Best Laid Plans

I did really try to make Monday a positive day. I started out thinking it would be better and I actually felt better until later this afternoon.

I'm generally a caring person and I tend to want to help people. I'm a sap for a good sob story and I usually take people at face value. That has never done me a single moment of good. I am the one who ends up with a metaphorical black eye while the other fella walks away with a smirk on their face because I was a schmuck.

I think I've finally learned a lesson that I believe God has been trying to teach me for a long time. Sometimes, no matter how much you love someone or care about them, if they don't want to be loved or cared about, nothing you can do will help them and it will never be enough in their eyes or it will never be what they want. The best you can do is throw in the towel and turn them over to whatever fate awaits them. These are the truly hopeless.

Every journey we take has a purpose and a point. Some of us recognize it right away while others take a bit longer. I do not believe in randomness or chance meetings. There is an ultimate destination and every person you encounter along the way means something to your journey. Perhaps the person will only have a slight impact on you but it matters. That person you bumped into as you left the store may have delayed you just seconds but that delay was important for some reason, for you or them. That person had some impact for some purpose you don't see. The detour you had to take prevented a delay that could have cost you or someone else something serious or took you on a route where you avoided a disaster.

My own experiences have proven this to me repeatedly. I know that in my case, there have been people placed in my path that were profoundly important that they be there. Many times I actually examine how every person I know has affected my life. It always surprises me. Some people I've run into, not because I was supposed to meet them, but because they were supposed to meet me. There is a subtle but profound difference in the two situations. I've had a couple of times in my life with I clearly knew I had been put in someone's path to be there for them, not for myself, but for them.

I believe God positions people in opportune places and times. That, just as he steers the stars, so too he steers our lives as much as we will let him. And he will go to great lengths to bring out the good in our life that he intended. But there are those, who no matter how much good comes their way, no matter how many good people reach out, no matter how many open doors they happen on, no matter how many sunny paths are laid at their feet... they will always choose something else. They will always take the path that looks easiest but which deprives them of something of value. And when failure comes, they will always place the blame on others.

 I do not understand it but I am at a place where I'm trying to accept it. I do not accept defeat easily. Those who know me know I do not give up on people I think are of value, in whom I see some potential good. But I'm there. I finally am at a place where I realize some people, by their own will, are not worth the effort it takes to help them.

 There is an old saying, "God helps them who help themselves." As my Mama used to say, it isn't in the Bible but it ought to be.