Remember how last week I was all excited about the warm temperatures and pronounced “Spring is coming”? Well, of course it’s coming, but I was SUPER disappointed when I went out for my hike this week and the temperature was in the mid-thirties. Talk about a let-down.

More to the point, talk about a self-created let-down.

I have enjoyed 48 spring-comings so far, and I know darn well that March is like a rollercoaster.  Warm one day, cold the next…spring in Baltimore doesn’t really settle in until April.  But give me a 60-degree day in February and by golly, Spring is HERE!  So any cold day after that is a spring day stolen from me!  Oh, the injustice!  Oh, the humanity!

Hopefully you are rolling your eyes right now. It was just a few short months ago, December, in fact, when I was bemoaning the lack of snow.  On today’s hike, there was a gorgeous dusting spread here and there in the woods…it looked like God air-brushed the ground with a layer of white.   It wasn’t so long ago I would be writing about the beauty of winter, how every flake is perfect, you know the drill. But somehow I managed to take a wonderful 60-degree day and make it mean that winter was over.  I had moved on in my brain.  Evidence (like the fact that it was still February) to the contrary.

I do this to myself all the time, most of all in the dating world.  I get ahead of myself mentally.  I see someone cute, they happen to throw me a smile, and I’m already trying their last name with my first name to see if it will be a good fit. It happened with the last guy I dated. We had met on Christian Café, we hit it off over email, we had an awesome first date where the sparks flew and I saw fireworks, and I decided that night that finally the Lord had brought along THE GUY. My search was finally over.  My sentence of singleness was done.

We dated for about six months before it all went in the toilet.  Oh, sure, we had tons of chemistry…but not much else.  Super nice guy, but when it came to having things in common, there just wasn’t a lot there.  I learned first-hand that passion a relationship does NOT make.  And it ended just as quickly as it had started. I’ve had relationships that lasted longer, that had gotten much closer to marriage…but for some reason, this ending was especially painful.  And here’s why:  I  had more riding on it than ever before.  I told myself that this was the one I had been waiting all my life for, that it was finally going to be my turn.  So when it crashed and burned, I didn’t know what to do with myself.  I was inconsolable.  This was my turn and it was being stolen from me.

I blamed God.  I blamed Him for seemingly granting my wish of a life partner and then unceremoniously yanking him away.  I spent months crying, yelling at God, pouring out my anger any way I could.

But it was me who had caused my pain.  It was me who took a circumstance that God allowed in my life and made it mean my future was set.  It was me who got WAY ahead of myself mentally.  Had I stayed in the moment…lived in the present…and managed my expectations accordingly, I truly believe I would’ve felt a heck of a lot better a heck of a lot sooner than I did.

It seems so hard to do…impossible, even…to put a brake on our imagination and just enjoy the now without trying to live in a future that only exists in our brain.

But we can do it.  There’s plenty of secular wisdom that speaks to controlling our thoughts, not to mention what the Bible has to say about the concept.  My website name is from 2 Corinthians 10:5: “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”  Then lump Philippians 4:8 on top of this: “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable–if anything is excellent or praiseworthy–think about such things.”

For those who share my faith, it is pretty obvious…clearly we can take every thought captive, and we are also given a guideline for what to think about.  Me spending dreamy time in my bathtub looking at brides magazines just weeks into a new relationship doesn’t pass the “whatever is true” test.  In fact, I would argue that Philippians 4:8 is actually a really good measuring stick for our thoughts, no matter what religion you subscribe to.  When I think true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, praiseworthy thoughts…I feel pretty darn good.  I don’t get into trouble worrying about things I can’t control or regretting my past.  And I don’t set myself up for massive disappointment.

I don’t want to experience the kind of pain the ending of my last relationship caused me ever again.  And that doesn’t mean I never date again…it means I don’t let my imagination run around like a crazy person in my brain next time.  I don’t get ahead of myself.  I look at every thought swirling around in my brain and capture it.   Then I look at it against my measuring stick.  If it doesn’t measure up, I toss it.  If it does, I set it free again. Cleaning up my thought life has had a massive impact on how good I feel day to day.

Try taking a look at your thoughts this week. See how they measure up.  Do they have you living in a  future that relies on someone else’s actions to allow you to reach your goal?  Are you letting a circumstance in your life make you feel hopeless now because of what you are making it mean for your future?

Do me a favor.  Practice living in the now this week.  Enjoy each day as it comes, and when you find your thoughts making assumptions about what comes next, take them captive with the truth of today.

Until next week, peeps!