A DIFFERENT REFLECTION FOR A DIFFERENT THANKSGIVING DAY. By: Josimar Salum
A lack of curiosity is the mother of all ignorance. We only see what we want to see. We only see what we are used to seeing. We don't investigate what we don't want to learn. And we purposely disconnect from everything that is not in our interest.
However, we don't have to be like this, we don't have to live the same way as before.
If our curiosity is piqued by the thirst for knowledge, we will start seeing and learning new things all the time.
If we want, it is possible to stop being what we are.
Life will become an adventure, a journey of discovery and a wealth of new things never imagined.
The story of our life is just the selective perception of its events, the memory of what we consciously decided to store in our minds and the selection of facts that marked us, good or bad, but especially not so much those that made us happy and pleasured as those that made us suffer.
We can live from past experiences that will invariably abort any new lessons that we could engage in searing what we are in a mummy identity, or we can decide to start a journey of constant transformation in ourselves that will always rejuvenate us, nullifying the effects of that subjective, lost time.
Healing the painful memories of what made us suffer is a liberating experience.
If it involves people, you have to forgive them.
If it involves experience, you have to accept what happened. Or analyze it to get what is profitable out from what is harmful. Abandon what causes harm and embrace that which serves as a benefit.
We invariably imprison and hold captives within us, those who betrayed us, hurt us, acted unjustly, offended, harmed, abandoned us, separated from us and even those who we simply think did such things.
Truly, when we do not immediately forgive, we cage within us those who have damaged our reputation, destroyed our assets and values, slandered, despised, harmed or raped those we love.
Master Jesus Christ said that we must "love our enemies, speak well of those who curse us, pray for those who persecute us, bless those who curse us and forgive" It is possible!
To forgive is to release these people, to free them from within us, to let them go outside of us, one by one, until we stop nourishing any desire for revenge and longing for any harm to happen to them.
To forgive is to decide that our heart is no longer a deposit of hurt and bitterness, that our mind is no longer an archive of bad memories and a sting of inner wounds and that our present immediately ceases to be a prisoner of the past.
Accepting what we cannot change, an accident that we cannot avoid, a tragedy that has made us a victim, the mistakes we make and the bad decisions we make, all that makes us human and makes our soul a source of serenity means to acquiesce in humility and ignite the flame of resilience that makes small bushes bear everything until they become big trees and hopeless children, warriors against hope until they become great men and women.
You can give up running the marathon of life because of pain, discomfort and tiredness and thus become a frustrated loser for life. Or you can decide to make it to the end, even if you don't make it first. What matters is that the race is completed.
As all pain and tiredness are passengers, you can ignore them for some time and insist on running until you reach the finish line, and not giving up to become a champion of life.
You have to decide not to give up on a race, decide that you will never give up on life under any circumstances.
Life has to be a constant journey of persistence, overcoming limits, overcoming challenges, solving problems or always trying to solve them, the conviction that everything you do will always be able to do better and the certainty that there is nothing in life that cannot be overcome, not even death.
To persist is a decision of its own and does not depend on anyone.
Always exceed our own limits, since we haven't used even 5% of our potential.
Our transformation is triggered when we believe in Him who, even though he was unjustly condemned, tortured, wounded without measure, mistreated like an evildoer, quartered, died crucified among more than two thieves and criminals and overcame everything, even hell and the grave.
If everything is lost for Him, everything is gained; if everything is renounced, everything is achieved and if life is lost, it is won forever.
Because Jesus is risen, not even death is the end. Because He won, by faith you can also overcome any battle, any situation and even the whole world. Because He lives, you can live. Forever.
It is on top of this mount that it is necessary to place gratitude as an ornament. You have to cover everything with gratitude. With a satisfied heart. With a smile even with tears in your eyes. With words of thanksgiving on your lips, yes, with a joyful heart and words of thanks.
#ASONE
Translated by: Filipe S.S. Gouvea
