After the Story - Choices Like Rivers - Episode 31
After the Story - Choices Like Rivers - Episode 31
This podcast discusses each chapter of Choices Like Rivers and each episode is posted directly after the book episode. This corresponds to Chapter 11 Section 3.
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All of Donna’s attempts to escape have failed. Buddy is too large and too focused on keeping her by his side.
Over and over again he says he is keeping her safe. I believe that was his initial goal. I believe he truly wanted to keep Donna safe.
But at the end of this section we get a glimpse of maybe another reason he is keeping Donna. He is lonely. Yes, he wants to keep her safe, but he wants to do it himself so he will have someone in his life again to love.
Deep underlying motivations. We all have them. We tell ourselves and others the reasons why we do this or that, but lurking far deep into our subconscious is the real motivator. Often we don’t even know what it truly is.
We don’t know how long Buddy has lived alone without his mother. It does seem though that he is self-sufficient. He can obviously hunt and feed himself.
For the first time we see another side to Buddy. We see his tender side when Donna mentions his mother. Then we see a hard stern side when Donna persists in pushing him to take her home.
We see here that no amount of talking or cajoling will get him to change his mind. Donna realizes this and is finally brought to tearful devastation having all hope gone.
Donna instinctively knew Buddy had a serious mental deficiency and felt genuine empathy and compassion towards him. We don’t know if that will remain now that she sees he has her captive and she has no way out.
Captivity is a horrible place to be. Whether it is captive as a prisoner of the penal system or captive by another person.
However, there are other equally as hard places of captivity. Many things, many thoughts can hold us captive. If we have an addiction to anything, we are captive of that thing.
If we have negative thoughts on repeat in our minds, we are captive to those thoughts. But there is hope. It may seem dark and it may seem like there is no way out, but I promise you there is.
As we go through the day many thoughts, multitudes of thoughts randomly come to our minds. Many we think on purpose as we are working or completing tasks.
But, there are many that just seem to randomly pop into our heads for no apparent reason. Let me venture out here to say, these are not your thoughts.
Our minds are a source of the enemies entrance. But we can stand guard and prevent intrusion. In I Corinthians Paul is talking about spiritual warfare. In the second half of verse 5 he says, “we are taking every thought and purpose captive to the obedience of Christ,”.
When I first read this a few decades ago, I realized that I could control, and should control the thoughts that come to my mind.
I began to see the thoughts that came into my mind as flying into a birdcage that I would shut the door on, evaluate to see if they were good, of God, or beneficial to me and others. If they were not they were not rejected .
I purposed to do this all the time until it was happening nearly unconsciously. It trains our minds. Now often I immediately recognize a thought that the enemy is trying to get me to latch onto and I just, in my mind, say ‘no’. That type of resisting the enemy will change your life.
If we don’t take those thoughts planted there by the enemy captive we will meditate on them and grow anxious, angry, and depressed. We will convince ourselves that those thoughts are true, when they are not.
Maybe it is time to ‘weed’ out the garden of your mind. Some weeds are very hard to pull out and if you don’t get the root, they will come back.
What have you been thinking about? What have you allowed to stay in your mind and cause you pain and suffering? You can change your mind. Give it a try today.
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