Lemons and LEGOs
On Twitter today, Lecrae tweeted, “People throw stones cause they have no tools in their hands to do something productive.” and the subsequent, “If people throw stones at you, pick em up and build something #stayfocused”
I’ve heard the life and lemons saying my entire life, but I’ve never really been so fond of lemons or lemonade that I’d be motivated to make it. Besides that, we’ve never had a juicer so I never really knew how to do it. But when it’s put this way, things make a lot more sense and I feel a lot more motivated to be productively optimistic than oppressively pessimistic.
For the last few years, since I began high school if we’re being honest, I’ve fallen so often that I’ve become pretty good at picking myself up and dusting myself off. Now that I’m getting closer to mastering the remounting of my horse, as it were, I think I’m going to finally learn to make lemonade of lemons. Or cool creations from stones (like LEGOs! Which I dusted off and played with over Spring Break…)
The past few days in particular have been rather rough. Just like every day, I made some stupid decisions which have made my days a bit difficult to tolerate with a good attitude. With one big issue in particular, I’m going to take this opportunity to look back at it and say, “Hey, that’s how I got there. This is what happened.” I’ll then promptly pick up the stone (or LEGO), examine it, and say, “You know what? That fits pretty good right here with these others.” And now that I’ve got a bigger picture, I will better understand how to tackle the issue when it arises next.
- Our modem was down at the house today, even as I wrote the draft of this in a Word document, and it was very frustrating. But it’s a stone and this one I can use to read, do homework, run, or whatever else productive that helps me to sharpen my time-management skills.
- My car pumps gas about a dime at a time before the pump handle releases forcing me to squeeze it repeatedly. I’ve gone to the 2 gas stations today just to be able to make it here and there, but it’s forced me to be outside on such a beautiful day and in the second case I ended up getting to school on time because of the need to leave earlier.
- My credit cards didn’t work at the pump. Neither of them. This forced me to walk into 7-11 and interact to the cashier, who I discovered was very nice. I can now say that I’ve had a pleasant conversation with a complete stranger, and while it’s not particularly beneficial to anyone, it reminds me of the C. S. Lewis quote, “Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art. It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival.”
What stones have you received today? How do you think you can use them?
