Failure to Communicate

After several posts about serious stuff, I thought I would lighten things up a little.  Let me start by saying that I have three of the greatest children God ever gave anyone.  My oldest is the builder of the family, the middle the teacher, and my daughter – well she is brilliant, beautiful and charismatic so I am not sure what she will do yet.  My daughter K, has been proposed to at least 5 times that I know of and she just completed the first grade.

Well, when K was 4 years old, I had to go to an appointment so I asked my office manager, M, to watch her.  We watched her together several times before when her mother needed us to so I didn’t think anything of it.  I asked M to take her to lunch and when I returned I found M with a perplexed look on his face.  He came into my office to tell me about his conversation with K while they rode back from lunch.  It went something like this.

K – M, my mom has a bigger house than you doesn’t she?

M – Yes
K – M, my mom has a bigger house than you.
K – M, my mom has a bigger house than you.

K – M, my dad has a nicer truck than you doesn’t he?

M – Yes
K – M, my dad has a nicer truck than you.
K – M, my dad has a nicer truck than you.

This isn’t exactly how this went but you get the point.  Needless to say, I was furious.

Let me digress for a minute to say, don’t let anyone judge you (and you shouldn’t judge anyone) based on what you wear, where you live, or what you drive.  You are important because you are you.  You are a very special creation and it is wrong to judge anyone based on how much money they have, how smart they are, or the color of their skin.  All these things are just the wrapping paper on the Box, they don’t have anything to do with what is inside the Box and that is the important stuff.

Back to the story – When this happened, K was in another office watching a video.  I stormed in that room and slammed the door so hard the walls shook.  As my face contorted into that angry face that parents get right before they are going to discipline their children, I was faced with a small problem.  What if K didn’t understand what she did was wrong?  Right then and there, I decided I was going to chew her out but not spank her.  So I spent about 5 minutes letting her know how wrong that type of behavior was and how it very possibly hurt M’s feelings.  My parting statement was, “I’ll tell you one thing young lady, you are going to apologize to M before we leave her today.  Do you understand me?”

Just then, she had the most serene look on her face.  That pitiful one with the puppy dog eyes that says I am so sorry for screwing up.  She looked as beautiful and as sweet as I have ever seen her and she said, “Yes sir!”  She had made a mistake and she was going to fix it.

A little time passes and she comes into my office to talk.  Within a few minutes, M walks in behind her to talk about business and I am still fuming.

“K, do you have something to say to M?” I ask with anger in my voice.

Again through those innocent, sweet little blue eyes, my beautiful, caring, blond headed little angel looks up and says to me, “Yes sir!”  Then she turns to M with that look in her eyes.  It is so innocent, so caring and so pure.  She has seen the error of her ways and is going to make things right and she very softly says,

“M, I’m sorry you have a small house.”

That’s the Opinion of the Minion

Who Are You?

Today I want to talk for a minute about a hard subject but one that is of utmost importance.  Who are you?

As I have said before, when God made you he created a very special person and in that person he put wonderful traits, characteristics and abilities.  As adults, most of us don't really understand that God made us a very special creation and we haven't taken time to appreciate the gifts that God placed inside us.  Understand that no matter how hard your life is, you are still an amazing gift presented to this world at your birth and you owe it to yourself and the world to develop you to the fullest.  Also, we are selfish and decide to work on certain areas of our life.  Our favorite gifts should be used every time we get a chance.  But what about that special gift that is inside you that someone else might need?  Have you ever taken the time to work on something inside you that might be a benefit to someone else?  For instance, maybe you really are a funny person.  Do you know what you could do for someone who is having a bad day if you made them laugh?  That doesn't seem like a big thing but it can be really big.

What if Dr. Martin Luther King (who is one of the most amazing gifts ever given to the earth) never had a dream and decided to chase it?  The world is a much better place today thanks to his generosity with the gifts God put inside him.  This may surprise some but I have never written until now (I can hear some of my friends laughing).  I think some of these Opinions have actually helped people.  If so, then how selfish would I be if I didn't try to write?  I wouldn't get blessed and I would miss an opportunity to help someone.

What about you?  Do you like to sing?  Do you like to build things?  What if you ignore your ability to build things and some great invention never gets built?  You have something this world needs locked up inside you right now.

But before you can develop any of these things, you have to know who you are.  That may sound silly but it is a rather profound statement.  Many of the people who read this are young people.  For you, my message is be yourself.  It is very easy to try to be someone you aren't.  We do it to get in the right click or avoid being picked on.  But when you change to be someone you are not, you rob the world of the great gifts that God placed inside you.  Kids, if you start trying to change yourself to be what you think someone else wants you to be, you will end up being miserable. 

Let's say you want a boy or girl to think you are cool so you change the way you dress, act, or talk.  If you do one of two things will happen - 1.  Eventually the real you will come out and then what? or 2. This is the real tragedy - You can end up being someone you aren't.  If you do that, over time you forget who you are and become miserable.  I see adults all the time who don't really know who they are and what they like anymore.  It is really sad to see.  Because what you do is take something so wonderful that God took special care to create and love and you tried to change that person into something different.  Please don't do that - YOU ARE WORTH TOO MUCH.

Adults, we do the same thing.  How often do we do things we really don't like to please other people.  Have you ever pretended you really loved football just to try to impress some guy?  Have you ever pretended you like romantic comedies to impress some girl?  Over time, you can fake so much stuff that you loose touch with the real you.  See we aren't that much different than our kids.  After all we learned how to be that way when we were kids.

For the last several months, I have really taken a hard look at who I am and who I am not.  I saw other people that looked happy and tried to act like them hoping I would be happy too.  Do you know what happened?  I got more down than ever.  It wasn't until I read a book called Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers that I really remembered who God made me to be.  I don't want to give the book away but one of the characters in the book is named Michael.  If I am honest with myself, I am a lot like Michael and want to be more like him in some ways.  Since I read that book, I started getting back to my roots and rediscovering who I really am.  Every day, I am becoming more and more the person I want to be.  What's funny is that every day, I find myself wanting to understand more about God's love for me and how I can show that love to others.  I am also discovering other things about myself.  This blog is one of them.

So I will leave you with this - Who are you?  Do you know?  The world needs the special someone that is you.  Is this a little corny?  Is it still also very true - Yes.

And that's the Opinion of the Minion