An Unopened Present

Life can be stressful. With school and practice and homework, sometimes it's hard to be positive all the time. The past few days, God has transformed my life into a life of humbleness and humility. He has shown himself to me more times that I can count and has also shown Himself in a greater light to others in the process. He has taken a low moment in my life, and turned it into one of the greatest moments of my life. So why did I go to bed last night and wake up this morning thinking about how I still can't race? How I still have burns on my elbow and hip? Not only that, but also thinking things like: Why did I purchase the wrong access code for my class? Why do bad things happen to me? Here's a better question I should ask myself...Why ruin a perfectly good day worrying about what happened yesterday? You see that's our problem. We constantly ruin a perfectly good day with the regrets of yesterday. Yesterday is history, today is a gift. An unopened present if you will. When you wake up in the morning its like pulling the bows and paper off of a present. A present wrapped with the love of your Father and covered with the blood of His son (don't picture that image, if you are squeamish). It is beautifully tailored to each and every individual on Earth with the utmost care and passion. But, instead of admiring it's beauty and receiving it with a humble heart, we splatter yesterday all over it. "I can't believe he did that me." "I can't believe Coach made us run another mile." "I'll never forgive her for not calling me back." "I can't believe I failed that math test." We've all be guilty of this before. But what good does this do for us? I tell you what good it does, NO GOOD. All we end up doing is getting out of bed feeling mad, angry, sad, etc. And how fun does that sound. Well I'll tell you again, NOT FUN. The worst part is, a lot of times, we blame God. "God, how could you do this to me?" Bet He has heard that one a thousand times. I feel like this is everyone's initial reaction. Or, at least, it was mine. I prayed to God before my race that no matter the outcome, I would praise Him and give Him the glory. When I fell, I did not honor that promise. I resented Him. I blamed Him. I woke up the next morning so angry for what He did to me. I ruined my whole next day. These past few days have shown me that looking back on situations that I had no control over make me angry. They put me in a position to look up to God and say, "You see, I didn't have control over that and you see what happened?" It makes me blame Him for the bad things, and give myself the credibility of everything else. I have now come to realize that I should never put blame on God. He does the things that He does to keep us on track of following and trusting in Him. He knew that I had gone too far in relying on myself and my abilities. Sure I was praying to Him with words, but they were just mindless rambles. I wasn't praying to Him from my heart. I was using prayer as a back up plan to if talent wasn't enough to help me through the race. If my legs started to give out I need not worry because I talked to God before giving Him a heads up on what I wanted the outcome to look like. I was trying to peek at my present before I had even been given it. God doesn't want us to plan out the rest of our lives. In reality, it probably won't turn out the way you think it will. That is what is so great about life. It's a different page everyday. When you start to write your page, God may spill the ink all over the paper. Sure it may seem inconvenient to you at the time, but the best part is, you get a brand new piece tomorrow. You get to open that beautifully tailored present and start fresh. So don't spill yesterday's regrets all over it. Look ahead and live in the moment. Sure there will be more hurdles to jump, walls to climb, and mountains to scale, but those things are only temporary. And I have found lately, that the other side of these obstacles is a much greener pasture.

Pray to God for the strength to move on from yesterday and begin today with a positive heart. Don't blame Him for the downs in life. It will just make the next day awkward when He hands you your present.