Why learn from your mistakes?

If Seth is about to touch the hot stove, and I say no… There is a danger if he does not listen he is going to get burned. While I tend to say a lot of the time, well it will only happen once! That attitude of learn from your mistakes is not full of compassion, love and grace.

What I mean by that is, far to many of us have the attitude that people must learn from their own mistakes, rather than heed the guidance of others gone before them. SO we say stuff like its okay to experiment with that, or date that person, or have another drink. What we are saying is that they themselves are God, and they are in charge of their own lives, that they live for themselves. The problem with that is if you say you must learn for yourself, I ask you “have you ever been run over by a 18 wheeler truck? My mom once parked on my foot, but I don’t think that counts. How can you tell me getting hit by a truck is wrong and will cause pain if you have not experienced it?

It is based on the amount of physical damage we will incur, but when it comes to other things of this world we take lightly the implications of psychological hurt and emotional pain and baggage people incur. I am not saying we run out of church and go start telling people how to live, if you came into my house and started bossing me around about telling me how to raise my child, I will feed you too my pig. However, when my sister tells us things and helps us she is sharing her knowledge in love, and she has experience. We do not need to make the same mistakes. It is the relationship which we are called to develop and grow with the people around us that makes sharing in love and grace possible. My plea is that we don’t allow the people in our lives to live mistakes they don’t have to. That we will share with love and respect the works of God in our lives.

Your Grace really is enough

As human being do we ever get it right, we say things like “one day I will get it right” or “as soon as I get”, We assume in time we will natural become better like a fine bottle of wine! Or as soon as we get that bottle life will be okay…

The fact remains the only day we will get it right is the day we accept Christ, every other day we will still not get it right, but we will try, and for every day we fail we have grace…

Without grace we have nothing to hang our hats on, with grace we have the cross to hang our hats on…

With or without grace I am not going to get it right, with grace and faith, I am put right… 

Old people talk a lot...

I was just speaking to a friend about when old people grab you and just chat to you for an hour on the most random stuff ever… From where rivers used to flow to their time spent in Rhodesia before it become Zimbabwe.

He was complaining about how much time it waste and they are annoying and irritating, I was saying it is not that bad, and one day we will be able to do it to the next generation, so those very young that have stumbled across this blog… be warned, I am coming for you!!!

However on further introspection of our conversation the conclusion was this… That the one hour we give to them is worth more to them than it is costing us for that hour. SO take a deep breathe, accept the cup of tea and who knows you might learn something. If you don’t at least you will be gathering useless information to share with some unwilling bystander as you grow older. 

Some pics of my Garden :)

So I have worked hard through the last few years to get my garden growing nice, So I have decided to load some pics!

Unrealistic Expectations

I consider myself to be a reasonable nice guy, accepting of most people other than lazy people. Lazy people really get me mad. My problem there is my domestic garden gentleman does not work hard enough, but now I am torn by my beliefs to give him a chance and employ him. So month after month he comes and does not do much but gets paid, so I am feeding the perpetual cycle of laziness. To be fair he does work hard, perhaps I have unrealistic expectations for him.

Perhaps I am my own worst enemy, I don't know when to shelve expectation or when to enforce it. Most of my ramblings come today from a pod cast I just listened too. You think people would think, but most people just recite garbage, talk rubbish and expect to get paid...

Chesterton once was asked to write a paper on what is wrong with the world today, and his reply was simple:

"I AM"

We are our own worst enemies yet to still insist on living for ourselves...

In the same boat

The phrase in the same boat has always been a firm favourite of mine, some how I find solace in the fact that I am not the only one going through something! That others out there have the same struggles and same issues I have, while I can find comfort, however warped the reasoning is for it! I should never allow comfort to turn into apathy and acceptance for the condition of man!

What I wanted to mention was a word for new fathers actually. When we find strangers or acquaintance in the same boat it okay, but for some unknown reason when it is our wives we tend to get angry! Maybe based on pride, or some unrealistic expectations we have!

My challenge is this, when you are tired because baby has not slept, chances are so is she!

When we stressed out about the little one being sick, so is she!

I could go on with my examples: but my point is, you are in the same boat together, be aware where your feelings are coming from, most likely lack of sleep! Communicate! Don't put her in her own boat, she will just drift away! Grab a paddle (what I mean is word of God) and your lady and lead her to the shore!

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Exception to the general rule

So the general rule for parents is don't let your child sleep in your bed! It creates a bad habit that you will not want if you wish to ever have more babies or some hope of romance under the covers!

Every now and then you get the situation that calls for a bending of rules like sickness!

The other night is the new exception, take for example: you are extremely tired and are slipping in and out of consciousness as you hear the screams of your child demanding a bottle! You manage to stumble out of bed keeping little to no balance like a new born deer. You manage to make the bottle with your eyes wide shut!

You return it to the baby and he is content for now! Having just learnt to hold the bottle you don't have a peace about leaving him, but rather an overwhelming joy! You slip into bed and immediately find yourself asleep (not sure you can find yourself sleeping).

But then baby starts to cry as he has dropped his bottle, this goes on for a while... you pick it up, fall back asleep and he drops it again, stumbling across the room you place it back in his little hands hoping this time he has drank enough to make it light enough to hold.

You slip back into your sleep only to awake moments later to the screams of said child. Up you jump and at first glance through your hazy one eyed attempt of parenthood all appears normal, on closer inspection you find your baby is a magician and has some how managed to open his bottle with his feet, pouring the milk EVERYWHERE, your child is freezing and his mattress is soaked through that you could ring it out and have biscuit with it!

It is safe to say after changing baby and calming them down you can place them in bed with you!

Then comes your fear of rolling over or moving in your sleep! but that's for another time!

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]