Set Backs

We all suffer set backs in life--loss of a job, loss of a loved one, loss of your health. Some of us have more than others and some of us experience it earlier in life that others.


I remember driving my son to another late night run to the ER when he was about seven or eight and he asked me why him.  "Why is it always me, Mom?"  I felt his pain and was crying inside, wanting to give him answer.  


During the first fourteen years of my son's life, I think we saw his pediatrician at least twice a month and visited the ER or Insta-care once during that same month.  He is the only boy I know who has received a colonoscopy by age nine with pictures to prove it.  He has had x-rays and MRI's of every bone in his body and had a few surgeries added to the list.


I have told him that empathy is a strong advocate to add to a resume.  As a 17-year, he is not amused.  But as a 43-year, I can and do stand in his shoes.


I used to be one of those women who would dash through life with a thousand things to do and run over everyone in my way that was prohibiting me from getting it done.  If there was a shorter line in the store, I would dash to it and see that Grandma with her walker didn't get there first.  "Too bad lady, I don't have time for YOU today."


I was also the first to cut you off in traffic to make it through the orange light first since my kids were getting out of school, and I was late in picking them up.  I had just been to ten stores in the mall to get all the sales and dashed across the parking lot.  I was running, running, running.  Places to go, people to see, thing to do.


And then, that fateful day in 1996.   I personally think it was the Lord's way of saying SLOW DOWN.  Smell the roses.   You need to learn a lesson or two about others and learn some Charity!!


Now I don't think I have ever been rude or down right mean.  I gave up that life in elementary school.  But I started to forget my fellowmen.  I got swallowed up in my little world and forgot there were others around me with problems, too.


So I did start to slow down.  I looked around at the grandma I cut off at the grocery store.  I looked at the mothers struggling with their children and the groceries in the parking lots.  I looked at disabled people, veterans, homeless people, older and younger people.  For the first time, I was aware of those around me and I was aware of setbacks.


I became aware of the word empathy.  It is to experience the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another.  It is not the same as sympathy or to feel sorry for another. I was starting to understand what our Savior, Jesus Christ, felt for us in the Garden of Gethsemane when he Atoned for our sins. He was there for us and He knows us. Even though I couldn't know what each of these people felt in each of their situations, I could empathize with the pain of their setback.


I must say my setback has made me a nicer person.  I am no longer on the go, go, go. I do stop and smell the roses although, I don't always want to. Which is why I wrote about having a 95% positive attitude.  There are times when I think we are allowed to wallow in self-pity, but we don't need to stay there. Wallowing won't get us anywhere and makes others despise us.  No one likes a gloomy Gus.


Today in church, a friend mentioned about trials, and said she liked to ask herself, "How is this one perfect for me?" 


So on your trial (setback), ask yourself: How is it perfect for you?


And I like really like this quote by Regina Brett: If we threw all our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's, we'd grab ours back.


Going back to my friend's quote and adding it to the one with Regina Brett, the Lord must some how think my setback is perfect for me, because I have tried to throw it back into the pile and some how I keep grabbing it back!