THE IRRITATING TAG OF CHANGE

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight. Proverbs 3: 5-6 


My dad used to cut them off right from the beginning.  A new shirt out of the bag immediately meant looking for scissors to cut the irritating tag. I wondered why he didn't just wait to first determine if the tag would bother him. His mission to eradicate the irritant was with the same resolve he shewed flies from a car while driving.  

Sunday at church, I found myself shifting in my seat and mind, agitated. Strangely, I wasn't sure if it was the message or not. I tried to tag the cause of the irritation.

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Just to let you know, I am not one that removes tags from clothing upon first receiving them. I have lived with tags on most of my clothes. It makes sense to have directions for maintenance at hand.  At times, I have had tags remain on shirts that scraped the back of my neck or flipped up too often causing others to claim they needed to dress me. 

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Even those few that I claimed out loud needed to be taken off because they highly irritated me, I tolerated way too long before I took the time and effort to cut them off.  A few times, tags clearly needed to be cut off because they ruined the look of the outfit.  The tag could be prominently seen through the clothing, and I have definitively ripped them from the material much to the chagrin of anyone standing near me.

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Like choosing whether to leave tags on or not, I would suppose it takes me time to reason through the muck of thoughts and feelings to process what agitates and moves me. It can be a slow Sunday walk to figure the trigger of my agitation. I wish it were as simple as rolling down a window to release a fly buzzing around my face. But the thoughts buzzing in my head just don't always seem to present themselves as quickly or clearly.

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What often begins as a stirring in my heart  isn't always obvious at first to my brain.  I usually struggle to figure out the reason for this chosen emotional impulse of agitation. I can struggle to find a label for it.  To label it,  I have to be patient and wait for the thoughts secretly flying behind the source of it to land clearly in view.

blog.asiantown.net

Sometimes the confusing feelings and chaos seem to rear up rebellious insurgents within my own heart's ranks. Literally, I feel at war within my own heart and thinking, between what I experience and my thoughts about it, between what I experience and adequately expressing what I feel about it, between what I believe and how life is happening in the real world, between what I hope for and what I am willing to work for, between what I will tolerate as inconsequential in the realm of life and what I will determine is of utmost importance in the scheme of life.

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Moving through the mound of thoughts seems a bit like sorting through a hoarders belongings. Somehow, I end up at a pile that I thought I had sorted. It is the slow figuring to seek what the heart is finding. Like the thousand voices that vie for my attention, today I try to give attention to what I see and hear in order to press out the wrinkles that are forming around the doubting and questioning eyes of my heart.



Sunday, processing another person's thoughts about change seemed to create an entire wardrobe of new tag choices for me. My thoughts about change come with a myriad of alternatives and decisions and perspectives and experiences and consequences. Would it be so much easier if change were a simple yes or no decision from the beginning, if I chose to just rip the tags from from the new shirt or not?

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Yet, I do not just rip the tag. There are maintenance issues to think about that go along with this change. There are vital directions to understand and choose and follow. Each change brings content choices.  These tags serve a relevance and provide necessary information. Change, in my mind's reality, is more of an evaluative process like a slow drawl speech.

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I may need to put the tagged shirts through a real life wash and wear cycle before I decide if the tags will remain. It will take me time and real life experience before I make a choice about the change.

Being certain about my ideas and conversations on change may take awhile, a processing, before I realize that it is really me that chooses these thoughts. It takes me time to be certain these changes are true representations of those things I desire and deem as truth. Once I sort through these tags, these possible irritants and aggravations, the impact of the tag ( the directions) will be what changes my involvement in the entire process of change.

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When change keeps buzzing around like flies, and I keep swatting in all directions, I am ever mindful of this process:


Do not be conformed to the world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of the God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. Romans 12:2