My daughter asked me: “Do we still have that extra under-the-desk plastic mat lying around in the workshop?”
Hmmmm … I remember there was one out there a few weeks ago.
In fact, I had even been pondering if I should get rid of it.
I’ll go check … I think it’s still there.
Yes! It’s still there!
As you can see from the photo, the under-the-desk plastic mat is bent-out-of-shape!
I had put the plastic mat out in the workshop last summer when the weather was really hot. In the warmth of summer, the mat was pliable. It bent easily, to slide into a storage spot. But since then, the winter months have been very cold … and the cold has permanently set that bent shape.
My daughter asked: “Does it even lay flat? If it has been permanently misshapen it may not even be worth trying to clean up …”
Yesterday’s blog post was about growth in life. Growth requires change.
Growth requires us to stretch beyond our “comfort zone.”
Growth requires us to reach for new heights as we learn new things.
And with that, comes the fact that in the process we will mess up, we will make mistakes, we will fail.
It’s part of life.
We need to give ourselves grace when we mess up, make mistakes, and fail.
And others will need to give us grace when we mess up, make mistakes, and fail.
Because God gives us grace!
When we mess up, when we make mistakes, when we fail – when we get “bent-out-of-shape” – that doesn’t mean that we are useless now. That doesn’t mean there’s no longer any hope for us.
It simply means that a little heat is needed to “straighten us out.”
That’s what I did with the bent-out-of-shape plastic desk mat. I wiped all the dust and dirt off. Then I laid it out in front of the fireplace heater, where the heat from the blowers could warm it up.
This is what God does with us when we get “bent-out-of-shape.”
Notice, I did not put the plastic mat in the fireplace. Neither does God “throw us in the fire” when we mess up, make mistakes, or fail.
Instead, God wipes us off … cleans us up … then lays us out where the heat from His Word can warm and “straighten out” those things in our life which the cold had made “misshapen.”
In our background photo you can see that the plastic desk mat has flattened out nicely once again in the warmth from the fireplace.
This is what God does with our lives.
When we mess up … when we make mistakes … when we fail … when we get “bent-out-of-shape” … God “straightens us back out” again with His gentle warming heat. The warmth of His love. And the convicting heat from His Word.
