If I Knew Then What I Know Now...

I am sure most of us can complete the above title, because we have all had experience as our teacher. Some of the lessons taught by the great Mr or Mrs 'Experience' have been painful, while some other lessons have been manageable. One way or another, most of us have learnt lessons in life that have helped to shape us to become who we are today.

As a woman and a Christian, it is somewhat easy to look at young people and think I know exactly what they should be doing, when they should do it and why. It is easy for me to make assumptions and jump to the rescue of several young people I know, just because as an adult and parent, I 'woz' there..and accumulated the t-shirts. The urge to intervene, push, cajole or even force them is strong, but I resist, except where necessary.

Sometimes we have to step back and allow our children to enjoy, or be taught by, their own experiences. It may be that as our children become teenagers and our teenagers become young men and women, the 'stepping back' becomes more and more frequent. Constantly rushing in to prevent younger people from making mistakes can be exhausting and often futile as it does not guarantee a mistake-free life. As long as we are human, mistakes are inevitable. Ok, so if we cannot prevent mistakes from happening, surely we can limit them right? Right! Maybe! Erm…

We probably can prevent our child, relative, friend’s child, anybody’s child from making the same mistake we made at some point, but we cannot do this all the time. Of course we don’t want to see our little darlings suffer, but the fact is we’re human. We make mistakes. We learn. Our mistakes become our experience. The quote below sums it up:

‘Good judgement comes from experience and experience comes from bad judgement.’ Rita Mae Brown

The thing I have learnt about experience is that if I did not journey through my experiences, I would not have learnt as much as I have and therefore would not be the person that I am. God uses our trials and tribulations to bring about our triumphs and our triumphs are what we use to support and encourage others.

So for me, if I knew then what I know now…I wouldn’t be who I am now - WIP (work in progress). What about you? Please feel free to share what you think.