All Wrapped Up: A Lesson For ME!

Wow, it's amazing how readily those pesky life lessons can appear - and how prevalent they are when we have something to learn!

The funny thing about lessons is that they are so personalized! Served up on a silver platter, tied up with a beautiful bow, and complete with a gift card with my name on them!

Did you ever wonder why the exact same situation can totally tick one person off while another person in the same environment doesn't even notice? That's the fancy gift-wrapped lesson with the personalized card on it. I'm learning that the situations that bug me the most are the ones with the most important, and often the most pressing, lessons for me to learn.

I'm finding some situations are appearing in more than one package for me recently. They might not look exactly the same on the outside (one's got a gold bow and one's got a red bow, for example), but the lesson inside is exactly the same. Until I figure out why these gifts are still being presented to me, I'll be destined to keep unwrapping the packages - hoping to find new gifts inside, but finding the exact same thing in the box. It's not enough for me to say to myself "I've already got one of these" ... I've got to really ACCEPT the gift for what it is - a lesson for my entire life. When I get that I have a choice to really accept the gift as a GIFT, not a reprimand, an "I told you so" or a form of punishment - I can get beyond this gift and beyond the situation that presented me with the gift, and on to other opportunities to learn and apply.

It's not enough to just understand this insight ... I now need to actually DO something with it. The true test will be whether I'm presented with this gift yet again. I'm banking on getting something brand new next time!