Positive Thinking

I have heard all my life about having a Positive Mental Attitude. For forty years, my father drove this into my thick skull. I believed it, I really tried to practice it. But every day life kept getting me down. Maybe there's something to it, but I could never find it. The harder I tried to focus on the positive, the harder the negative would pound me. It got extremely painful to think positively. I mean, when you beat your head against the wall, you're gonna knock yourself out and get a little bloody in the process. So, from the time I was about 8 until I was 21, I tried to focus on the positive.

Since I met her, my wife has been telling me the same thing. There is an old song, "I want a girl just like the girl that married dear old dad". My song would be slightly different: "I got a girl just like the guy that married dear old mom". Not that she's masculine - she's very feminine (and HOT!). She's more woman than most of the women I know. But her mind works just like my dad's. She's focused, determined and successful. She's got her act together. She knows what she wants and she gets it.

Tonight we were having a discussion about homeschooling. I'm having serious trouble with it. I really didn't want it. I took it because it would mean her career would stabilize. I can't get a job to replace her pay, so I'm the Stay-At-Homeschool-Dad. Her job is one that I would love to have - dealing with computer security and scripting. Wow!

We discussed how to succeed - you picture in your head a successful outcome. Then, when all is said and done, you have succeeded. Simple, right? So I picture in my head a successful homeschooling. And the toilets back up and I'm stuck spending a lot of time trying to get the house ready for new carpet. Then I focus on schooling again. And I get sick. Then I focus and something else happens. How the heck do you stay focused on something when you keep getting whacked in the head?

Pray. Prayer is our hotline to God. He may not instantly change things to your liking, but He can give you peace to handle it. Ask Him for wisdom in situations that have you flustered. It works. Then you begin to ask His hand to guide you through His will to your goals. As long as your goals don't conflict with His will, you are guaranteed success. I see it in other aspects of my life. Why not here?

I have a mental block about this. I don't want to be here. Though I've been doing this for a while, I'm sitll hoping against hope that it will be a temporary situation. I'm still hoping that soon I'll be working again and my wife can come home and take care of the kids and the house. What's a man's position in the world, after all? Aren't we supposed to be bringing home the bacon? The male-oriented world has twisted my perception of the family into something it doesn't really have to be.

So, I need to pray hard for success in someplace that I really don't want to be. That's my problem. The success won't come without His intervention anyway; I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength. The converse is also true, I can do no things without Christ to give me strength. I want my kids to succeed in their education. I want my kids to learn at home 'cuz there's a lot of bad stuff in school, public and private. I want my kids to grow up in a Christian environment with little influence to abandon their Christian upbringing. That means, as long as I'm home, I need to be the one to ensure this happens.

I pray that God will show me how to be His servant even in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. He has promised that He will give us no problems we can't overcome. So, I can overcome this - with His help. I need to change my attitude (as my wife always tells me) and believe that this is where I need to be. I need to focus on the now, and not worry about where I want to be. If I am faithful with a little bit, I will be rewarded with a lot.