Crap happens......
Persevere.
This can be life sometimes, and it can feel repetitive. Every time I feel I’m close, a bump in the road happens. They used to be roadblocks, but now they are just obstacles which detour me from my final destination. Over the summer I was delayed in paying off my current round of debt due to my roaster going down for a week and a half. Now just as I am on the cusp of completing my first farmers market season, and finishing my bills and debt for the season, my gallbladder acted up again, and I finally had it removed after dealing with this issue for 5 years. The only problem is now I missed my 2 biggest markets this weekend, and will be limited with what I can do for the rest of them. I am not allowed to lift more than 5lbs, which means I can’t do all the loading and unloading of equipment in my car.
Have faith though, that’s what I’ve learned, everything happens for a reason. Last time this led me to the hospital Easter Sunday 2017, where I spent a week reflecting and preparing for something to change. It did, the religious group I was set to join bailed on me, the hospital waived the majority of my debt, since I had no insurance, and that’s what Catholic charities and hospitals do, provide to those in most need. Shortly after that I met my future wife. I trust similar things will be happening since this happened 1 day before my 10th anniversary of committing to the life I have chosen and the signs always align. It all happened with a Bob Marley song I listened to and prayed with for 3 months, leading to the day I went to a church where the gospel and homily on Oct 31 2010 aligned perfectly with that prayer. Ironically the woman who did my sonogram was from Jamaica and I was able to share this story with her.
Once they confirmed that my gallbladder needed to be removed, they thankfully were able to do so later that afternoon. As they laid out my arms on the operating table in a Cross like, Crucifixion manner, I was reminded of what Christ did for me on that Cross. He sacrificed and surrendered to the Father’s will, trusting there was a great purpose, the Resurrection and new life. This can’t happen though unless we surrender our plans, so they can align with God’s plan. This is what I was reminded of right before the anesthesia kicked in, surrender and trust it’s going to be ok, despite this temporal moment of suffering and set back. God is bigger than any problem, and these problems are sometimes solutions to perfecting our lives, our original sin and our need to control often gets in this way of this perfection.
In my case, I was in the hospital due to my choices, I messed up and ate a bunch of food I should not have, in addition I wasn’t on my diet that has kept me healthy for the past 3 years since my previous hospital stay. This is life though, I acknowledge where I failed, thank God for fixing my faults, and trust things will get better now that I acknowledged my fault. Blaming others just allows things to persist down an unhappy path. The other side is no could’ve, should’ve, would’ve. It simply wasn’t meant to be, yet.
In close, this needs to be our philosophy in any failure, while I usually talk about beginning a business, I very often encountered failing businesses in my past, which required me to fix them up and turn them around. The previous person and supervisor had a million excuses for the failures, where if they would just be accountable, they could then address the issue and fix it in a reasonable time. Often we choose to ignore it until it leaves us in some kind of financial or spiritual bankruptcy. This sadly would happen to many friends of mine as well in their business practices. Accountability is everything in life, and when we do that, starting and growing will always be easier, because when crap does happen, you can quickly identify the problem, fix it, and leave the rest to God.
