Pastoral Pearls: Stepping Stones
Don't carry your mistakes around with you. Instead, place them under your feet and use them as stepping stones to rise above them.
Somewhere recently I heard the description that when we carry all of our mistakes and fears and burdens around it is like an over-stuffed back-pack. I’ve felt that way - sometimes needing to drag when it is too heavy to carry, and other times it’s trying to maneuver through the crowds in life like that backpack that sticks out a mile behind me, bumping everyone I try to pass, and sometimes even knocking ME (or them) onto the ground. For me that applies to my mistakes as well.
I believe I’ve mentioned before that I am really a bit of a perfectionist. I was taught young, and often, and at times harshly, that mistakes are not ok. So, whether I carry them around in my “backpack,” or trip over them at every turn, they get in my way. That’s why I like this quote. I seem to always be so focused on the “poor me,” and the “why me?” and the “This is so hard!” that it holds me back, slows me down, even occasionally derails me. Just like the phrase we’ve all heard, “Turn your frown upside down,” maybe I could begin to see those “rocky mistakes” not as something that brings me down and keeps me from what I want to be, but rather as those “stepping stones” that I can actually use to get me where I’m going! It’s a matter of rephrasing my thoughts to work in my favor. I would have to admit though that doing so may sound easier than it is. That’s where a “helping hand” can come in. After all, Jesus did tell us to bring our burdens to him to carry (or help carry), didn’t he? If I pan out just a bit from the stepping stones picture to see the bigger picture (often hard for us narrow-visioned folks), I would also see someone else (through whom God is working) walking beside me, holding my hand to steady me on the stepping stones. (Crossing water just on stepping stones has always been a bit scary for me!) I can use my mistakes to grow in strength and purpose and integrity – even my fears and burdens, too – more successfully when I allow someone else to support me in the process to guide me, to help me find balance, and to empower me to move toward the design that God has in mind for me.
We all go through tough times. I would like to remind you that as Guardian Angel’s Coordinator of Caring and Support Ministries, I am here for you – to support you, guide you to find the answers inside yourself, to find balance and alignment with your values, to empower you to toward strength, purpose, and integrity, and God’s plan for you. So if you find yourself temporarily feeling off-balance, adrift, untethered, being crushed by your burdens, just plain stuck. Please reach out to me with a call or email, and we can set up a time to get together, chat, and explore what we have at Guardian Angels to help you. I invite you to accept a helping hand as you turn your over-stuffed backpack or stumbling stones into stepping stones in a direction that gives you life! What’s in your backpack? Where are you stepping stones?
Loving God,
Work in my heart to give me the strength to change my attitude about mistakes, fears, burdens.
Help me to invite you in to help me find the stepping stones within my stumbling stones and overstuffed backpack.
Nudge me to step out of my too comfortably uncomfortable, stumbling way of seeing what life gives me as stumbling stones.
Bless me with the courage to reach out and accept a helping hand, through which you so often work your miracles.
~ Amen