Thursday, March 09, 2006

Today is 'National Get Over It Day'!

Or so I'm informed by one of my favorite colleagues, Pastor Glen VanderKloot from Faith Lutheran Church in Springfield, Illinois. Each day, Glen shares inspirational pieces via email. More on how you can subscribe below. But first, a bit on 'National Get Over It Day.'

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Today is National Get Over it Day!

Because everyone has something to get over!

What's `Get Over It Day' all about?

No one is happy every day of their life.
Not an American idol, not a desperate housewife.
Not MVP athleties, not Oscar winner stars
Not rich CEOs, not the beautiful people.

We all have issues; all lives contain stress.
At some point we are all an emotional wreck.
There are people to get over in everyone's life.

It's part of life.
It will help you grow stronger.
You can wallow in your problems,
Or you can choose to be strong.
It is time to say:

I'm moving on! It's done!
I'm getting over it today!
THINGS TO GET OVER:
• Failed relationships
• Ex's
• Fears or anxieties
• Bad habits
• Embarrassing experiences
• Insecurities
• Unrequited love
• Anything/everything you're struggling to move on from! (You know, the stuff your friends are tired of hearing you talk about all the time?)

One of the most productive ways to get over it,
is to give it to God in prayer and let God take it.
Cup your hands in front of you.
Picture in your hands what you need to get over.
Lift it up to God in prayer and give it to him.
Then open your hands and let go, really let go.
You have placed it God's hands
There is no nothing you can do about it.
No need to think about it.
No need to worry about it.
No need to obsess about it.
Let it go. Get over it.
Today.
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Scripture
Philippians 3:13 CEV

My friends, I don't feel that I have already arrived.
But I forget what is behind,
and I struggle for what is ahead.

Prayer: Lord, help me to give to you those things that
I need to get over. Really give them to you and then
let go and get over them today. Amen
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[To subscribe to Glen's daily inspirations, e-mail him at olwf1@gliq.net and put SUBSCRIBE
on the subject line.]

UPDATE: Pastor Mark D. Roberts links to this post as part of his weekly round-up of blogging. Thank you, Mark. Mark, by the way, has one of the best blogs around!

4 comments:

Deborah White said...

What a great idea! I once knew a middle-aged woman still angry at her father, who steadfastly refused to move past her anger. Never married or had children because of it.

Seems to me that at some point in time, one needs to let go of that heavy baggage, and get on with life.

Mark Daniels said...

Deborah:
I thought that it was a great idea, too!

The New Testament word for 'I forgive' is 'aphiemi.' It literally means 'I forgive.'

I've always felt that that word perfectly conveys the two-sides of forgiveness: We release those who have done us wrong from the consequences of "their trespasses against us"; we also are released from the debilitating and grace-blocking burden of holding a grudge.

This is exactly why Jesus says, in His explanation of the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6, that if we refuse to forgive others, God will not forgive us. The person who refuses to forgive erects a fortress around his or her soul through which God's grace won't penetrate. People like that make themselves miserable in prisons they accuse others of making, but that really are their own custom-made hells.

In my dialog with Richard Lawrence Cohen a few days ago, I mentioned the song by Larry Norman, 'Weight of the World.' In the bridge, these lines appear:

It all comes down to who we crucify; We either kiss the future or the past goodbye.

When we refuse to forgive, we may think that we're crucifying others. At least that's the self-righteous buzz we're trying to get. In fact though, we crucify our futures and our very own souls. Christ went to a cross so that doesn't have to happen!

Paul says that our past sins and our sinful selves must be crucified with Christ in order for the new self to rise with Christ. In forgiveness, we put the past in the past and set out to live in reliance on God and His goodness, come what may.

In a sense, it's safer to rely on the known hurts and injuries of the past; we know them (and can catalog them), while the future is a blank screen. But God is always pulling those who surrender to Him to venture into the unknown future.

It turns out that the future isn't so unknown, though. I love the part in Matthew's resurrection account where the risen Jesus instructs Mary to tell Peter and the others to go to Galilee. "There, they will see Me," Jesus says. This is one of many indicators of how Jesus pulls us from the past--along with wallowing and grudge-holding--and into the future where we're with Him. "I am with you always," He told the disciples just before He ascended into heaven. If he's with me as I venture into a future in which I let go of the past, I don't want, like Lot's wife in the Old Testament, to turn back. I want to keep resolutely pointing toward Him. (At least, some of the time I want to follow Him, human sinner that I am!)

Well, I can go on, can't I?

Mark

Deborah White said...

Ron and I have been married for 16 happy years. It's a second marriage for both of us.

My first marriage broke-up after ten years, two children and a boatload of heartbreak and disappointment.

At a well-attended (200= attendees) Divorce Recovery workshop at a local Presbyterian church, I learned the concept of letting go of anger to release myself from its bondage and to move forward....that anger was only hurting me, as well as my relationship with God. The pastor who taught that six-week course was brilliant and touching in his message.

I went on for five years in the 1980s to be a lay counselor in that program, and met Ron there after his divorce.

I wish every church with the resources could offer such a healthy and practical program to hurting people.

Mark Daniels said...

Thank you so much for sharing that, Deborah! I'm going to add it as an update to another post on this subject.

Mark