Have you ever noticed the Oversized Baggage Counter at the airport? It's where all the big TVs and the large size items have to be collected from.
There's usually a fee for the accommodation of these items and I always wonder at the value these things have for the person, obviously.
Either from the lack of easy availability, or the importance for an event or situation.
That they're willing to pay the price to get the item.
I want to compare this to the baggages that we carry. The hangups we have.
Towards people.
There's a bunch that I really really try to forgive, forget and mind my own business.
But they just LOVE gossiping about me. And mine.
For reasons known only to them.
They go out of their way to do this.
We don't have a thing in common.
And the funny thing is that I'm surprised at their cheek. I mean surely they know that I know!?
And I don't know how they manage their lives, and honestly, I really don't care.
What I do know is the agitation it causes me.
I feel the need to "talk" it out with my husband or friends.
I feel like I need to "ignore", to "forgive"....
I feel the pressure to be the bigger person.
But here's the thing: I don't think I will really be the bigger person, until the "need" and "pressure" to do so stops being in my heart.
It's not a change in reaction, I need a change in attitude!
It's so easy to laugh at the funny memes made by someone like me out there that reads like ' I was having a great day, until people'.... That's hilarious. And sadly true for me.
I find it so much easier to just keep away from places rather than going and trying so hard, in fact I have been avoiding places :(.
Oversized Emotional Baggages are not a precious commodity.
See, what we forget is that the price we pay for nurturing these baggages is often our Peace.
This Lent season ( The 40 day Christian period of penance and prayer) my prayer is really for a change in My attitude.
I'm asking God for a genuine blindness for slights and hurts.
I've been studying from the Beatitudes ( Matthew 5 1-12).
And Jesus doesn't mince words. Humility, and a search and deliberate effort towards finding Peace is the only way.
I'm loving the clarity I find in my Bible Study.
The stories of God's might and His deliverance.
The story of God in the storm, and God in the stillness.
And it's slowly falling into place.
The tool to overcoming baggages and hangups was never to figure it out with people or fixing myself to be easy to be loved.
All long it was to keep my Focus on God. His Bigness, and His reaching out for me!!
And in the light of that, No one else matters. :).
By no means am I anyyyywhere near sainthood.
The prayer and meditation is in progress.
It's so hard, and it's so right.
P.S: Find the Beatitudes Bible study guide here:
https://my.bible.com/reading-plans/3606-the-beatitudes