Which wolf will you feed today?

Here is an Cherokee tale of two wolves:

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people.

He said, "My son, the battle is between two wolves inside us all.

One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.

The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith."

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: "Which wolf wins?"

The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."

Its true. See we all have free will. We all get to do whatever we want, think about whatever we want, and make our own little world inside our minds. Sometimes our minds become little prisons that we feel we can't escape.

I'd say for the first 3-4 months after I found about my wife's affair, I couldn't stop thinking about it. I feed myself a plate of misery, hurt, pain, and anger on a daily basis. But then I realized that I had a choice to make.

I was able to picture myself 10 years from now and I saw two Ean's. The first one put on a mask for work, friends, and others, but inside was a wreck. He would turn to other things for any kind of escape. Work, sports, alcohol, movies, books, and probably greed in order to try and drown out the pain from being betrayed.

Or I could not. I could, in fact, choose joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith. And that's what I did.

I forgave my wife. And I mean really forgave her. I choose first to forgive. I didn't "feel" like I had forgiven her and I felt, at times, that I shouldn't. There were even times were I had wished I hadn't. But I did. I choose to forgive her and THEN the feeling of forgiveness came to me. I feed the right wolf and keep feeding it and it grew more and the other wolf died.

And let me tell you that other wolf did not go down without a fight. I would have visions of telling my wife off. Telling her all of the things that I wanted to really say. All of the things that were inside my head of how she really hurt me. And when I started those visions, it really seemed like a wolf inside of me growing and taking over. That anger would come and the pain would come and so would the tears.

Don't feed that wolf. When that wolf comes 'round, tell it to go away. The devil will use whatever tricks he can to get you to live a life of anger and hate and focus on the betrayal. But we do have free will. As much as your hurting and full of just 'junk' inside you (believe me I know), you still get to choose which wolf to feed.

I promise you that if you feed the wolf of joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith that your life will get better. I have chosen the path that God laid out for me and have not looked back. That wolf still comes around once in a while and entices me with his old tricks, but he knows that he has no power over me. That 'junk' that once filled every second of every day is still there once in a blue moon but it is like a anthill compared to the rocky mountains that it once was.

Matthew 6:21-23 "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness."