Lessons I've Learned

I used to think life was a pass fail test and I was failing. The presure and the guilt that came along with that belief nearly killed me. It certainly killed my spirit more than once.

I was under the impressions that I had to be perfect. Well, at least by the time I died in order to get to heaven. I believed that I had to work myself to heaven.

Another erroneous belief I was taught was that you have only really repented when you don't repeat the sin. Hogwash! Some weaknesses can only be overcome by trying and trying and trying again. Even then there are some we will not be rid of in this life. There is a great scripture that tells us we are given weakness to keep us humble. It seems many of us need that reminder. :)

Fortunately a few years ago I had the epiphany that life is not a pass fail test but rather a laboratory. We learn from our experiences and our experiments. Sometimes things blow up. But even then we have learned something. We only fail when we quit trying.

So, I continue to experiment. Sometimes I get it right, sometimes I get it wrong but I'm continuing to learn and grow.

I'm grateful for friends and family that accept me for who and where I am. We don't influence people to succeed by judging, criticizing or comparing them to others. The old cliche really is true, "Be kind, everyone is fighting a hard battle."