Mistaken, Not Stirred

After a refreshingly deep diving session with Di in the car on our way to Jackson (we were evacuating for Hurricane Gustav), I was left pondering the significance and the impact of mistakes. What is a mistake? dictionary.com has two definitions:

1. An error in action, calculation, opinion or judgement caused by poor reasoning, carelessness, insufficient knowledge, etc.

2. A misunderstanding or a misconception.

Bruce almost always does the same solo for the same song every Sunday in the St. Rose choir. He does it beautifully... flawlessly. A few Sundays ago, as everyone was preparing to evacuate for hurricane Gustav or had resolved to stay and "ride it out", the few that attended church that morning were solemn and anxious. Bruce got up to sing his solo and for the first time that I have ever heard, he forgot the words. He sang the same verse twice about Jesus having mercy on us all. The audience was a little thrown at first. Bruce's face showed he knew he had erred. He was living in the first definition of mistake. His eyes got a little bigger, he looked over at Al, the director, he struggled through the next line as his brain wasn't on the song for that moment but on the mistake. Finally he caught the rhythm again and kept going. One little mistake and he almost lost the song, the audience almost stopped singing... it just took one tiny err. But what caught my interest was not the mistake. I, like so many probably, looked to see Father Sebastian's reaction. Father Sebastian, eyes fixed upward, hands in front of him, was smiling. And not just smiling... he was grinning. He never lost the song. He kept right on. Father Sebastian was excited to sing that verse two times, you could tell. And when you think of the verse, and that moment in time, what a beautiful time to "mistakingly" sing it twice. Jesus "have mercy on us." The mistake was really just a misunderstanding... God wanted to show his intention of mercy twice, thats all. Thats how it was supposed to be, us humans just misunderstood because of our own personal idea of how it "should" go. 

Di and I discussed mistakes while evacuating. They had made a "mistake" of their own. The night before we left Di had prepared an alternate route to our evacuation spot. We were going to use back roads to try and take some time off of the 24 hour expected evacuation time. As we were leaving Di got a call from her mother, who expressed her concern about the predicted tornados for Jackson, Mississippi. We, of course, were headed to Jackson, Mississippi. They decided that Birmingham, Alabama was a better choice and so we started going the other direction. Not much after we were driving we got a call from Cindy Cheeks who was awaiting our arrival in Jackson. She had wonderful news! The tornados, in fact, were not expected to be severe in Jackson so we could go to our original destination. We had been traveling about ten minutes in the wrong direction by then and Di decided to ask Cindy if there were some good back roads that led to Jackson from where we were so we wouldn't have to turn around... and there were! We looked them up on the map and headed forward. We got to our first turn with no traffic! We headed up the small highway we were on... NO traffic. We got to our first junction... NO TRAFFIC! If we had turned around and went back we would have missed that traffic free route! Kenny informed us later that Di's original alternate route was actually pretty congested. 

In our discussion we decided that people typically do three things in light of a mistake. The two most common are to freeze up and become paralyzed or to turn back and try to somehow fix the mistake where it began. Some people spend much of their lives looking back because of their mistakes. And so many others spend much of their life locked inside their failure, afraid to make another mistake. But there is a third choice! We can keep moving forward and recalculate. Much like a GPS system will do when you continue the wrong way for too long. GPS... GOD'S PROTECTIVE SERVICES! (Compliments of Di Fillhart, master genius of wonderful and unforgettable catch phrases) We got to Jackson in 5 hours. With our GPS and determination to keep moving forward, we shaved 19 hours off of our trip. And I learned some sweet lessons about mistakes! 

I am a woman of many mistakes... from the small and embarrassing, to the gigantic and painful. And I have a CHOICE about how I face these mistakes. I can keep moving forward and trust in my GPS, or I can stop, turn back and lose my way. Like Brother Lawrence says, when you fail don't become discouraged and focus on the failure... focus forward and keep trying. I can be mistaken and not stirred!

I am such a fan of object lessons! Thanks Papa, for all you reveal to me...