With our son quickly approaching his third birthday we’ve noticed that transitions aren’t as easy as when you could just strap him into a carseat or baby carrier and take him where he needed to go. It appears that our son needs a little bit of warning that his location or what his current activity is about to end.
So, when we’re on our A-game as parents, we warn him with the words “Prepare your heart…” and then what’s about to happen. “Prepare your heart it’s almost bedtime,” for example. And since most toddlers have no concept of time, we don’t tell him when, we just tell him it’s coming and that he’s responsible for preparing to get ready. The clean up before bedtime doesn’t begin once we say it, his pre-game emotion and decision to obey or disobey our follow up commands does.
Sometimes, he prepares well and sometimes, he prepares poorly but that decision (and consequences that follow) rest with squarely on him. We prove to him we’re parents of our word and he gets to prove he’s responsible with the gift of being warned. Similar to athletes in practice, his decision of execution is decided in the pre-game. Not that the game or performance will be flawless by any means, but the training and mental preparedness of a win or a failure can be pre-decided.
What if we did the very same, as adults?
Prepare. Control what we can control.
One of my wedding day advice nuggets is for the bride to wear her wedding shoes to her dress fitting and to her wedding rehearsal. Especially if they are heals and she hasn’t worn them before. Her seamstress should hem her dress to her shoe height and her feet should get used to walking up and down the aisle before the big day. She should give her a feet a fighting shot to successfully endure the long next day.
We all know those work meetings or that person that bring out different colors of our temper. We all know when a certain doctor’s appointment is on the calendar and that while we cannot choose the diagnosis, we can choose how we will respond.
Typically in scenarios like those we feel so powerless but when you actually realize how much power we do have in our responses and in our attitudes, it’s empowering.
As Christians, we’ve been told over and over again in the Bible that we will have trouble and trials. They are 100% guaranteed. So why are we shocked when the world seems to be getting darker? Or when a trail shows up on our door step? Like we do with our son, God gifted us the blessing of knowing that they are coming. We get to choose what we do to prepare.
“We have absolutely no control over what happens to us in life but what we have paramount control over is how we respond to those events.” -Viktor Frankl
We can prepare our hearts. And then do the next and faithful thing.
