Wisdom and Beauty

I have two of those colored rocks with words inlaid in them on my kitchen window sill. One says WISDOM; the other, BEAUTY. I have beauty in my life every day. The clear eyes and beautiful faces of my children. The faithful, time-tested love of my husband. An unhindered view of the back range of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado.

Wisdom is a different story. I pray for wisdom. I strive for it and still I make the most amazing blunders. Oh, I know I'm not alone in this. We all make blunders, some more than others. It's a club without exclusion. What sets us apart is how we deal with those bad decisions, poor reactions, and blatant mistakes.

Jesus said, "The meek will inherit the earth." Now that's a great place to start whenever we realize we've blundered. Meekness as Jesus exhibited it was not weakness; it was great strength expressed through humility. It always helps if we admit our error with humility and sincere repentance.

So where am I going with this line of thinking? For me, I make these personal and professional blunders regularly. For example, at the recent Care Net conference I blundered big time! During the course of the workshop I was teaching, an unresolved "issue" reared its ugly head in the form of an inappropriate sarcastic comment. It was out there for all the room to hear (and the tape to catch) before I could catch and contain it. What's worse is that I didn't have the presence of mind to stop and confront my own sinful attitude. (It would have gone beautifully with the topic I was teaching too! Ah, well....) I did apologize later to my conference host and she graciously granted her forgiveness. (If you were in my workshop, call me. I'll apologize to you as well.)

I suppose the beauty and wisdom of a post such as this is for each of us to look into own own heart and see where we may have blundered (whether recently or in years past), with a spouse or child or parent or friend, or in the course of daily work or ministry. People will see Jesus in us not in our perfection, but in the way we handle our mistakes (and sin) and in how we handle the crises that befall us. (I'll save the topic of handling crises for another post!) The main idea in all this is to be willing to humble ourselves, admit our faults and errors, and to ask forgiveness with sincere humility and repentance. These characteristics restore relationships with a beauty that is unmistakeable, and if we learn from this process, we gain a little more wisdom for the next time.

I pray much beauty and wisdom for you today as you seek to serve our magnificent Savior in your home, your circles of influence, and in the world around you...for His glory forever.

Abundant blessings in Christ,
Mary