Transitioning from the Ditch and to Your Life’s Path

How do you get out of a ditch and up onto a path that is personally designed for YOU? And once you are there, how do you stay on that path?

Today is a good day to evaluate the “stuck in a ditch” lifestyle you might be in and confront the overwhelming feelings you have from just thinking about living this way every day. It’s time to acknowledge the wall on both sides of you that’s keeping you boxed in–the walls that are preventing you from easily walking up and out of the ditch. Protected by the closeness of the sides, you might feel safe in that ditch. Never seeing up over the top of those two walls, you can’t tell if you are going in circles, or moving forward. The familiarity of seeing those two side walls every day makes you feel secure. Unexposed, nobody notices you much down there. Up there, up out of the ditch, you might become vulnerable to whole new surroundings. You might be seen and expected to become someone you don’t feel equipped to become right now. The thought of that can be paralyzing, can’t it?

Just think about something for a minute, though, a little nugget of something different. Allow one tiny new thought to come into your head and the boundaries of your thinking to enlarge. In most ditches, there are rocks of different sizes scattered around; there are holes covered up with leaves. If you aren’t constantly looking where you are walking, you could trip on a bigger rock or step into an unseen hole. I’m having an episode of the Survivor show flash in my mind right now as I write this. It’s a constant thing to wonder what bad thing might happen to you. You know that life is going on up over those two walls, but you can’t really see what’s happening. Your eyesight is limited. Your vision is limited. Your imagination is limited. You know people are experiencing a different life than you are, but their life seems to be unreachable to you.

What if you could only get out of that ditch and see for yourself what they are seeing? You hear them talking to you and inviting you to come see what they see and do what they are doing, but in your mind, you can’t even imagine your life being like theirs. At this point, maybe you don’t even have the mental or physical strength to extend your own hand up to theirs as they are reaching down to help you out of that ditch.

If you’re a teenager in school, an adult in the workforce, or even an elderly person in community living, you might see a ditch when you look at your body, personality, or your financial status. If so, then you already believe you can’t get out of your situation and on to something better. Your own mind’s popularity meter is already telling you that you are never going to be enough to fit into that group of people. Everyday your thoughts might be, “How can I become one of them?” Every day you might see yourself as in a ditch and everybody else is living their life above you at an unreachable level. Your expectations of yourself are constantly being stretched to try and reach the level you imagine someone else is at.

The revelation and teaching I have on this subject are rich and deep. I didn’t receive it overnight, and this first blog is only the tip of what’s to come. Like most of you, I spent years and years bouncing back and forth from one day to the next, one day not caring at all about what people thought of me to the next where that was all I thought about.

Many times, I was at a point where I didn’t care if my life really was stuck, because I was just flat worn out! Deep down, I still wanted out, but to dredge up the mental, emotional, and physical strength to do something differently to begin the “getting up and out” process was just overwhelming. I called the ditch I was living in, “survival mode.” The Survival Mode ditch is a real thing. And I believe if you will stop and think about it, you will realize you have been, or maybe still are, in that very same ditch.

In my book, I call this type of lifestyle, “merry-go-round living,” just going from one merry-go-round to another, because to do something differently would mean putting in some effort to, first, think differently. At some points in my life, that seemed tooooo hard. Even though fix-it mode and figure-it-out mode seemed to be a bad habit and wrong way of living, it felt impossible to get out of. It was both a ditch and a merry-go-round, where I repeatedly did the same-o-same-o, just staying the same–the frustrated same. It feels a little icky just remembering those days.

I’m so thankful for the day I finally received, through God’s LIVING Word, Jesus. I learned what He provided for me to get through life on earth in a victorious and peaceful way. He provided the strength I needed to put in the effort to get up and out of my survival-mode lifestyle.

Being a wife, a mom of four children with four totally different personalities and needs, an entrepreneur, and in the workforce doesn’t have to be exhausting and overwhelming, if done correctly. We don’t have to do things the way we see others doing things, we can do things differently. We can stop believing lies that tell us things will never change or that we are too far gone. It just takes a bit of adjustment to our thinking, is all. Changing how we think will change how we see and perceive things, and in turn, will change how we believe. Changing how we believe will cause us to joyfully change our actions on our own, without being forced to.

I want to help you learn to live this life in such a way that you know you are so enabled and equipped to do whatever is in your heart, no matter what is going on around you–no matter what your schedule or circumstances are like. Sure, we all have pauses on our life journey or even setbacks due to unforeseen catastrophic events that happen to us. I’ve had my fair share. I call these surprise events, “life earthquakes.” They are hard times you would never sign up for on purpose. The time to prepare for one of these events is ahead of time. If you don’t have the supplies you need ahead of time, before the event happens, then you will be scrambling to survive when you find yourself in the middle of one! I want to help you now, where you are. I want to share with you the things that God shared with me that changed my life. Even if you are in the midst of a life earthquake, today can be a new day for you, a new beginning for you. You’re still breathing, right? Don’t wake up each day expecting the worst or expecting the same bad things to keep tormenting you. Things can change!

I’ll tell you what I often tell the Lord, as I am raising my right hand up in the air and giving Him a high-five, “Let’s do this!!” I sense in my heart that He always gives me a high-five back at the same time as He says, “I’m ready! Follow me!”

Get ready! Make time to renew your mind. Make the decision and prioritize it above all else. Changing the way you see yourself, God, and your place, while living here on earth, is the most important and best thing you can do, for yourself and for the people around you. The change they see in you for the better will encourage and help them in their lives, as well. Doesn’t the thought of your life helping someone else sound amazing?

Remember, this message is for a young person, middle-aged person, or older person. Stay tuned and connected and prepare to receive more revelation that will help you. I will always remember a sign that was above the entry door of a church I previously attended. It said, “Today is the first day of the rest of your life.” Today, you can have another fresh start! Think about this–today you woke up and you are now reading this!

Could it be that God is reaching His hand down to you, through this blog, and my book, to offer you a way out of a ditch and off merry-go-round living?

Cheering for you with Jesus!

Dana Marie Ecklund