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Writer's pictureElizabeth R Billingsley

When Life Doesn't Go Like We Planned


Life didn't go the way I planned yesterday. I fell and have seriously injured my ankle. I can't run for possibly 6-8 weeks, we shall see how I progress. I love to run and I am actually training for a half marathon. So now what?

I will admit to you that earlier I was mad and really down. Thank God for good friends! Friends who will let me be grouchy and still love me, sorry you all, you know who you are! Yes I'm going to have to heal and yes I'm going to miss my training and running but as I've thought about it over the course of the day that makes me want to do it more, because I will miss it! Not only will I miss it but I will come back stronger, you can't beat that!

So what do we do when life doesn't go the way we planned? Well there are several ways we can react to this:

1) We can give up.

2) We can get mad and stay mad and not do anything constructive.

3) We can choose to see the positive and the God-good in the situation, learn from it and keep going.

I am choosing #3, no matter the situation.

A bad sprain may seem like a small thing but choosing the right attitude in this circumstance matters just as much as choosing the right attitude in a seemingly overwhelming circumstance.

Let me give you a real life example of my own.

My husband committed suicide in 2014. Now I'd be lying if I didn't say that was an awful thing to to go through and I was hurt for a long time. However, I had some decisions to make. Do I throw a fit and act like life was supposed to guarantee me certain things? Do I give up on love? Do I give up on life? Do I choose to see the good all around me and all the wonderful things I still have in this life? Do I choose to see where God is in all of this?

I will admit it would have been easier to give up but how much would I have missed out on? It would have been easier to get angry and stay angry. It would have been easier to withdraw from my world. However, I've never been one for easy. I didn't want the easy way out. I had a lot of life to live. I also had too much God-good in my life - friends, family, interests, abilities, the list goes on. That list includes the book and the words God gave me then and the words He gives me for this blog - and the words he will give me for the next book.

Have I learned a lot from that time in my life and the time leading up to that? Absolutely. Not only have I learned a lot, I've learned a lot about who I am, and who I'm not. I would have never come to this place in my life had I chose to stay mad or give up.

What do we do when life doesn't go as planned? To stay healthy we need to do three things:

1) We face our circumstance head-on, recognize what we are feeling and work through those feelings.

2) Look for the God-good in everything. Trust me, it's there.

3) Choose to grow and learn from the circumstance instead of letting the circumstance dictate our attitude, let alone the course of the rest of our life.

Here's to staying healthy,

Elizabeth


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