Nobody makes u-turns like I make u-turns.  I’m at the point now that when I go out to run errands, I figure in a little time for the corner I missed and the turn I forgot to make at the stop light.  As I am sneaking up on 50, I approach mistakes the same way- I know each outing in my life will be accompanied by a few mistakes. You can count on it. But this is a new viewpoint for me.
 
As an all-knowing teen, I charged through life so fast I didn’t see my mistakes just other people’s mistakes.  In my 20’s, I periodically looked over my shoulder and saw the mistakes I left behind me.  Yucko.    By my 30’s I began to work at not making mistakes.  I wanted to buy the “right” car- not too expensive but not a clunker.  I wanted to work the “right” amount- not so little I didn’t apply myself but not so much I missed out on the important things.  And then came kids.  Why do mistakes with kids feel so huge? 
 
When I’m on my game, I’ve asked God the “right” thing to do.  Sometimes I’d feel God’s guidance, sometimes not.  Not knowing if I was doing the “right” thing has at times made me feel sick to my stomach.
 
Then I met Christina.  I interviewed her for my book God is Bigger Than Your Cancer and learned an incredible lesson.   She had spent years making life and death decisions about her cancer treatment.  Most of her decisions God used to bless her health, but not all of them.  At one point she told me “God can take everything, even our mistakes, and use them for His will.  You don’t have to walk a perfect walk.  When you get it in your heart and in your head that God is in charge, it takes the pressure off of you.  I seek God’s plan for me through prayer, fellowship and the Word, and I make the best decisions I can.  Then I leave it in God’s hands, because thankfully, He’s in control, not me.”" 
God doesn’t want me to agonize over every decision as though every thing depends on me when REALLY everything depends on Him. 
I am stunned at my ability to forget this simple lesson.  God is not depending on me to be the perfect parent or choose the right job to see His will done.  God is big enough to take anything-EVEN OUR MISTAKES- to do great and mighty things for His kingdom.   What a relief.  
 
Karen Tripp                                       Speaker, Author, Counselor

For more information about Christina and the other survivors in God is Bigger Than Your Cancer click here or go to http://godisbiggerthan.com/rest-of-the-stories/

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