Care Enough to Battle- Remember the R’s

Wow, what a year, the year of 2023 has been an interesting one for sure. Was 2023 good to you, rough on you, or a little or a lot of both?

Do you remember that saying, “When life throws you a curve ball…?” I was thinking about that today. I remember as a kid, I loved to play baseball, any kind of baseball…playing catch, pitching to a wall, playing wiffle ball or paper ball… It didn’t matter, I loved the game. One of the things we learned early on was the curve ball… how to pitch it, how to catch it, and most importantly how to hit it. Here’s the thing with a curve ball, as a batter, you must learn how to read it… try to learn how the threads are moving and which direction they are going. This takes a lot of practice, a lot of bruises (as kids, we couldn’t throw the curve ball as good as we thought, so there were times when the ball didn’t break and you would get hit), but most importantly to stay in the box and wait for it to break so you can take that ball downtown! I can go on and on about this… but I think you get the point… life has curveballs, and we are going to get caught in them at times, maybe even get some bruises… but we begin to learn the style, we begin to read the threads, we begin to recognize the tactics of the enemy, and we learn how to wait in the box (patience).

The other night, when I was woken up by sweating and realizing I was running a fever and knew it was my time to catch the Covid, I wasn’t sure if I was a little delirious, or had nothing else to do but to think as I am waiting for my temp to drop down a bit. I am not sure about you, but I don’t get a fever too often, my temperature is usually around 97.7, so even when it hits the 99’s I begin to feel it. I am like the typical guy, thinking I am going to die when I catch a cold, or at least act like it… but not this time! I was going to fight through this. Andrea caught the Covid 2 days before Christmas, so our plans had already changed for the Christmas celebrations (curve ball), and I was about 2 days behind her. The fun thing too, was I had dropped this glass jar of soup on the corner of the stove top (we call this butter fingers) and cracked the glass on top of the stove. Did you know that if you crack the glass on your stove, it is no longer functionable, even the oven. I was so bummed, we had all this baking to do, and now the stove was broken. Andrea and I have gotten used to curve balls, so we just shifted and figured out how to make all of this work still… but then when she tested positive for Covid, we knew we were shut down from seeing the family… this was a good curve ball!

You need to remember the name of this site, Care Enough to Battle… there are so many battles we all face, and we need to care enough to fight these battles… can’t let these things get you down… sure you may get hit, it knocks you down, but we are told in the Bible a good person gets back up… but you need to care enough to get back up… you need to care enough to battle! And that’s what Andrea and I did… we battled through our disappointments, we battled through not being able to do all the plans we had… we battled through Samsung telling us the range is over 2 years old (by a couple of weeks) and out of warranty and they quit making the part we needed so we had to buy another range… we battled… because we cared.

Let me get back to the night of the fever… this letter kept coming to me “R.” It was almost driving me crazy, again, not sure if this was the fever or the Lord causing an irritation until I listened to what He was trying to tell me. I don’t know about you, but sometimes my listening skills are terrible!! I begin to ask what the Lord wanted to tell me about the “R.” As I was listening, I realized He was giving me strategy to battle the next year. I want to share this insight with you.

This is the strategy leaving 2023 and coming into 2024. There are 3 things I wrote down, and I have looked at each one of these in different aspects of my life: personal, spiritual and business. 2023 has been one of the hardest financial years in a long time, but by doing this, I have seen so many ways that God came through, how He provided and how He is already guiding us into 2024. So here they are, I hope this helps you the way it is helping me.

1. Review/ Reflect- in other words, look at your year as a whole… look at the things you did, things you accomplished, things you failed… what I did was I wrote down 5 things that I was grateful for in 2023… and I also wrote down 3 things I was disappointed in 2023. I think it is important to be honest and not just look at the positives, but also look at the negatives.
2. Repent/Remove– Here is the hard part and most people cringe when they hear the word “repent.” They think that if there is something they need to repent from, they are a bad person. Another way to look at this word is by thinking about this word as a way of changing the way you think. For instance, since it was a terrible financial year for me, my thought is still on defense mode, tightening up in all areas of our financial world to make it through this time… that’s not a bad thing, but what if this year is going to be a very prosperous year and I can’t wrap my mind around it because I am just thinking it’s going to be another terrible year… I need to change my thinking. Then there is that word “remove.” I met with my coach (yes I have a coach and that’s another story, but he has been a life saver for me) and we looked at the year and routines we had set and looked to see if there was anything I needed to remove, something that wasn’t working.
3. Restore/ Radicalize– This one is my favorite! I truly believe God is going to restore the things we sacrificed on this life changing move we had done a couple of years ago. We left a lot to follow the Lord’s leading, and there are times when it has been very difficult to keep fighting this battle, but we remember His promise in all of this. I love that word “radicalize” and I honestly don’t even know if it’s a word and I don’t care because the way I see this word, it’s like the word rad, and rad is awesome… so I believe God is putting into motion all this year’s  work, all this year’s blood, sweat and tears and He is going to make it rad, He is going to radicalize it! Maybe it’s time for you to allow Him to do this in your life as well!!

This is all I have for now. I thought for a moment I would share some of my gratitude’s and some of my disappointments, but I think I have written enough. My prayer for you is that you take some time and do these 3 steps, be grateful for what God has done, and what He is about to do! Give God your disappointments for the year, and let Him make beauty from the ashes! 2023 is being put to bed, and as I write this I still have the Covid, and hooping tomorrow I will be negative and be able to celebrate Christmas with the family on the last day of the year! But if not, then I will start 2024 celebrating with the family and opening presents and will have a new stove for cooking and baking!! May God bless your new year and may you care enough to battle!!