#LightTheWorld Day Twenty - Jesus Saw Potential in Others and So Can You

Words of wisdom from my favorite amphibian.  We love the Muppets at our house.  There are two kinds of people in this world..... people who like the Muppets and people that we don't like.  The original Muppet Movie came out in theaters in June of 1979 and that year for Christmas, my dad got a banjo.

That banjo is actually sitting in my family room right now; along with several other instruments.  Erin is convinced that she is going to teach herself how to play.  Based on her mastery of the piano and the guitar and her desire to learn.... she'll probably do it.

In 1 Samuel 16:7 we read:

But the Lord said unto Samuel, look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; 

for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.

I find that most of the Muppet movies contain great words of wisdom and life lessons for all.  When I think about potential, I always think about the concept of writing my own story.  We come to earth to fulfill our own divine mission and we possess talents and abilities that are unique to us.  This sometimes makes growing up hard.... because most times, we march to the beat of our own drum... and life's biggest challenge when we're young is trying to fit in and be like everyone else.  As I have aged, however, I have come to recognize that we all have a role to play and that Heavenly Father has put us here to learn, to grow and to serve.  We may have a particular skill set that is needed.  There may be people in our path that have something to teach us, or we may be the one who has to blaze the trail for others.  

Every day I live, I am grateful for influence of diversity in my life; people who think and feel and act different than myself.  I enjoy hearing others well-articulated thoughts and viewpoints and engaging in respectful discussion.  I am often reminded that my existence on this earth is a chance for me to learn and grow.  Sometimes it is very painful and sometimes it is slow; so slow that it doesn't even appear that we are making progress.  At this point, it can be easy to believe that we are "less than" and give up.  But, it is at this point in life that the winds of change can shift on a whim and we find purpose and meaning in life.  The trick of life is to remain present, positive and willing to participate until we figure things out.

I love the above scripture in 1 Samuel.  I am so grateful that the Lord sees the real me, and through a series of events convinces me daily to keep at life.  The crazy thing about our path of development is that it never ends; we are always on it.  That's good and bad.  It is easy to get discouraged, but over the years I have learned to be grateful that I have the chance to keep walking; to keep growing and changing.

We have a saying in our house; it's kind of a joke, but really not.  It is one that Matt has been fond of saying as his sisters have grown up and married and it is actually starting to make it's way into discussions with our daughters.  Matt has always said "Either you marry money, or you marry potential."  This is said with the understanding that I married potential.  When I look back at the people we were when we married 20 years ago, it is easy to see what we didn't have, money among other things.  But.... I married a man who was a hard worker, who had a desire to learn all the things he didn't know, to see the world, accept and reject new ideas and try new things.  Over the course of our married life, we have grown in ways we could not have predicted and learned things that we never knew we needed to know.

This is one of my very favorite pictures that I have EVER taken.  This is Matt with our good friend Ryan McEwan.  Ryan's wife Heather and I have been friends since we were in junior high, and we have spent a lot of time together over the years.  I wish I had the photos from my wedding digitized because I would love to show you the one of the four of us on that day.... Matt and I were babies and Ryan and Heather were expecting their first son.  Despite that, Heather was one of my bridesmaids and that picture of the four of us, with Ryan in his Army dress uniform is one of my favorites.

We have been to lots of places over the years.  We spent a bunch of time with them in Gettysburg over a couple of summers, but I'll be danged if I can find any pictures.  Anyway, the point of all this is the fact that when we got married to our husbands..... Matt and Ryan were potential.  They were smart, they were hard-workers and they both had massive inferiority complexes.  Truth be told, we all do as we transition into adulthood.  I don't believe that anyone approaches their 20's feeling like they've got everything under control.  But.... we keep on, keepin' on.  We learn what we like, what we don't like, what we're good at and the things and places we should avoid.

It's interesting because as time has elapsed, I think these guys have both grown to see what Heather and I must have seen more than two decades ago; potential.  Some folks peaked in high school.... but not these guys.  They just keep getting better.  What I love most about both of them, and what I think has made them successful, is their desire to keep learning new things.  They both admit that there's a lot they don't know and they are both very much seekers of knowledge.  It is fun as a wife to watch the two of them go back and forth with their opinions and advice.... they can agree to disagree but are also willing to listen to each other.

I think if you had asked either one of them when we started high school if they would see themselves as good friends later in life, they would have told you no.  Fortunately, potential also involves being open to opportunities and learning to identify the good things in life.  Here we are on our way to our 20th High School Reunion.

I like this quote by Pope John XXIII:

Consult not your fears but your hopes and your dreams. 

Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential. 

Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, 

but with what it is still possible for you to do. 

The Lord has blessed us all with infinite potential.  Our job is to learn how to recognize it, encourage it and utilize it.  I try every day to follow Christ's example and see the potential in others, and hopefully, at some point, I will finally live up to my potential.