Responsibility

Responsibility - what does it mean? For years, I had no idea. It took some hard lessons in life to teach me about responsibility.

The kind of responsibility I'm about to talk about is not in the same category as taking care of your home or kids or health care. It goes deeper than that. The kind of responsibility I began to learn about 8 years ago is self responsibility.

You see, life is rough. Crap happens. Things go wrong. We get lied to. We get cheated. And we can live our lives as a victim if we want. I've learned that I ALWAYS have a part. Even in the super nasty things that happen in life. It's not always a big part, and it's not always that bad, but it is a ball I set in motion that I must look at.

Looking for my part in bad situations, quite honestly, sucks. I hate it, but I've learned that it is something I must do. I make decisions every day, and some of them come back to bite me. For example, right now my stomach is a wreck. Today Chuck and I ate at Outback (thanks to a gift card!) and I ate my steak medium rare. I loved it. I always do. But, I know that eating a nearly raw steak is going to upset my body, it always does. I made the choice, now I live with the consequences of that choice. I could just say, "Gosh, every time I eat a medium rare steak at Outback I get sick. How come they keep getting me sick?" But you see, the problem is mine, not Outback's.

I have some really hard stuff going on in my life right now. But, before I go pointing the finger I have to look for my responsibility in it. And it's there. I've made choices that put me in a position to be hurt. I have to take responsibility for that. It doesn't change the situation or the wrong that has been done to me, but it gives me a fair perspective and keeps me from playing the victim role.

And I think God blesses us when we take responsibility. It's what He's about, because it's truth. Taking responsibility for my actions is living out truth in my life. I've come to realize that not everyone out there operates this way, and that's too bad because there is so much freedom in it. When I look at myself for who I truly am and what I've done, I get free. The nagging in my spirit goes away and I have peace, even in the storms of life. It's when I don't choose to look at my part that I struggle. God's grace is so overwhelming when it comes to taking responsibility in my life. He is SO good.