For the last three years I have been lost to myself. I was immersed in self-destruction, emotion and confusion. I was supposed to be building myself up, but was instead breaking myself down. 
I have ruined myself financially and continue to struggle to find pennies to simply make it through the week to try to maintain everything. I have sacrificed my own needs to promote and support the needs of others who never reciprocated. And after never saying “thank you,” or even recognizing my contributions, they opened their arms with the expectation that there would be more.
In this last three years, emotion and failure has ruled me and controlled every thought and action.
Today I begin a new life. Today I take my life back. Today, I remember who I am and what I want to do for ME. Today, I recall the dream and the accompanying fire that the Creator put into my heart and sent me to this planet with. Today, I give in to that and will pursue it with all of my heart and soul. Today, I return to the laser focus I had toward my goals before I got sidetracked and saddled with a burden - the focus that I had prior to this 3-year period.
Though there is still a burden and are still things to clean up and work through, today it is different because today my mind is clear, my focus is back and the emotion, though not completely gone, will not control my thoughts and actions anymore.
Sometimes we make mistakes and we let the anger and guilt that we impose on ourselves rule us. Today, I forgive myself for that major life-altering mistake and the burden that I have carried in my heart for three years. I let it go. By the grace of God, I let it go. It was a misdirection, an error in my course. I found what I wasn’t looking for and let negativity persuade me to go off my path because it convinced me that this was what I needed. In reality, all I ever needed was me and this mission in my heart.
In retrospect – with all of the reflection that I’ve been doing – I understand that I was offered a choice and in making the choice I made, I knew that it would have certain privileges, but at the same time present certain obstacles, or repercussions. I chose to ignore the negative aspect and to sit and weigh the pros and the cons as I let my emotions rule the day and I stepped into what turned out to be a massive burden, complications, heartbreak and trouble. The privileges that I thought I would have turned to naught. And, they were things that I thought I needed, that I believed this situation would supply, but in reality, the promises made to me early on were not kept and things changed. I put myself in the line of fire, a fragile position of sacrifice to create something that I did not want and wasn’t looking for. I have learned that the only person I can truly and totally rely on is me as I will keep the promises I make to myself. Or, if I change my mind about those promises, it’s so much easier to forgive me than to forgive someone else. And, at the end of the day, and the end of this life, all I have is me.
Ah, life is full of so many lessons and if we choose not to take our time and evaluate what we are doing, sometimes those lessons can be painful and can eat away the precious time that we’ve been given for this life.
I have one more large project in front of me. It is not just a burden of time, but also a burden of money as everything else has been. This I will complete too and it will be the last of these kind. Now the door shuts and the curtain closes on these types of things and I will truly enter into my heart specifically to focus on me.
In taking my life back, I have again clearly defined my goals. I will respect this precious time that I’ve been given and no longer waste a drop of it. As the minutes turn into hours, days, months and years and as the clock turns, I will use it wisely by taking advantage of what I put into that time. I will embed growth into every moment. I will remove the emotion from my decisions and allow common sense and logic to monitor my steps. But, love, I will keep ever present in my heart.
