A PICTURE

When writing a blog post, I usually write about what is or has been on my mind. Sometimes, something will catch my attention during the day and I will write on that. Then, I try to find a picture that goes with the blog post. Often times, finding a picture is harder than writing the blog. Today though, I have the picture I want to use but not really a message behind it. I just wanted to use this picture of Lindsay out shopping!! Oh, I could write about being cool, shading one’s eyes from reality, being held up before the camera, trying things on, playing the part, just having fun, or such. However, the emptiness of the message would be transparent as the real reason for the picture is that I just wanted to use it!! On the other hand, since a picture is worth a thousand words…you can write your own blog post for this picture. Let me help you: That is one of the cutest, prettiest, coolest…

KEEP GOING

As Lindsay demonstrated while eating, not everything if life goes down as we want. In fact, too many things are downright sour. But that is just part of life. We make the best of plans or have the best on intentions when thing go astray. As it has been said, it’s not the number of times we knocked down that matters, it the number of times we get back up. Hopefully, we get up one more time than we get knocked down.

To be successful individuals, family members, parents, children, and citizens, we should mindful of the above concept. It is tempting perhaps to just stay down when life gets the best of us. Life has a way of playing for keeps and it can negatively affect our outlook and attitude. We naturally seek that state of rest and peace but happiness is often only found at the end of a journey. In fact, if we are apathetic and refuse to engage the process, life will bowl us over. If we want to stay emotionally and mentally healthy, we can never sit for very long in one place. Just like a baby learning to crawl, we have to keep moving despite the lack of progress at first and the tendency to fall over. Life is full of challenges, sour faces, baby crawls, and times we fall over. We have to keep going though if we are to be successful in life’s journey.

FOCUS

By looking at the picture, guess who is in town?! You might guess that it’s my son, daughter-in-law, and granddaughter. Actually though, it’s our granddaughter…along with her parents!! Just kidding but it does indicate how the focus in life changes. At one time the focus in his family was just on him, then it was him and his wife, and now the focus has kind of dropped off of them a bit and is now more on our granddaughter, Lindsay. That’s the transition parents make. Parents sacrifice their own attention, wishes, desires, comforts, personal time, and sleep for their little children. In a way, parents become smaller in focus while the children become greater. It’s good training for parents though. The Bible also teaches us that John the Baptist said similar words about Jesus: “He must increase but I must decrease.” Of course, that is also a reality when we approach the end of our lives. We decrease while others increase. Hopefully, we do that gracefully with our children, faith, and lives. Lindsay is not only a great joy, but simple observations remind us of so many life lessons.

EXCUSES

When we hear about disruptive children/young adults, there’s generally a parent who makes excuses for the behavior close by. To them, there is always a “good reason” why the child acted that way he did, and the parent doesn’t see himself as making excuses…he’s just explaining. Of course, this is the very reason that the child is disruptive: Parents making excuses (explanations) rather than corrections. Indeed, it’s difficult to take corrective action with our children because it feels like we’re taking action against them rather than shaping their positive maturity. Thus, our emotions have obscured our vision. Letting our emotions make our decisions is perhaps the greatest cause of poor decisions. We are not supposed to act and react based merely on how we feel. Positions of authority necessitate an approach which leads with vision and forbearance rather than feelings. There are few decisions more important than how we raise our children. Our approach shouldn’t be to excuse, justify, or explain-away poor behavior. Our love for our children should give us the courage to do the right thing for their maturity. If we lack loving courage, we’ll try to smooth things over with rationalizations and excuses instead of confront poor behavior. Making excuses for our children’s poor behavior is giving them an excuse to fail at proper emotional development.

APPLES OF GOLD

When paying my bill at a restaurant, the waitress asked me how the food was. I replied that the food was good and that her service was even better. She said thank you, stood there, and fought back tears. I would have liked to sit back down and let her tell me her woes, but that wasn’t practical. I got in my car and drove off. As I thought about the situation, I was reminded of two things. First, we never know what someone might be going through. She wore a smile, worked adroitly, and was very pleasant. Underneath though, there was obviously something weighing heavily on her mind. The second reminder was that we never know how welcome a simple kind word is. Some people are downright desperate to be appreciated, respected, or acknowledged. Proverbs tell us that a word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a silver setting. Sometimes we are so busy trying to be funny or charming with our comments that we miss opportunities to be apples of gold to a hurting soul. How do we recognize a hurting soul? Look in the mirror. Everyone can benefit from a word fitly spoken and we should seek to be an apple of gold to someone every day…starting at home!!