Mistakes Happen
For those of you who know me, it will come as absolutely no surprise that I like to be organized. I consider myself a generally competent person who can get things done. And when other people tell me they see or appreciate my organization or competence, I believe them. By no means am I the most organized (see my often-messy desk) but I do okay by myself and others.
But this morning, all that self-esteem went flying right out the window. As Hazel and I were talking about an upcoming trip that she and I are taking together to the east coast, I pulled up my calendar on my phone to show her how far away the trip was, when we were leaving, etc. It was then I realized I had booked our return tickets for the wrong day! I double checked it – and yes, to my great dismay, I had purchased tickets for one day later than I thought.
I gasped, put my head in my hands, and said, “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe I did that!” After a few more moments of self-recrimination (the wrong day!), I looked at Hazel. Her eyes were wide and she said, “What happened?” She looked with great concern at me, thinking that something terrible had surely happened and that I was in imminent, mortal peril. I assured her that I was fine physically (though mentally, I was still in disbelief – a whole day? how did I do that?) and that our trip would still happen. I’d just need to change the date.
All the way through the school drop-off times, driving in to church, sitting down in my office, I was sort of mentally beating myself up. How could I select the whole wrong day to fly home? I like to think I’m the kind of person who double checks important things like dates and times before hitting purchase. Measure twice, cut once as the adage goes. Apparently not this time.
I have some ideas about how I made this particular error, but really, when it comes down to it – I just made a mistake. No more, no less. Just a mistake. Like it or not, we make them all the time. We leave things in places we cannot remember because we were not paying attention. We blunder into others – sometimes out of our own hurt, but often unintentionally. Big or small, we make mistakes every day. And thankfully, most of the mistakes we make are just non-fatal errors.
When I sat down to start the day, I thought I’d look at a little scripture. I have a list of short scriptures to meditate on and today’s was 1 Peter 5:7. It seems apt to share it here. “Cast all of your anxiety on [the Lord] because [the Lord] cares for you.” As I turned this scripture over in my mind, I felt God saying to me, “I do not love you any less when you make a mistake.” Well, huh.
So, I stopped reviewing my missteps, opened up the computer and changed my tickets. This mistake only cost me some dollars, but we are now flying on the right day. Other errors require more humility, apologies, and even more grace, but stewing in the hows and whys of our stumbles is not really all that productive.
I will keep trying not to make mistakes, but I am human after all, and it does seem that we humans are prone to make errors here and there. But whatever the size of mistake, I will do my level best to remind myself that God still loves us dearly, and for that, I am grateful.
