Messengers

As I emerge from the chaos of the past six months, there are a many messages that I missed along the way.  My personal email is significantly backed up!  Good friends are wondering if I am still alive and care.  I do, and I will answer everything in time.  Situations will require mending, especially ones that I could or should have known about.  Embedded in the time of recovery is an investment of listening to messengers and their updates.  The breath and depth of what I have overlooked is well beyond my imagination.  Obvious calls to act were missed.  Cries for help were either missed or ignored.  Normal management disciplines seemed to have been on holiday. 
Initially I caught myself demanding answers from my soul.  Why did I allow these things to happen?  How could I have been so caught up in the storm that I missed the obvious?  Is there ever an excuse for being unprepared?
The self-crucifixion did little to address the angst, so my natural second reaction was to blame the messengers!  Obviously, they should have told me earlier!  Clearly, they could have phrased things in a way that I understood.  It was their job, right?
I am not the first to kill the messenger.  When others “went back and reported, 'We found the jail locked tight as a drum and the guards posted at the doors, but when we went inside we didn't find a soul.'”  (Acts 5.23)  The resulting scene was ugly!  The blunt fact is that we are where we are.  Messengers may tell us, yet they never brought us to our present place in time.  You and I are solely responsible for where we are.
Today is an opportunity to move beyond the past.  We do not need to let the messengers dictate or control our response.  How we react is a choice.  Embracing the facts allows us in freedom to move intentionally forward.  It is a part of the package embedded with Divine freedom.  It is a gift only found as we unwrap and embrace our choice.