If you can look up…you can get up!
I heard this phrase a while back and it keep nagging in my mind, because, while I am sure it is true, I also know how hard it is to get up when you’re feeling down. But isn’t that what we need to be looking for, the light to find our way, the path to go where we need to go or the unlocking of the door to our future? Even when it is hard, Yes is the simple answer and How is another story…
I’m not sure what you are going through today, but I do know that many who are listening are going through some of the hardest times in your life that you can remember. And I know that comments from an unseen radio host may not lighten your load, but I want you to trust me when I say that, no matter what happens in your life today or tomorrow, or if you’re still unraveling yesterday, you’ll get through it. You will find a flickering light to guide your way, or you will step out from the briars of life onto a path that will finally make sense, and, for some listening, if you just focus on the job or task at hand, you will find a way to unlock the door and open it for your success—you’ll make it. The key is that you have to keep moving, working, walking, talking, praying, reaching; stretching toward the answer, because in the midst of all your pain and hurt and tears and sorrow, I know that, if you can look up, you can get up!
And it’s in the getting up that you will find your strength to get going and start moving to begin the climb to your desired outcome. The struggle is in finding the strength or willpower to keep going when you’re flat on your back, when your energy is spent; when you’ve grown weary. It will not be easy—no one said it would be—but here is what I know, that when you finally reach your destination, there you will find rest. Why? Because it is there that you will be looking up to see just how far you’ve come and notice where your going is just a few more steps ahead. Don’t get discouraged. As hard as it is, you will make it, slowly but surely.
You see, friend, if you were to say to me, “But, Deb, I can’t look up,” it would be then that I’d know you probably can’t get up.
Because, if you can’t look up and around and see where you’ve been, see where you are and see where you’re going you’re probably looking at the floor and not the ceiling. It is there that I’m going to ask you to stop and roll over and reframe your senses to find your space to get up.
The work is in the getting up and not letting your responsibilities—you job, your relationships—keep you from where you need to go, which is up and moving in a healthy and right direction.
Did you know that once you get up, you’ll look up? It’s just the way nature made you. Think about your kids as babies. They were enthralled with all that went on around them, they looked up into your eyes and marveled at the sights and sounds and colors and noise—kids rarely look down at the ground, no, they want to explore the world and the world to them while laying on their back in the crib is all that is going on above them. Yes, you were made to look up—it’s in your nature—so if you can look up, you can get up. Never let anyone tell you otherwise.
I believe we’re all born with a glimmer of hope, a candle that we nurture into a flame of lasting light. You’ve got it; you just need to trim the wick, so your light will burn bright and last a lifetime.
Last weekend my friends took me out for a quick shopping trip to spend time together and celebrate my birthday. As we were walking down the sidewalk, my friend Annie and I smelled the most wonderful scents and, as we looked around to see where the scent was coming from, we saw nothing that would make sense until we turned the corner and walked into the Yankee Candle shop and there is where we found our wonderful smells that we noticed while on the sidewalk. As Annie and I were looking at all the candles, I found one that really smelled great. As I was checking out, the nice casher asked if I wanted her to trim the wick. “Why?” I asked? “It’s no big deal, is it?” Oh, yes, she said. When you trim the wick, the candle burns brighter and better and will not produce the black smoke and the soot that turns your candle jar black. Keeping the wick properly trimmed saves money, by making your candle last longer.
Interesting! We need to cut the wick down, to make it last longer. That is a great thought for life. See, so many of us want it all, even if it costs more in the end, by burning us down to nothing. How much more sense would it make if we considered the option to trim the excess of our lives so we can have more—more light, more candle, more money.
My overall thought is that, if you can look up, you can get up, but I want to add that I am well aware that the one thing needed is the strength to get up. I like the dictionary.com definition of strength: noun; the quality or state of being strong; bodily or muscular power; vigor, mental power, force, or vigor, moral power, firmness, or courage, power by reason of influence, authority, resources, numbers.
When getting up is the goal, it is good to know that it takes more than physical prowess. It takes mental strength, moral strength and courage—all the personality traits that you already have. You may not have used them lately, but you have them now; you just need to dust them off and start working for your success.
When thinking about looking up, I was curious to find out how many muscles it takes to go from lying down to standing up straight and, although no one source could really say, a collective assessment seems to be that it takes about 200 muscles and in all layers of the body (the skeletal, the smooth and the cardiac). It takes about 70 back muscles to pull the bone in one direction and the others move it back again, to give us what we need for the strength to stand up. Time didn’t allow me to investigate the whole answer, but I am sure it is a marvelous, miraculous design by our creator to give us life. Now it is our job to make our life matter, and that will only happen when you look up, and get up and get going.
Ah, friend, no matter what is happening in your life today, I hope you’ll take the time to stop and contemplate the idea that, if you can look up (and you can), you can get up and you must.
Your world is not broken, maybe cracked, but not so broken that you can’t get up on your own strength to move in the direction of your dreams. You’ve done it before when you were knocked down; no doubt you can do it again, and this time, as you are pulling yourself up, think about how you got to this place and how you’re going to get out so you can look up, get up and not put yourself in this position again.
I started out by admitting that I know what some of you are going through is hell on earth, and many of you, through no fault of your own, are having to carry a load that you never dreamed you’d have to carry. I know that some days looking up is more than you have the strength to do, but please know that what you’re going through will change in time, and, if you can just muster the strength to look up, I know you can get up and get going in your life.
My guest on the show tells the true story of a young woman named Livia, an orphan in a Romanian orphanage, with honestly not a hope in the world that she would ever escape her situation. She told me that every night she would look up and pray that someday someone would find her and love her, and she kept that hope in her heart, until one day that came true. She is my real life example of… If you can look up, you can get up!
I hope you’ll listen to her story.
