Foundations Don’t Auto-Correct
Part One of a Three-Part Series ( 5 min read)
I’ve been swinging back and forth like a
yo-yo on some decisions I’ve to make for Roshini and Vir (my five and four year old darlings) with respect to their schooling.
At times, I’m tempted to think, “for goodness sake, they’re only four and five! Does it really matter whether I continue to home-school them or not or which school we put them into? Is it such a big deal at this stage of their lives. There’s more than enough catch-up time isn’t there??” I find myself thinking the same way when I make mistakes in the way I discipline them. Pacifying thoughts in my head that whisper,
“I’ll make it up…later”. I take for granted the sunny smile that follows the cloud-burst and soothe my smarting conscience with words – “see, they’ve forgotten..they won’t remember..they’ve forgiven mama for losing her temper ..again.”
“I’ll make it up later” – a vague hope that somehow tomorrow will fill in the vacuums of today – that things not stopped for (today), promises not kept(today), forgiveness not given(today), work not done(today), boundaries not drawn(today); in short, choices not made(today) will not harden into life-directions ‘later’. We seem to carry within us, a misplaced, buoyant hope that ‘somehow’ , “some way” our lives will ‘auto-correct’ and graciously get back on track again. But unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. Today, with every choice we make or don’t, we are laying foundations for things we’ll have to deal with tomorrow, and we don’t have to be architects to recognize that lopsided foundations will turn out lopsided buildings.
Are course-corrections possible later on? Absolutely. And thank God for that!! Yet, setting a foundation right after a twelve-story building is built on it involves a lot of painful deconstruction. I’ve often thought about what my pastor once shared on the subject of marriage. He said that the things we put in place in the first years of marriage are usually what we end up dealing with ten years down the line, whether good or bad!
How true that is! Unfortunately, more true for me in hind-sight!
Yet what’s done is done. And beating ourselves up over the past is not the goal here.
In some areas of my life, like with my kids for instance, I still have a window to set the foundations right from the ground up. In others like in my marriage, the early years were messy and we are still dealing with the effects of those wrong foundations, some fourteen years later. There are things I can’t undo. BUT I can make choices today – intentional, deliberate and conscious choices ( synonyms included for dramatic emphasis : )) to build a new foundation every single day of my life. Oh! How grateful I am that “His mercies are new every morning”(The Bible, Lamentations 2:22-23)! Or like I say to my kids- every time the sun comes up, we have another chance!
But in order to do that, I need to first recognize that I’m living in a crooked house. And know that sometimes the house is crooked because it’s standing on tilted ground. Then I have to give up the dangerously misleading assumption that those foundations will somehow auto-correct to bless my life.
Reflect:
What are the areas of my life that started out wrong?
Are the choices I’m making today building new foundations or building on old, faulty ones?
Am I secretly hoping that those wrong foundations will auto – correct and set the building straight?
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