Yesterday, I Cried_ Celebrating the Lessons of Living and Loving - Iyanla Vanzant [127]
You see, Damon, whatever is going on in your life comes from inside you. Even my telephone being disconnected is an internal issue. All the negative thoughts and emotional crap must be cleaned out before God can build a foundation inside us. When the crap starts surfacing, it looks like trouble, it looks like things are going bad, and it looks like we are doing the wrong thing. Nothing could be further from the truth. The truth is, when we go to God, He must tear us down in order to build us up. God cannot build upon our distorted ideas, foolish beliefs, miseducation, and misinformation. All of that must come out as conditions we live through so that we can see what we have been thinking. When things go bad in our lives, we try to fix them because we don’t realize God is fixing us. Until we see the bad stuff, we cannot make up our minds not to do the things that brought us to that point in the first place.
I am almost forty years old, and I am just beginning to understand who I am and what God wants me to do. There are times when I doubt. That is when I pray. There are times when I am afraid. That is when I remember, “Fear not, for I am with you.” There are times when I want to throw my hands up, go get a real job, working for somebody else from nine to five, and say, “Forget this crap!” Then I remember, “For everything, there is a season. A time to laugh and a time to cry.” I have been crying for almost forty years. It is time for me to laugh. In order to laugh, I know I must work through the crap, live through the bad, and have my eyes opened wide to the miracle of life called ME.
Right now, I want nothing more than a family, a home, and a man to love me and work with me, to build with me, and share life with me. I do not want to raise any more children. I do not want to suffer. I do not want to be broke. I want to live my life to the fullest every day, enjoying every moment. I know that is about to happen. I also know, in the divine time and the divine way, it will happen. I am no longer willing to accept less than the best. I still make mistakes, but now, when I do, my eyes are open enough for me to say, Okay, that is a mistake, I cannot do that again. I catch myself in the process and change what I am doing.
You have always wanted to have your way. You have always wanted things to go the way you want them to go. When you get an idea in your head, you will not let it go. I remember how you would always say, “If it kills me, I will …” If you do not open your eyes soon, this thing with your wife and mother-in-law will kill you. It will kill your spirit. It will kill your mind. I know you have prayed and asked God to show you. Well, I think He is showing you, but your eyes are closed. Your wife does not write, she does not send you money, her hair is more important than your coat. She makes absolutely no attempt to mend or heal your relationship. You continue to hold on and insist. Could it be that God is showing you who your wife really is? Could it be that you need to use your mother-in-law to excuse your wife for what she is doing? She married you without her mother’s permission and against my advice. She knew you were selling drugs and stealing cars before her mother knew it. She knew that the two of you were not prepared and could not afford to have a baby. When she wanted you, she did exactly what her mother told her not to do. Now she is showing you she does not want you, and you want to blame her mother. Why? Because your eyes and ears are still closed. You are still blind, and you are making yourself dumb.
After all that has happened between you and me, I am still here for you, doing what I can for you. That is my choice. I could have said to hell with you a long time ago. I did not, because I am your mother, in good