Where Do You Draw the Line?

Do you like surprises? Your answer probably depends on what the surprise would be. I was recently someone’s “surprise” and she was not pleased at all!

When the weather permits I read my spiritual materials and have my morning meditation outside. That was the case last week. I had just finished my meditation when I opened my eyes to find myself staring at a little chipmunk who’d just run out from under the hydrangea. She was apparently quite shocked to find me in her way, stopped mid-path, darted across the patio in the opposite direction and down the hole into her den. I found it quite amusing, but then I think chipmunks are quite cute.

Groundhogs, however, don’t fit in the category of cute. An adolescent groundhog decided to make her den under our deck. I’ve seen what kind of destruction her species can do to structures, so she has been humanely relocated to an undisclosed, wooded area near a remote cornfield in Mechanicsburg, PA.

Both the chipmunk and the groundhog are wild, furry and burrowers. So what’s the difference? We drew the line at the ground hog and put her into our “varmint relocation program” because her continued residence here was leading to destruction of our property. It got me thinking were it is I draw the line in other areas of my life.

I suppose it boils down to what we are willing to put up with in our lives. The chipmunk, at least for the present, appears harmless, but the groundhog is not. We’ve put up with the groundhog for a while, but in recently re-painting the deck I was able to find just how entrenched she’d become. Not pretty.

Our lives can be that way, too. We can put up with the most annoying situations. We may just be too lazy to do anything about them. We may not want to upset others. But then something happens and we decide enough is enough. We get sick and tired of being sick and tired.

Ridding ourselves of the toxic people and unhealthy situations in our lives is not nearly as easy as baiting a trap with cantaloupe and relocating a furry animal. I invite you to take a moment or two today to see if you have any annoying “groundhog” situations in your life. Have you gotten to that point of “enough is enough?” Are you ready to rid yourself of what no longer serves you? If so, decide today how to lovingly change that situation with integrity. It’s time, don’t you think?

In Spirit, Truth and Playfulness,

Terry