and he has filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills– Exodus 35:31
I looked at today’s character word and grimaced just a little. Remember, if you’re reading this blog, judging isn’t allowed. I’m able to share my failures; this is a safe place.
I try not to go grocery shopping before heading away on vacation since we want to use up what’s in the refrigerator. There was one time when we were really searching for a meal. I was trying to get things ready to go, and I didn’t have tons of time to be cooking. I saw we had some noodles in the cupboard, along with a couple cans of tuna. I could work with this!
I was preparing tuna and noodle casserole when I realized there wasn’t any milk left. Ah…this is where genius comes out. This is where all those people from the cooking shows get creative and make a masterpiece.
I may have opened a can of condensed milk…and I may have tried to use it in place of regular milk…and I may have given it to my family to eat. NO JUDGING! It was sooo terrible! I crashed and burned with that one.
The thing is…there are times when we are going to face failure. We can make them into a teachable, humorous moment or we can be embarrassed, angry, and in tears. The boys still laugh about it and do you know what? They now know you can’t use condensed milk to replace regular milk…even though they both say “milk” on them!
The important thing to remember is that we aren’t failures when we do something that fails. The food was most definitely a failure, but I wasn’t. My genius was just waiting for another day to show itself!
I’ve learned that when we don’t take chances, there’s less of a chance for growth. Yep…it could totally back-fire, but we could get some amazing results too. I’ve found that the times when we didn’t do things like everyone else, are the times that were the most successful. When we looked at things from a new perspective and did things out of the box, is when we’ve thrived as a family. When we’ve been low on money, we’ve come up with the most creative solutions that have had the biggest successes.
There were times when things were too tight to make the amount of contributions to those less fortunate that we wanted to. What we did have was ourselves. We could help by giving our time.
One Christmas, we saw that there was a need for visitors in a personal care home not too far from where we live. There were many people that wouldn’t have any family visiting on Christmas day. It doesn’t take money to fill that need!
The boys colored Christmas pictures to pass out to each person, we took our dog with us, and we simply visited with those wonderful people. I was even asked to read the Bible to one lady who could no longer do it on her own. I think we got more out of that Christmas day than they did!
The character trait for today is Creativity-approaching a need, a task, or an idea from a new perspective (definition from characterfirst.com).
Even with chores, be open to use the creativity God gave you. In the summer, don’t just mow in straight lines! I pick out a tree and mow around it. Then I keep working my way outward in big circles. It may look crazy, but I’m giggling while I do it! Probably, no one will even notice. I admit that if it bothers someone, it makes me grin a little more. The hubby just shakes his head because he’s not willing to take a chance of making his help quit!
Today, look at things from a new perspective. Don’t do things just because it’s the way they were always done. Challenge yourself to make chores fun again! Learning to tap into your creative thinking in the small things because that will open you up for using your creativity in the bigger things.
