These couple of days, I believe God did a work in my mind. For long times i was held in a perspective of seeing half empty glass. I did not realize it. Even when the story was told to me, I thought I knew it, but it still didn’t down upon me. Until a few incidences:
Ambulance so close
I saw an ambulance downstairs from my window. My first thought, “Waow, what happened, there must be some casualties happened so close.” Then my second thought, “pray for whoever got into the mess.” And third thought, “wait a minute, it’s not an emergency ambulance, but looks more like a service ambulance. So it’s not so bad, just someone needs help because can’t walk, etc.”
Then, I thought the flip side scenario. Instead the ambulance as a bad omen, it is a good omen for the family that needs the help. Someone might just had a fall, and now the ambulance is here to bring the sick to the hospital to be treated. So it is good thing there’s the ambulance downstairs. If i were the victim, i would be happy to see the ambulance has arrived.
My dad can’t cook
My colleague gave me this children book called “My dad can’t cook / dance”, which the pictures looks uncharming, and the story isn’t inspiring. It celebrates the wrong things at first when i read it. It goes along to celebrate what everyone in the family CANNOT DO.
I won’t brag the things that i cannot do. And i thought why would i encourage / inspire my children to be like this bunch of “crazy” people?
When i asked my colleague on why did she give me the book? Her response was an eye opening to me. She said,”isn’t it great that despite we can’t do so many things, we’re still a big happy family?”
That’s true isn’t it? There are so many things in this world that we can’t do. But that shouldn’t make us feel inferior or less worthy. We can still be a happy family. The fact that we’re a happy family is such an achievements, regardless what we cannot do.
How far we’ve gone
This is the remark that my wife told me yesterday. And i kept and thought about it over and over. Finally it makes sense to me. 3 years ago, I had a baby that can’t do a lot of things. Today, we do still struggling with changing diapers, sleep arrangement, lack of sleep, etc. But we have a 3 years old toddler that could sing, pray, talk back, and help simple things. And we have a baby who needs to be cared & nurtured.
In the past, I thought of having a boy would be better because he could help with the housework and carrying things around. Today God gives me 2 beautiful daughter that answer my desires. Our girl is very helpful. Any kind works that I do, she will volunteer to help , regardless whether it’s something big or small. To some extent, she is probably better than a boy.
From today onwards, I would tell myself to look into the glass half full instead of half empty. Meaning look into life not the problems, but the possible solutions and what may come through it. Look not into the potential failures, but the potential successes.