Control Z

I have a new computer. I play Spider Solitaire when I just want to think. I can go backward with a control z. I didn't understand that when I first started playing this. So I didn't score as many wins. With the slate clean, I have more wins now because sometimes I know that if I back up just a few steps, I can succeed. It is just that simple. I just intuitively know now that there was probably a wrong turn somewhere, and if I retrace those steps. Voila.

There is a metaphor for life. As I get older, I realize that I can retrace my steps and create something totally different out of the seemingly stupid messes I get myself in. Sometimes if involves humbling myself and just saying I am sorry. It involves working at the things that are important. It involves finding another route to a person's heart. Sometimes it involves stopping the fast pace of the game of life long enough to come away and think. The route seems so much clearer when I take a step back. My time with Kim on the couch last Saturday was one of those days. As much as I would have tried to put out the fires that her old roommate made that reflected falsehoods about my character, time would tell. Kim said, "I pretty much learned that she didn't tell the truth or that she created her own reality and really believed it to be true."  That is what she did about me. So, I ceased trying to correct the untruth, and time told Kim how to discern what the truth really was after her own experiences with this person. So, the way was cleared toward the swishing of the Kings to Ace set of cards swishing to the left side bottom corner. SWISH! There is no doubt that Kim and I have both grown over the last 20 years.

Then there are the times where you just have to backtrack and get yourself out of ridiculously unhealthy relationships both individually and corporately. Just Control Z and start over. Rewrite the game. There is a way to the swishing, but sometimes I requires going all the way back to the beginning to make better choices the next time around. The choices I made for a church at 19 years old were not the choices I would make for a church at 47. So, I backtracked to make better choices the second time around (only time I have ever left a church was in 2006 after 28 years - gave it the old college try, and that is when I made the choice: in college. I also made it following someone who was also very unhealthy for me at 19 too).  I have had to do that in a few individually. Control Z and go back and see where I made the wrong turn. Often, it was because I didn't hear God's whispers above my compassion for messed up people. This game of life has often told me that messed up people who blame everyone else will someday end up blaming you for their mess. I was sucked in compassion by their stories of injustice only to find they tell the next sucker that you were the one being unjust when you put forth truth in love. There have been so few of these though, especially when I realize that I don't have time to even play their game, and I don't even press the button because there is something so much more important that I could be doing with my time.

Control Z is a nice function. Sometimes, I know there is another way if I just retrace my steps and learn from the mistakes I made before.