By Candida Sullivan

Columnist

You are 100 percent responsible for your life.

This is a truth that I need to remember. It is so easy to get caught up in the victim mentality. When things don’t go as planned, our first reaction is usually pity. The moment that we step into the pity mindset, then the enemy joins us. He loves to point out all of the things wrong in our lives. If he can get us to focus on the things about our lives we are struggling with, then he can get us to feel like a victim of our circumstances.

The victim mindset causes us to feel stuck, uncertain, hopeless, and helpless. In this state of mind, we just survive the days. We blame others and think there is no way to overcome our hardships. I remember this feeling well.

As my health declined, I battled the victim mindset. I felt as if I was a victim of Amniotic Band Syndrome. The pain overwhelmed me and caused me to doubt God’s ability to help me to overcome it. The hardest battle was in my mind. If you can defeat it in your mind, then you can defeat it in your life. It starts with faith.

Sometimes we carry burdens that God never intended for us to carry. We are like a little child who is trying to carry something way too heavy for us to carry. We can cry about it, pull and tug on it until we hurt ourselves, or we can ask the Lord to help us carry it.

When we surrender it all to the Lord, then He will show us what we need to do. Taking a few minutes to pray every day for guidance has helped me tremendously. God knows my situation. He knows exactly how to help me. The only way I can know what to do is if I ask Him. In my opinion, this is how we take 100 percent responsibility for our lives. We take our hardships to the Lord and ask Him what we need to do. Then, we do whatever He tells us to do.

I prolonged my pain for years by not heeding God’s instructions. Because I didn’t believe that my healing could be as easy as taking supplements and changing my diet. I didn’t think that sitting for a little while each day and just breathing deeply could help me to heal. But it did.

Our trials happen for us and not to us. When the trials of life come upon us we can fight against them or we can ask God what He wants us to learn from the trial. When we can approach our lives from a growth mindset, then God will teach us. And the gift from each trial will be priceless.

So often we think we know what needs to happen. We think the circumstance needs to change before we can be happy. In all reality, the only thing that needs to change is you. When you surrender it all to God, then He will help you to change your beliefs and thoughts. This, in turn, will change your actions and give you different results.

Candida Sullivan is an award-winning author, inspirational speaker, and certified life coach. Her book, Despite Your Circumstances, won the 2016 CSPA book of the year award. It is her passion to help others learn to overcome their own circumstances. She lives in Tennessee with her husband and children. If you’d like to contact her, please email her at candida@candidasullivan.com.