This is Your One Shot

Sometimes I just want to walk up to people and shake them.

“Why are you living like this?”

“This is the life you want to look back on and be proud of?”

“This is the life that you’re going to learn from and want to share with your kids?”

When you look at the big picture and realize you are ever only guaranteed one moment, the moment you are in, is this really how you would choose to go out?

 

I have guy friends who sit on the couch drinking beer, smoking, taking who-knows-what, and sleeping every chance they get and on the rare occasion they have enough energy to actually make it out of the apartment to a bar…they wonder why they can’t get any girls.

 

Wait…are you being serious??  You lazy bum, with eyeballs only half open, your personality completely shut down because of whatever pill you decided to take tonight and reeking like booze?  Hmmm, those sound like a winning combination, WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE GIRLS?!?!  

 

Being one of the few females that actually cares about what happens to these guys, I have to say I feel I only stick around because I have hope that one day they will snap out of it and the reality of what they are doing to themselves will sink in.  I had dated one of these guys in high school when he was a completely respectable, he was a great guy and I look at him now and I can’t believe this is who he decided to become!

 

If the life you’re living now isn’t something you’d want your future children to see or do…then don’t do it.

 

To tell you the truth, I get that it is fun to go out a have a good time, I’d be lying if I said I never had a fun time out and it probably wouldn’t bother me as much if it was a phase but I really think this is a way of living for them, they would be perfectly content to live the rest of their days this way because they don’t remember or they haven’t experienced anything better.  When I say they don’t remember, the drugs have probably gotten to a majority of the brain cells already. 

 

What really caught me off guard the other day was when one of them said he would change if he ever had a kid.  Really? You would? For how long? Because to change that quickly from a habit you have spent half your young life creating can’t just be broken in a second.

 

Now some of these guys really have confidence in themselves, or so it seems.  I think on the inside they do these things because it fills a void that was created a few years ago by a horrible experience.  I get it, it hurts, I would probably have had a dreadful time recovering from that too, but you did it the wrong way.  Is this how you honor the memory?  Is this how you show your gratitude?

 

It really hurts having to see these people, people I really care about head down a road that I’m afraid they eventually won’t recover from.  To head down a road that could lead to fewer days than we are even given.  I worry one day I’ll wake up and hear horrible news about one of them and that scares me.  I try to be a light in their lives but they completely shut up when I try.  I wish so badly I could just shake them and shake all that junk out of them so they could start over and head in a better direction.  I pray so often for them to find their way in life and to “save” themselves while they have the chance, in whatever way they can. 

 

God break my heart for what breaks yours.  I heard that phrase so many times but it rings so true at this time in my life.  My heart hurts seeing someone who a few years ago had such big dreams and now sitting on their couch spending their graciously given time digging themselves deeper into the hole.  It hurts to see glimpses of a good guy in a person only to be taken away by the substances he puts into his body to make himself feel better.  My heart breaks thinking of what could happen if they don’t turn their lives around soon.  It hurts to know that at this point in time I can’t do much, I can really only pray.

 

We have no control over this life we have been given, what we think we control has already been predetermined, God knows our whole lives before we even know what we are doing after we get off work.  Sometimes there is nothing more you can do to help another…

Sometimes all you can do is pray.  

Thank you for your love

Thank you for teaching me right from wrong. 

Thank you for teaching me manners, whether I want to use them or not at certain times. 

Thank you for raising me to have morals and standards; to have respect for others but most importantly myself because if you have respect for yourself as a person then respect for others will follow naturally. 

Thank you for being there for me no matter my mood, my situation, my question or your opinion. 

Thank you for teaching me that I deserve to be respected and that I should not lower my standards for anyone or anything that is less than I deserve. 

Thank you for not letting me grow up to be one of “those” girls. 

Thank you for giving me the strength to know that I am good enough and that the wrong kind of attention given or received is not what I am about. 

Thank you teaching me how to hold my head high with pride, class and dignity.

For teaching me to not let it get to my head but have just enough to hold myself up on my own two feet. 

Thank you for raising me to be proud of who I am, to feel comfortable with my decisions, to know what lines and boundaries to not cross or let anyone else cross, thank you for the belief in myself that you have instilled in me. 

Thank you for giving me my independence but also the understanding that my family and my faith is first and foremost; that I can rely on you to be there for me no matter what may happen, how upset we may be with each other, or how different our opinions match up. 

Thank you not only for the material items you have provided me as I’ve been growing up but most importantly thank you for everything you’ve taught me. 

Thank you for your love.