MISTAKES

 

     I have a confession to make. Many times, when I make a mistake, I beat myself up. Obviously not physically but mentally. But don't we all do that? Research suggests that we make 50 mistakes a day. If you multiply that, times 31 for the month of March, that's 1550 mistakes we make a month. For a year that would be 18,600 mistakes we would make! So, in other words, we are not perfect! I often think about a pencil. Whoever invented the pencil decided you better put an eraser on the top of it because you might need it when you spell a word wrong. I wore out many erasers when I was a kid! How about the guy or girl who invented white out? They knew typists would need to use that when they mistyped a word and had to "white it out." The bottom line is we all make mistakes. 

     The one thing I am working in in life lately is to not beat myself up but to work on the mistakes I make and learn from them. It's what we call "life!" I heard a story once about Jerry Rice. He played Wide Receiver for the San Francisco 49ers, and he was a great player. I heard a story about him that really intrigued me. After the 49ers won the Super Bowl, the team celebrated the victory. The very next day all the players were cleaning out their lockers at their practice facility. Jerry Rice won the Most Valuable Player for that game but one player on the team noticed he was missing. He when he walked past the practice field, he noticed someone running on the field. It was Jerry Rice! He yelled to him "Jerry, what are you doing out there?" Jerry Rice walked over to him and said, "During the Super Bowl I kept running the wrong route so I wanted to fix my mistake before I left this facility!" WHAT? The player thought to himself "This great player just played the game of his life, and he wants to work on one mistake?" In sports, there are dozens of players who made mistakes that cost their teams a game, even a championship. Bill Buckner for the Red Sox in the 1986 World Series allowing a ground ball to go through his legs. Ralph Branca gave up a homerun to Bobby Thompson in 1951 that cost the Brooklyn Dodgers a chance to play in the World Series. Jackie Smith dropped a pass in the end zone that would have helped the Dallas Cowboys in Super Bowl 13. Or the one I hate the most...Joe Pisarcik of the New York Giants fumbling a handoff to Larry Csonka in 1978 handing the dreaded Philadelphia Eagles a victory. I hate that replay! Ugh! Or how about on the radio in 1931. Radio announcer Harry von Zell mispronounced President Herbert Hoover's name calling him "Hoobert Heever!" 

     Everyone who lives on this planet makes mistakes. So many times, we all carry around a huge eraser knowing that we certainly are not perfect. For myself all I know is that I want to do my best in everything I do. Whether I am serving chicken to people, ministering to kids with puppets or even sitting behind a laptop blogging, I want to put my best foot forward. Sure, I have dropped shakes, missed items when I was bagging food, started to use the wrong voice with a puppet or even when I'm typing I missspll wurds! (I did that on purpose 😁) There is only one person to ever walk this earth who was perfect. His name is Jesus! He has never ever made a mistake. He is the reason we have life!

     So, to conclude, I want to encourage everyone to learn from your mistakes. Don't beat yourself up! Pick yourself up and move on. Maybe you never knew this, but when you pour water on a duck, it rolls right off. Be like that duck! Let it go! Let it roll off! Learn to grow from it and keep your head held high! You are certainly not alone!

HAVE A BLESSED WEEK EVERYONE!!