It’s Not You, It’s Me - Billy Minshall

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, {God’s} mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is thy faithfulness. Lamentations 3:22-23.

I often drag yesterday’s worries and problems into today. I can wake up and start thinking about a person, place or situation. Before I know it, my obsessive mind starts building cases against an individual or institution. Suddenly, I become the jury and judge delivering a guilty verdict to someone who is not even in the room. All of this can happen before I have even had coffee. What a way to begin the day!

Writing is the safest and most effective way for me to process and map out my feelings. I can take stock of what might be bothering me. Once I identify the problem, I almost always discover that I am the problem not the other person. It is my perception that is off. It is my obsession that is creating something out of nothing. In fact, it is quite likely that the person that I am bothered by is not even thinking about me. To borrow from Taylor Swift’s Anti-Hero, “It’s me…hi…I’m the problem, it’s me.”

The verse from Lamentations reminds me that God’s mercies are new each morning. Each day is an opportunity to begin again. Mercy has been restored each day through God’s faithful love, and yesterday is no more. I must identify what’s going on in my heart so that I can let go, forgive and start fresh every day. 

If God’s faithful love and mercy offers humanity a clean slate each morning, then who am I to keep score and judge someone else? I mean, I should at least have coffee, pray, meditate, exercise, write, work, or actually leave the house before I convict an imaginary defendant based on the flimsy evidence that exists only in my mind.