color me failure

How often do you color a situation in your mind before you live it?  I think we all do at one time or another.  We pull out our mental crayons and begin to scribble in the lines with what we 'think' will be the right colors, never bothering to think that we may be wrong.

How often do we drag our past baggage into a situation in our lives where it just does not belong?  Because we see it as a Kevlar-Vest of sorts to 'shield' us from being hurt.  As if everyone is out there, poised to take any opportunity they get to throw the first dart.

How often, by doing these things, are we undermining opportunities in our lives? Only to look back and think - "I 'knew' that would not work", "I 'knew' they would end up hurting me". 

Really?   You 'knew'?

Or is it, we sabotaged opportunities and situations in our lives before they even have a chance to become anything more than failure?

Oh, I am not saying that you should not be cautious, but I am saying that we should not be all too ready to be the cynic or judge in every situation.

I lived so much of my life being both.

A cynic and a judge.

Neither role was right for me.

Both brought pain, and loss.

I was the queen of being able to somehow, 'know' what people were thinking.  When, in reality, I was only casting my 'fears' of what I 'thought' they were thinking - unfairly.

Who knows how many opportunities I may have missed along the road?  How may people I pre-judged and never allowed the opportunity to see the beauty they hold?  Only God knows for sure.


We have to learn to live each moment for what it is.

Sometimes we will get hurt.

Sometimes we wont.

Sometimes we will learn something about ourselves.

Sometimes we will learn something about someone else.

Each is an opportunity.  A unique, and special opportunity.

Fear will keep us back, judging, casting our fears on the situation and coloring it failure before it even has a chance to become anything else.

So, when I look at a situation now that bristles my inner porcupine....I do the following.

Stop

Breath

Pray

Identify what my 'fear' is.

Honestly look at that fear and see if it is based on a past experience that is coloring my view, or if there is a tangible fear that I need to address.

Acknowledge what the opportunity could teach me or what it can do for others.

Ask God for wisdom.

Walk into the situation with a teachable heart, leaving all preconditions and past hurts at the door, and embrace the situation for what IT is, not for the color I chose.

Fear: False Evidence Appearing Real.
~Unknown