Will I Be an Egg or Potato?

So, clearly, I am not very good at being a blogger.  I vow to be better.  Not because I really care if you read it or not, but because way back when, I was prompted to start this blog, and I need to follow through!  While a lot has happened in the past 14 months since I last blogged, I am not going to touch on that now.  I'm just too drawn to this Facebook meme I saw today:

We all have experiences, tests, trials, tribulations (and whatever else you would like to add here).  While none of us will ever go through the exact same thing, we are given similar experiences, tests, trials, tribulations and etc.  What's important is that we all have the opportunity to choose how we react to those experiences, tests, trials and tribulations.

One thing that has always aggravated me to my core, and I have striven my hardest to never do, is to blame my choices on my experiences, tests, trials, or tribulations.  When I hear people try to excuse choices that others have made, particularly poor choices, because of things they have endured, I want to scream!  Please understand, this does not mean I lack compassion for individuals and their circumstances (self-imposed or not).  I am far from having the compassion of the Lord, but I do strive to show compassion in all of my actions.  However, I think enabling is sometimes mistaken for compassion.  We enable and excuse poor choices because someone had a tough life or hard experience.  We think it's excusable they treat others poorly because of something that may have happened to them.  We excuse large concourses of people for living lives of crime because they grew up in poverty.  We allow those who were abused to abuse others.  It is a terrible, terrible, terrible cycle.   One that is like a record that keeps skipping, over, and over, and over, never allowing the music or message to progress.

As an individual, I need to progress.  As a nation, we need to progress.  As a people, we need to progress.  There is too much good that is being missed because we are allowing our circumstances to define us.  We are allowing our record to stay skipping, instead of fixing the needle and moving forward.  I write this post with a prayer in my heart that we will all choose to be better than what our circumstances allow.  That we will all choose to help each other up instead of fluffing the pillow that allows us to lay down and drown in our sorrows.  And that we choose to see the world, the entire world, in a better light than we currently do.