'It Is What It Is' is bullshit...

I loathe the phrase 'it is what it is', to me it's a cop out, an excuse not to try, an excuse not to hope. Instead of telling your life that you own it, by saying those five simple words you tell your life that it owns you and whatever happens happens and there's nothing you can do about it. It's bullshit.


Things do happen that are out of your control. Things will always happen that will be out of your control. But that doesn't mean that life just is what it is, it doesn't mean you don't have the ability to shift the atmosphere, learn from your mistakes, grow up, make a difference. Life isn't supposed to just happen to you, it's not supposed to be so easy to sweep you up and away wherever the current decides it wants to go. It's been my experience that people only say 'it is what it is' when they feel defeated, when they think they have done everything possible to change the situation or when they have somehow convinced themselves it isn't worth it. It's bullshit. 


Even if fighting to change something doesn't work, it changes you, and that matters! You dare to be honest, brave, you set free the madness inside of you and it may not change anything in the world around you. But you can change the world around you by hopping on a bus or a plane or a train, but you can't leave the world inside you anywhere. If you throw those five words out the window and realize that it doesn't have to be that way, then something about you changes, and that is a change worth fighting for. 


'It is what it is' doesn't make things go away and it doesn't make you feel better about it. 'It is what it is" is bullshit...

So Who Is To Blame...?

We've all heard the question, some of us may have asked it..."If there is a God, why does He allow such horrible things to happen?"  That is a really good question, one that has gotten much debate over the centuries and will probably continue to do so. No one answer seems to satisfy everyone. SO, what if we just take God out of the equation?! What if we say, what if I say, there is no God?!  (And no I am not recanting my beliefs!) 

So, now that we have decided there is no God, are all of the really horrible things still happening? Are people still starving? Are natural disasters still devastating? Are people still acting out of the selfishness of their own hearts and cheating their neighbors, killing their brothers, lying in office or under oath? Since there is no God has that changed our history at all? Did the Holocaust not happen? Was slavery a really bad dream? Did we not drop nuclear warheads on Japan? Was 9/11 a really bad joke? If there is no God and has never been one, then WHO is to blame for all of that? If there is no God then we can't blame Him for anything, and if we can't blame Him, then who else is there? If the person who has become history's number one scapegoat really isn't there, then we only have ourselves to blame...right?! 

The gracious thing about God (and yes we are back to the fact that He does IN FACT exist) we can blame Him for everything. We can say it's His fault that we lost our house, that our child was taken from us, that the rivers flooded, or the ground shook, or whatever else we blame Him for, and He will  take it. We can point our finger all we want and all it will do is break His heart (no big deal). But why is it that we feel like He is good enough to blame when things go really wrong, good enough to call on when we make a really big mess, but unnecessary the rest of the time? It's like we've deemed Him the world's worst secretary because He can't seem to keep under control the things that we, as CEO's of our own lives, should never have to worry about BUT He is also the world's best maid, cleaning up messes so big and thick that we aren't even sure what kind of floor lies beneath it, forget asking about the color! 

God is so much better, so much bigger, and so much more creative that we don't need Him to be a scapegoat or a maid. You can continue to blame Him, it's not His fault. Even the natural disasters, if they were to be manipulated by God (you would first have to acknowledge His existence) would no longer be natural! 

You want to blame someone, blame us, blame yourself. It's never easy taking responsibility for something, but at least when it's your fault you can change it. Christ said He came to change the world, but what He changed first were the hearts of the people that He encountered on a daily basis. The mission He left those hearts to carry out was do the same thing, to change the hearts of those they encountered every day. I wasn't alive two thousand years ago, but with all the technological advancements we have today I would say that it is faster and more efficient to inflict harm on someone now than it was then and you don't even have to be on the same continent. Christ walked the earth two thousand years ago and were still waiting on the world to change. So, maybe we stop blaming God, maybe we start blaming ourselves, and maybe we change the way we do things! 

Novel idea don't you think?!

FIVE Favorites...

ACTRESSES

anne hathaway

meryl streep

sandra bullock

jennifer aniston

julia roberts

ACTORS

will smith

tom hanks

robin williams

ryan reynolds

anthony hopkins

MOVIES

dirty dancing

the princess bride

seven pounds

the blindside

beauty and the beast

It's Never Really Going to Matter What She Does...

Let me explain something about myself...


Push me away. Hold me close. Appreciate me. Take me for granted. Love me. Hate me. Celebrate me. Persecute me. Hurt me. Strength me. Break me. Rebuild me. Tear me down. Encourage me. I could go on but the truth is that it won't really matter what you do to me. I will be stronger then you ever give me credit for. More patient then you deserve. More forgiving then you will ever realize. And here's why...


You trust me enough to let me jump into the trenches with you and I will never leave you...


I haven't talked to my best friend in three weeks because she's doing something that in good conscience I could not and would not support. It doesn't mean that I love her less and it doesn't mean that I will turn away when the day comes that she tells me she needs me. It's never going to matter what she does...