COLORING OUTSIDE THE LINES

When Emily was 4, she was coloring at the table while I was getting dinner ready. 

I had drawn a picture of a house on a big sheet of paper so she could color and fill it in, add pretty flowers, a sky with puffy clouds, you name it, it was up to her imagination.  Just a few minutes into her masterpiece, she was sobbing saying how “she messed up her house”.  I could see that she had accidentally colored outside the line of the house.  In an effort to calm her down I told her that I knew how to fix it but would need her crayon.  She gladly handed me the crayon so I could begin solving the disaster at hand. 

I proceeded to draw a new wall, making the house just a bit bigger.  The guilty crayon mark that caused such a ruckus was now within the lines again.  I looked at her and said “See? All I needed to do was move the wall over, now you’re back inside the house.  Boy was that an easy fix.” in my mommy can solve anything voice.

It was an easy fix for Emily’s problem, but how many times have I refused to move my own lines over to put me back in a place where the solution was possible. 

I’ve referred many times back to that evening to remind myself that things don't need to be so difficult.  So when dinner plans get turned upside down because of busy schedules, when it’s raining during my daughters pool party and 18 kids are still coming (yikes), when an illness and an accident changes the future we had planned for our daughters, when the conversation I planned to have with my husband doesn’t turn out like I had hoped, when our finances don’t happen like we planned and a new strategy is required all I need to do is move the lines over a bit (or change my expectations) and start filling in my new picture.

Once I accept the picture or situation for what it is or redraw the lines and start thinking of a new solution, I can get back to coloring in this picture of mine I call MY LIFE.

When has one of life's inevitable little surprises drawn outside the lines on your vision or expectation?  Your Picture? Your comfort zone?  And what did you do to fix it? What was the lesson learned?

You've got this!