For Me, There Truly Can Be No Other Choice

David Tutera is one sexy man!

Not that, that has anything to do with this blog post, I just felt the need to get that out there right up front. :) And yes I am going somewhere with this, just bear with me.

So my affections for Mr. Tutera aside, I've been watching his My Fair Wedding show on WE since the beginning. I mean any opportunity to see the man at work is a gift! He's brilliant, creative, has a great sense of humor, a generous heart, a kind soul and a very low tolerance for idiocy... I love the man. I love watching him make dream weddings happen for women who would otherwise be marrying in their backyard in a rent a gown.

The original concept for My Fair Wedding was for him to be a sort of Professor Higgins to an array of Eliza Doolittles, but along the way it became this magical fairytale sort of show where you just saw all these wonderful moments of dreams coming true and tears of joy and girls that seemed honestly grateful for everything David had brought into their lives.

Loved that show!

This season however, they changed format bringing us instead of My Fair Wedding, My Fair Wedding Unveiled... where we essentially get to see the horrible side that we weren't being shown before.

I swear after only seeing a few episodes of this new series, I feel David should be nominated for sainthood. I have no idea how he's able to work with these people!

From ungrateful, controlling brides, to family members trying to take over, to threatened best friends trying to get into a pissing contest with the man, it's a wonder any weddings take place at all!

I can't watch this version of the show often and the few times I have, I just end up wanting to smack people!

So as I sit here watching, becoming irate and not being able to control my disapproving comments and judgments about gratitude in our society... it hits me...


Good lord, God is my David Tutera and I'm not treating him any better then those ungrateful brides are treating David!

I'm utterly ashamed.

There's nothing god tries to bring into my life that I don't argue with or fight against. I get scared and unsure and I want god stuff to be more logical... I'm Peter trying to walk on water, I do fine for a bit, then I realize that walking on water makes no kind of sense and down I go.

Oftentimes in David's show, a bride will have found some cheap knockoff gown that's sweet, nice even, but David wants to put them in a designer original from Paris and they fight about holding onto their second hand knock off like it's a priceless treasure! They argue with every dress David brings out like he doesn't know what he's doing and like they don't have eyes in their head to see the difference in how they really look in these gowns and I sit here dying, screaming at the TV "what the hell is wrong with you!!??"

OMG that's exactly how I treat god.

I've been given this amazing gift and a life that is becoming extraordinary, but I have fought god on it every step of the way. Arguing, trying to control it, bargain, manipulate... force the wild river that is god into something far more manageable like I somehow have the right and somehow know better than the creator of the universe what's best for me.

Good grief!

So when faced with this awful truth, I have a couple of choices.

• denial, which I am NOT a big fan of
• ignoring... also not such a favorite with me
• change it.

I cannot continue to live with such disrespect to my god and creator. It creates friction in my soul and will keep me from ever truly aligning in harmony with that energy. Yes god loves us and forgives us and doesn't expect perfection, but this is an area where I'm more than capable of doing better in and have been blatantly defiant and for that I'm deeply remorseful.

It is my decision to walk a life of faith and spirituality, that path has certain requirements. Lately I'm being asked to surrender and live a life of balance and discipline. It is quite literally one of the hardest things I've ever been asked to do. It sounds so simple, and it is simple to be honest, but all around me people are living the life I'm trying to get to and they didn't have to go this path to get there. People have what I want and I know for a fact they didn't go through god to get it. I feel like Cinderella having jumped through all the hoops and done all the work, made all the gowns, then left at home to sweep out the ashes while everyone else went off to the ball and yes, my attitude right now sucks.

There is an ever present theme in Christianity about crucifying the flesh. The flesh resists us from transforming into the person God wants us to be. It's the biggest target for attack from the enemy because it's most often where we are weakest. I'm certainly finding that to be true. Seeing my weaknesses this close up is not easy, however, by the grace of God, and through the Holy Spirit, there is a newness of the spirit, for his grace is sufficient every morning and I am going to have to work harder than ever to remember that and to call on that and to stay in surrender despite the desires of my flesh to have everything I long for and have it all now!

The cruelest part of all of it, is I can even seeing a way I could have it now, but it's not the way my spirit leads. When given the choice between my way and god's way, well in my experience, my way is never a good idea.

Please don't get me wrong either, it's not that I wish less then for any of my friends, I'm thrilled that they all seem to be finding their lives and love and having fun and really living while I sit here and meditate and attempt to surrender my need to work constantly and to have great love right this second. I believe to the depths of my soul that there is a god and that he knows better then I do, I'm just so struggling right now with living that.

I am not and will not give up though. Even if I'm denied everything I want, at the end of the day, for me, this is the path I chose and I will not abandon it. I will see this through all the way to the end.

So for me, that means living this fluid "schedule" for lack of any better way of putting it. It's this organic circular thing that forces me to rest and stop working and even have fun time. It's going to take me a little while to get it. Over achiever that I am, I wanted to get it right first day out, but second day out I got sick and I've been limping along ever since. This was my second first day out where I thought I was well enough to go for it, and I screwed it up a few hours in and freaked out and wanted to abandon ship... oh it SO wasn't pretty, but I think discipline, faith, those things are about sticking with the choice you've made, the choice you believe in to be the right path, no matter the obstacles, or the opposition or the screw ups.

I think in a way, all those things are... well irritating yes, but blessings, because without being tested, you don't ever really know if you've gotten it or not. You don't grow strong in your lessons. I'm being tested and I'm not doing well, but I intend to. I continue to meditate and I continue to choose all day long to stay put, even when I'm tempted away, I stay... I stay.

One of the things that is making this particular thing so hard for me is that I can't see how it will ever work. With my eyes, with my logic, it doesn't make sense and for me, sense has long been my god, but there is a more powerful deity asking me to give up my god of logic and "sense" and hold onto him instead. He's promised me more joy, love, happiness, and success then anything my god of logic could ever deliver and though that's not the reason I've made the choice I have, I do believe that. I believe in a god who gives us the strength to accomplish that which he's put in our hearts and who rewards faith and who delights in our victories.

This path is very difficult for me, but I am on it by choice and I will remain on it by faith and in gratitude. I'm crawling at the moment, but I will remain.