Taking It Back!

Many times when the news comes on, I can only bear watching for a few minutes before I have to change the channel or turn off the TV altogether.  I suppose it’s because the top stories usually are the most sensationalized which usually means they’re the worst news of the day.  So until I learn how to not allow the bad news to make me feel bad, I will listen to it sparingly. 

However, I have been learning that although I may not control the whole world, I can have some say about the area I inhabit or my “kingdom”.  You see, I am meant to have dominion, which means to have authority or be the “king” (“queen”) over my dominion; king + dominion = kingdom.  I consider my kingdom myself, my family, my home and who knows? Maybe eventually, my street, city, state………

“What does that look like?” you might ask, because it’s not about control over my kingdom as much as I have the authority over the effect circumstances have over my kingdom.  So for instance, if something negative happens to my son, let’s say he falls and sprains his ankle on our walkway to our house one evening,  I, having authority over my kingdom (house, son) and can choose to rant and rave at my husband about how I’ve told him many times that we need to get that walkway fixed and/or I can help my son tape up his ankle and tend to his wounds and/or I can light up the walkway so that doesn’t happen again and/or I can…..well, you get the picture.  What I can’t do is make my husband fix the walk because he has authority over his own “kingdom” (himself), but I do have some influence for the sake of our son because we are both invested in our son’s well being or his kingdom, if you will.

I also have authority on how circumstances affect my kingdom, because I can get angry about the situation, which wouldn’t do anything positive, or learn from it, and in doing so turn it into something positive (which is what lighting up the walkway would do). 

What’s cool is that my “kingdom” can expand, and that could be for the good (or the bad, as we can see from the news).  I believe that when enough of us have “good” kingdoms we can expand them and join together so that there’s no more room for the “bad” kingdoms/circumstances.  I believe that has been the plan all along!  It just takes persistence and actually using our authority instead of giving it away! 

So now perhaps, I think I just talked myself into watching the news more, so that as a wise king/queen, I can develop strategies to overcome the bad and expand my kingdom.  I can’t do it alone; I’m going to need help.  Whaddaya think?  Wanna take it back?

-Tessa L. Charles