Ripples #1024: Transforming Our Battles!
Jan 7, 2019
PEBBLE
We each walk our paths so we can learn and share those lessons with others.
-Cynthia Mazzaferro, shared by Sam in Des Moines, IA via Values.com
BOULDER
Your battles shouldn’t make other people’s battles less significant. They should make you more considerate.
-Tye Tribbett, shared by Norma in Orlando, FL normajaltidor@gmail.com
PONDER
Since our very first issue back in 1999, we’ve benefited greatly from the steady stream of quotes that people share with us. Recently, I’ve enjoyed asking follow up questions about some of the submissions to learn more about where they were found what stood out about them.
Norma (who submitted today’s Boulder) shared with me how earlier this fall she had moved to Orlando to start a doctoral program and was initially overwhelmed. Attending church that Sunday, she was significantly moved when the pastor opened his sermon with the words she shared above. “The message resonated strongly,” she shared when I contacted her for more information. “I had moved here without a job or a place to live and was worried about everything – food, paying my bills, finding a job – while trying not to let the solitude of living out of hotel rooms consume me.”
Norma went on to to say that Tribbett’s sermon caused an instant shift in her attitude and perspective: “It was a gentle reminder that we are not all called to be the same, do the same, or experience the same things in life. We’re called to live in community with others. What I’m going through is necessary for the person I’m becoming, and it isn’t fair of me to measure up and/or minimize other people’s battles. Since that day, I have been more positive and the pieces have been gradually falling into place: I now have both a job and an apartment. More important for me, though, is the fact that I’ve become more conscious of how I’m checking in, supporting, and loving on the people around me. Even if I don’t know what all they are juggling, I can still be there for them.”
I’m embracing Pastor Tribbett’s wisdom and Norma’s story as invitations to transform the battles I’m dealing with (the large ones AND the teensy ones) into opportunities to extend my compassion and my humility. It will help me, and it will help others, too. How cool is that?
Peace,
Paul
The Ripples Guy
