So often I feel like the apostle Peter… soaking wet and close to drowning. 🙂
But, like Peter, I have been blessed to learn a lot through my apparent failings. I can’t say for sure whether I have learned more than I have failed, but I can say with certainty that I don’t regret getting wet along the way. This past year has been one of the sweetest successes and the most challenging heartache, but I wouldn’t trade or change ANY of it for all the world. Each experience has made an indelible impression on my spirit and I believe that each has been a part of my purpose for being alive.
I hope that some of what I learned this year, by living life all-in, may be of value to you as well. Perhaps it can help you to stay above water a little longer than I did. 🙂 Here are some of the highlights of what I have been learning:
- God will show us what is possible in our lives, it’s up to us to believe and to receive.
- If it was bad at the time, find a way to make it good now.
- If it was good at the time, find a way to let it still be good now.
- Assumptions have the power to hurt everyone involved
- Drama and tension doesn’t occur between people, only within them.
- Love is always worth it, whatever IT is.
- There are no problems that can’t be solved, no solutions that can’t be found.
- It takes strength:
- to admit when you’re wrong
- to re-examine your beliefs about reality
- to forgive others
- to listen deeply
- If something that someone else says or does upsets me, it says more about me than it does them.
- The amount of love & compassion that I can extend to others is limited by only one thing… the love & compassion that I extend to myself.
Perhaps the greatest lesson, though, is this:
Despite my obvious weaknesses, I have not failed in anything. I have only had learning experiences that refine my character and allow me to grow into the full expression of who I truly am.
Thank you for being a part of my 2009. I hope that the lessons that I am learning might also help you to live life “all-in” and receive what is possible for your life in the year ahead.
What have you learned this past year?
