A Gorilla and his blanket
It was a beautiful, sunny, seventy degree, Florida January day. The time was 2 pm, nap time for the animals at Disney’s Animal kingdom. As I was walking by and watching the gorillas I witnessed a gorilla picking up his blanket and taking it with him to another spot. Yes, his blanket.
I stood there giggling thinking to myself, “That gorilla is not going anywhere without his blanket, wherever he decides to lay himself down, he wants to be sure that blanket is there too.” I pondered that for a moment, and then I started thinking about Linus from Peanuts, and his blanket. Linus never went anywhere or did anything without his blanket. He held on to his blanket like a life line. Then it hit me. Don’t we all have “blankets” in our life?
“Blankets” are the things we hold on to, like our life depends on it. We take them everywhere we go, home, work, school, the movies, even out to dinner. Now obivously as adults we don’t actually carry around a physical blanket. No, the “blankets” I am referring to are the “blankets” in our hearts and minds.
What are these “blankets” ?? Bitterness, unforgiveness, anger, jealously, insecurity, lack of trust, unhealthy friendships, negative thoughts,an abusive past. Really our blankets are anything that stands between us and living life to the fullest. They weigh us down and encumber us.
The harsh reality is we don’t really need our blankets, and they aren’t good for us to hang on to. But without them? We feel naked, scared and unsure, confused. Holding on to our blankets means we don’t have to change, we don’t have to do the work it will take to let go of those blankets. Holding on often feels better than the pain of change. But the truth? The pain of change is worth the letting go, and living life unencumbered. The pain of letting our blanket go and learning to live life without the blanket, soon becomes our new normal. After awhile we realize that we don’t need that blanket anymore after all.
I have let go of many blankets. All of them have been hard, but I don’t miss them. I still have more blankets to let go of. Some of them I have let go bits at a time, and I continue to hold on to the last few remants. But I continue to work at letting them go, and leaving them once and for all. I have come to realize that some blankets just require more work and a longer time to let go of. And I am ok with that.
I would encourage you today to search your heart for your own blankets. And start that journey toward letting them go. I promise you it is well worth it.
And the gorilla? I don’t know if he will ever be able to give up his blanket, as it probably is, in all reality, necessary to his physical comfort. However, next time I go back and see that gorilla, I will remember the lesson I learned from him and his blanket.
Dare I dream?
I confess to being a pessimist. I am a glass half empty kind of girl. That in turn makes it very difficult for me to dream, or to hope. I have to work at it, I mean really work at hoping and dreaming.
I will have hope when I can’t bear the burden of anything but hope. If I am daring to hope for something, I want it about as bad as I want my next breath. I have hoped for healing, I hope for restored relationships, I hope for my papa to see the end of the year. Those are the kinds of things I will hope for. But dreaming? I don’t often go there.
Dreaming implies something quite different. Dreaming is going big. Dreaming for me is going beyond being hopeful. Dreaming is about me. It is me daring to ask God for BIG things. Things my pessimistic nature says ” there is no way that will ever happen” to. Dreaming is daring to ask and then having to trust God with said dream.
I have thought about this since January 1. It seemed I saw so many facebook post about dreaming,trusting, and asking God for things. And over and over the scripture “For nothing is impossible with God.” (Matthew 19:26) Then on Tuesday, a blog. Rather than a new year’s resolution, make this year about working on one word. One word. The writer chose submission. I sat there thinking “what’s my word?” Then today my word dropped like a bomb into my heart, dream.
DREAM. It was as if God was and has been for days now saying “Dream Mindy. Dare to dream. Ask me. Figure out what your heart desires and ask me.”
My pessimistic nature popped it’s head and said, “but what if they don’t come true?” And in the came the whisper, “Have you forgotten the dreams you had that have come true?” Remember Psalms 37:4? “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” Desires equal dreams.
That’s my one word this year. This year I am going to dare to dream. When I figure out what dreams and desires are laying there in my heart, I am going to dare one step further and ask. I am going to dream and I am going to ask. Then I will do the most risky thing of all and believe my dreams are going to come true. Maybe they won’t exactly how I ask for them to, but they will exactly how they are supposed to in God’s master plan for me. I can and will be content and happy with that.
I am off to dream.
Jesus Wept.. Jesus Weeps.
John 11:35 says simply “Jesus wept.” Shortest verse in the bible, but perhaps the verse with the deepest meaning. I really begun to think about this today when my mom called to tell me her friend Lou had lost her great grand-daughter Katie on Monday.
The bible also tells us that in heaven there are no more tears, for Jesus will wipe all our tears away,and I believe that. But, I also believe that he has a place in heaven where he goes to weep. I believe Jesus wept in December when 20 little children were mercilessly gunned down. I believe Jesus wept Monday when 3 year old Katie passed from this earth to heaven. Jesus wept before he raised one of his best friends from the dead. Jesus wept in the garden carrying the burden of what he was about to endure. Jesus wept. I believe Jesus weeps still today. He weeps when we weep, when our brain says “I get it, that you needed them with you more than I did. I get that maybe you took them to spare them a greater pain, I get it.” But our heart weeps and cries, “I want them back, my life is better with them here, I don’t want them in heaven with you.” He weeps when we weep because he understands our pain, our fragile human emotional heart.
The word wept implies something more than just crying, or even a stream of tears. It implies a torrent of tears, maybe falling silently, or maybe loudly with great gasps of air. It implies grief coming from the deepest part of the soul, a great bitter, and biting anguish. It implies the deepest pain a person can possibly feel. When we weep, Jesus weeps with us. For he was once human, he once endured great loss, and great pain. Yes, Jesus wept, and I believe he still weeps today. For it is when we weep and he weeps with us, that His grace fills our soul, that His peace is ushered in. Jesus wept, Jesus weeps.
musingsbymindy 