On the weekends, I try to make enough breakfast on Saturday to be Sunday morning breakfast as well. I double the recipe for waffles so that Sunday morning, all we need to do is cook sausage links and reheat the waffles. Last Saturday, I was on a time crunch because my dad and I had wanted to go to WalMart before the crazy traffic started. I asked my 22-year-old son to help finish making the waffles so I could shower and get dressed before breakfast. He was willing to help but had never manned a waffle iron before. I showed him about how much batter to put in the machine and told him to watch the light. I instructed that when the light clicked off, the waffle should be done. “Easy enough”, I thought, and left it to his available hands. After I showered, I called down to him from upstairs to check how he was doing. “I’m learning”, he replied. When I was dressed and ready, I walked in the kitchen to a mess on the kitchen counter. Batter was spilled as he had put too much batter in the waffle iron several times. Not only was it over the sides of the waffle iron, but also on the counter. However, he had successfully cooked all of the batter for waffles and had started working on cleaning up everything.
There was no complaining. He did not stress that he was making a mess. He simply stated that he was learning.
To Learn: to gain or acquire knowledge of or skill in (something) by study, experience, or being taught; commit to memory; become aware of (something) by information or from observation
Learning is acquiring, studying, experiencing, memorizing, observing. It is a process. And the process is messy at times. Emotionally. Physically. Spiritually. I began to think about just life in general and what my response is to different situations that come my way. If you have taught children, you know we have to let go to let them learn. Let them make a mess and figure things out under our watchful eyes. While we may show patience to children, it is difficult to be patient with ourselves. But God our Heavenly Father is ever watchful, ever patient, never leaving us to fend for ourselves. He gives us instructions in the Bible on how to live. He knows that making mistakes and learning we can trust Him is necessary. It is vital in learning to love, to forgive, to show grace to ourselves and to others. For the times we just cannot seem to ‘get it right’, “I’m learning” is a great point of view.
I am learning to show myself grace when I am tired and let the to-do list alone.
I am learning to accept help.
I am learning that perfectionism stifles.
I am learning that it is OK that our path in life has had many bends in the road and our journey does not look like anyone else’s.
I am learning that through grief, through disappointments, I will be OK as long as I take one breath at a time and trust God to get me through ‘this moment’.
I am learning my gifts, my strong attributes, my weaknesses, and it is a journey. I could scold myself thinking I should know all this already at my age. I have a choice between stressing over ‘not getting it right’ or making progress by acknowledging that as long as there is life, there is more to learn.
It is the end of the year and the new year will be here before we know it. Let’s not choose stress and guilt to be our anthem in 2019. Let’s pick up where we left off, clean up what needs to be cleaned up, and count the experiences in 2018 as a lesson learned. Let’s choose life.
Life is learning. And learning is life.
look him in the eye in the morning. I.am.not. My prayer in the morning should not be, “Give me coffee”, but rather, “Give me Jesus”. I could excuse my behavior because I am not a morning person and everyone in the house should know this. I could blame my failure to ‘get it right’ on anyone and anything but myself. And I can scold myself ’til kingdom come for my too sharp tongue, but that is not what grace is about. God does not want us living constantly berating ourselves for our imperfections. We need to ask forgiveness, forgive ourselves, and move on. Every day there is new grace, new compassion, and new mercies. And I can say, “Amen” to that all day long, but I need to live it. Did you mess up this week already? Did you fail to ‘get it right’ today? That’s OK… me too. But remember this: “It is of the LORD’S mercies that we are not consumed because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is his faithfulness.” Lamentations 3:22-23
not knowing whether they will ever be fit for their task again;
colors when they were on sale last month! That is, all except the top left corner. The red mums were the very first ones I bought a few years ago. I did not know much about perennials versus annuals, so when I noticed leaves coming back in the spring, it was quite a surprise for me. I have learned a few things since then and know that I love to see last year’s plants come back to life after a cold season.
