I played certain songs that I felt like I needed to hear right after writing my first post this morning and my listening to these songs very quickly turned into worship and lasted longer than I'd intended for it to, and after worshipping this morning I decided that I need to handle the subject in that original post differently. So, I'm editing the original post, cutting a lot of unnecessary stuff out that probably doesn't need to be said and probably shouldn't be said and opening some of the stuff that did need to be said up a little more...

This is that second edit:

  I work my ass off when I commit to something. I've learned how to do that though. I didn't always know how to do it right. I've wasted a lot and lost a lot because of that, in my life. I'm unwilling to waste in that way anymore. 

  I used to not choose to discipline myself to dedicate my intention and attention and the actual amount required of my available resources including time, attention, energy, and effort to things I should have because I divided my resources between multiple things that drew them from me and way too much of them. I also proportionately used to accept this same treatment from others because I hadn't defined this prioritizing responsibility as a value and a boundary that's actually extremely important to me yet. I have now and because I have I now recognize what's going on in these kinds of scenarios better when they occur and the signs of what it looks like on the outside, on the incoming. And it's because of this that I don't mind defining and insisting on my boundary to reserve my resources for the right investments of them only and it is because of this that I do not mind if it is not preferable to anyone else in particular that I must insist on this boundary.

  Teams don't build themselves. You have to know and care for your team people and invest in them. You need to really show up for your people when you show up and dividing focus defrauds your own team of that focus, attention, and intention that they are entitled to like noone else is. I also understand when someone is communicating to me through actions that they have better things to go do. So, I should and will take such a cue and go focus on me and mine and refrain from holding those who have better things to do up from going and doing those better things. It's not frickin advanced calculus or rocket science. It's simple human communication regarding priorities. Consistent action is what builds the story that illustrates what you really want and you need to understand, yourself, before you start putting your own seed in the ground and really putting roots in what exactly it is that you really want, and all I read in the story from many people, most people really, is that they do not know what they want. I, however, amazingly, finally do, and that, the not being a priority and gaining nothing in the way of consistency other than constant reminders of what a priority I am not, is not at all anywhere near the galaxy of what I want. I want to be done with all that and those who practice these things forever, to start with, and then many other things which diverge from this subject entirely.

  There are scriptures about dross being refined out of pure metals in a crucible and our works, all we've done being burned in a similar refining fire to see what would remain through the testing. I feel like this is where we are now, in my life, with many people and things. In the end we face our God one on one, face to face for our final review. I want to bring people with me like I'm supposed to and be surrounded by people, in the way there, who are on the same mission as me but the thing about that is, this is a really hard ruck and that weak sauce crap I've seen from so many inconsistent people whose priorities render worse results than would come about from them not even being in my life isn't gonna spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and in many other ways, survive this ruck. It is literally like both Pilgrims Process by Bunyan and Pilgrims Regress by C.S. Lewis really in that you just have all these obstacles and obstacles after obstacles and obstacles in this never ending gauntlet designed to make you give up, by the devil himself and all the forces of the demonic empire and, you know, I'm a believer now in what Jesus said about letting the dead bury the dead...

  My brother does not like it when I mention to him that he had to scrape the brain matter of a boy he was deployed with off of a humvee window to get all of him home to his family, but even though this is a very powerful story to tell, for the fact that he survived to tell it, I don't mention it anymore and I won't, but this frickin story just reminds me, everything I think passes through and gets regulated by that CPU that ended up on a window for one guy whose place my brother would have been in had he not asked to drive that day. But as noble and vital I feel it is for certain reasons for some people to get every bit of my brother's brothers and sisters home to their families, I think that Jesus, the one out of all of us who I know for a fact didn't stay dead is right: Some people you just need to let em go off on their own program because that's just what they really want and that's just what it is, so, let the dead bury the dead and go be about the land of the living and invest correctly there, being a good steward of what God has already invested in you.

  Having something and then losing it could be worse than never having it. Not always, but it may be in many cases. No one's proud of me and I'm pretty sure no one ever will be, but I choose to get out of the boat like Peter did twice and follow Jesus and maybe He will be some day. I feel like it is as Jesus said, in that for certain people who feel like they have way too much to lose, it would be easier for them to pass a camel through the eye of a needle than it would be for them to get into the kingdom of God because of their priorities, and that's what this entire entry is about, priorities. 

  You know, the truth is, priorities just don't align sometimes and you have to make a decision, go a specific direction, and get there, and, you know, like Jesus said, "Where I go, no man can follow.", but I am no man... I'm reborn, and it's real, not a grift or just emotions like it is for a lot of people; I'm choosing every day to be dead to sin and alive in Christ alone. I'm building the discipline and I'm not turning back like so many other people do these days... "Are you going to turn back too?", Jesus asked Peter after he said what he said about eating his flesh, because many people were leaving him after hearing what he said because they didn't get it... but, listen: I started out this entry talking about how I work my ass off. How in the hell do you think I do it? I'm a 42 year old female who hasn't had health insurance for years. I drink a protein supplement. "I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength." 

  That's what it is. He died so that we could live. The whole world says your worth is utter trash to them but your own creator becomes vulnerable and pervious like you and then lived their whole life a thoroughly good steward and good decision maker not screwing it up once then dies in your place to foot the bill of an entire lifetime of terrible stewardship and bad decision making. This overwrites all those shitty, corrupting files about our sense of worth s and what we should dedicate our focus and time and all our other resources to. It makes us risk taking team builder servant leaders like him because he was the first adult out of all of us used and abused and abandoned feral children to be the adult in the room and show us the example of what that actually looks like so that we could stand up for ourselves against all the pharisees and betrayed and corrupt oppressive overlords and do the adult thing to do despite all that not allowing abutting to become a sufficient excuse for us to not do the right thing to do. ...And when you're like the rich man in the parable of the rich man that it would be easier to pass a camel through the eye of a needle than it would be for that guy to get into the kingdom of heaven because that guy perceives himself as having way too much to lose by standing up and being the adult, servant leader in the room, who acknowledges Jesus as the actual legitimate head of household, you are going to turn back. 

  You're not going to be able to make the ruck because of your priorities, not for any lack. You're a frickin rich dude; You should be able to get all the cool guy gear to get it all done the most efficiently and with the best results but because of that, the fact that you're rich in excuses to maintain the same old priorities only really lacking the one thing that you really need to aquire the most, the understanding that everything is from God and he is the true legitimate head of household, not you, you're just a steward,  you're never even going to legitimately start off on the mission. You're gonna turn back and you're not going to even stop to listen and verify this thing that people are exhorting you about which is that you have in fact turned back and you are actually not with us on this ruck; You're off on your own program doing rich guy things with rich guy priorities instead of team oriented things with team oriented priorities. 

  Galatians. A hundred percent. Get Galatians under your belt. You've got some discrimination issues you're warping and conflating and projecting because someone taught you wrong and then taught you to do that mother lemming offering up her babies to the predator instead of getting eaten herself thing. Like, seriously, they came first for the trigs, then the trogs, then me, do you really think it matters who trigs and trogs are placeholders for when that good which you could have done you chose not only to not do but to instead do big cowardly things that ended up being the opposite of why you were put by your maker in that position that you are in, "For such a time as this". 

  Uncle Mordecai ain't playin: God has no problem switching out parts that don't do the job right for one's that do in order to get the job done and done right. Believe that. There are many redeemed who are ready, willing, and able, who are out here drinking their protein shakes, to do the job and do it right. Ain't nothin but a point and click for the creator and sustainer of everything who redeems all things as their priorities line up appropriately to the mission.