Photo: https://www.flickr.com/photos/riccardopanello/3494084158/in/photolist
This morning at the gym I saw someone with a teeshirt on that said: “Life is hard.” And I thought to myself: “Yes, life IS hard.” Then I thought: “Wait a minute, what if I thought life was easy?”
This is not to say difficult things do not happen in life. They do. But why does life have to be so hard? I believe we have that message “life is hard” programed in us so deeply and intense. It is hard to change a message like this. It is almost as if that teeshirt jumped out and bullied me: “Life is hard, you know. Get used to it.”
If we live a life close to God, it IS easier. When we take God’s perspective, our problems become smaller. I have heard the quote by Rick Warren: “The closer you live to God, the smaller everything else appears.” Isn’t it true?
So I told myself “Life is easy” and I went on with my day. This new message “Life is easy” stayed with me. I didn’t just tell it to myself, I believed it. I thought about how a life with God Sightings all over the place IS easy. I thought about how I can make my life even easier by simplifying and becoming more peaceful.
I have to say, today was different. My workaholic husband stopped working in the middle of the day and asked if I would sit and eat a bagel with him. It was WEIRD! LOL! So I slapped some vegan butter on a blueberry bagel and sat at the kitchen table with my husband.
He knew nothing about my “life is easy” mantra for the day. He sat down with me and looked at his bagel. My husband said with a gleam in his eyes: “How can anything ever be wrong when I have THIS?”
Now I would like to say he was talking about us and the life we have together. And I know there is a part of him that did mean that. But I also know that he was REALLY talking about that bagel. He was so excited and appreciative OF THE BAGEL.
I had this sense of deja-vu flash before my eyes. It was as if in 1/2 second, a lifetime (and possibly lifetimes) of decisions flashed before me. I felt I had been here before. But this situation, eating a bagel at the kitchen table with my husband in the middle of the day, had never happened before.
I saw all the different roads I could have gone down in life, and I realized that I was right were I should be. I saw all the decisions I made that lead up to this moment. There were many paths I could have taken. There were rockier roads I could have traveled. It was at this moment that I knew my life WAS easy.
When I was in graduate school (about 14 years ago), we had a journal assignment. I would write in this journal about a lot of past (and probably current) drama through which I had been. I remember the teacher highlighted something I wrote: “I don’t need the drama anymore.”
I realized at that point that the drama was a choice. I don’t need drama. I don’t want it. I choose peace. I choose truth. I choose God. I choose the easy life. I guess now I have to get a shirt to wear to the gym that says: “Life is easy.”
I did not always look at life as easy. It took small shifts in my perception to start seeing things this way. As my inner shifts happened, the outer shifts followed. I started making choices that attract less drama into my life. Things still happen in my life that are difficult. I just choose to look at life a different way.
So if you are in a spot right now where life feels difficult, ask yourself what small changes in perception can you make? What is some drama of which you can let go? Try to start seeing it as a choice. You can not always control your outer world, but your inner world is up to you.
Please post any simple God Sightings you see today! Also post any ideas on making life easy and simple! Enjoy!
Peace, Love, Simplicity, No Drama, and Bagels, 😉
Elizabeth
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