Around my house, waffles are a big hit with the kids in the morning. They'll eat them everyday if I let them, without any complaints. At least, that had been the case before Kyla (The 10 year old) decided she no longer wanted them last week. She told me, with a grimace on her face, "They make me nauseous Mom."
Apparently, on this particular morning after eating breakfast, her stomach felt a bit unsettled. Since she was eating waffles when the mysterious queasy feeling manifested, by association, she sees the waffles as the culprit and ultimately, the cause of her queasiness. Consequently, she doesn't want to eat them anymore. According to her reports , each time she has eaten waffles since the incident (except for once out of the three other times), she experiences the same sickish feeling.
I think, more than anything, that first occurrence biased her against the waffles and now, she doesn't enjoy what she once really liked eating. In her mind, they make her sick. She's managed to take an isolated incident and turn it into a precedent.
How many times have we all done that?
Something transpires that we don't like, so we begin to paint the canvas of our lives with broad strokes. We generalize and categorize people, places, and things based upon non-related occurrences. As a result, we forfeit opportunities, sever relationships, and misread people because we expect the thing that once "made us sick," to happen again. We make the mistake of determining the outcome based upon a past experience. God doesn't want us to be that way.
I believe God is trying to help somebody today...somebody that's getting ready to dismiss something that He sent because of preconceived notions. But don't do it; don't do it; don't do it.
Let God lead you and show you the reality of the situation; you may be surprised to find that it's not at all what you think.
I implore you. Don't allow yourself to be defined by one isolated event; rather, tell yourself, "That was then and this is now."
You've moved on. You're over it. You've gotten past it.
You're now mature enough to know that your experience was an isolated incident, but it's a new day. So, approach it with a new expectation and a new outlook... and watch God do a new thing in your life!
I'll leave you with this: "Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth" (Isaiah 43:18,19a NIV).
As always, thanks for reading, and until next time... may you be empowered to prosper!
Dianna Hobbs
