these in one word, JESUS. He lifted all these weights off my chest, sure there was a lot of fighting from me because at times I can be stubborn. The Grace of Jesus was so strong and merciful that he lifted me from the deep hole I dug from myself and raised me above the ground, above the problems.

That is what Jesus can and will do for you all you have to do is let Him. There is NOTHING you can do that will change anything, or make Jesus love you more then He does already. There are always going to be things in your life that come up and try to block your view for the prize, its about whether or not you are going to let the obstacle guide you or let Jesus lift you over it. You can do it either way but I assure you that it is way faster and less emotionally taxing if you just give it to Jesus, let Him fix all the problems.

My mom always says, "You can never drive your car forward for a long period of time, while looking through the rear-view mirror." So take your mind off the past and move on towards the future. Set goals and complete them maybe even set your eyes beyond the prize that way even if you don't fully make it you still make it to where you wanted to go. Think big, think God big :)

I love you guys! Thanks for reading and I hope this helps you in some way.