These Socks Don't Match

You have to look closely but these two socks do not match. One has eyelet and one is plain ribbon ruffle. Last week, as I was dressing my darling younger daughter and we couldn't find two matching white socks, she says, "Mom, we never shake things up." So, we decided that she would wear the two different white ruffle socks so we could shake things up. You see, I am open to change. These words were so profoundly funny to me coming from a three and a half year old but the more I have mulled over them and used them with her and other family members since, they are beginning to resonate. And last night, I was at a book study at our church with our senior minister and his message relating to the book we were reading was basically the same.

Shaking things up. I can look at what I have been doing recently in my world as shaking things up. I'm stepping out of my comfort zone and into new places that I actually have begun to feel quite comfortable in. It's quite ironic how that happens. And I have had to try several things before I have found the right fit, and I have learned to not give up and keep trying. In the past, I would have had a bad experience and then stopped trying.

Take the previously mentioned book study, I felt like I should be in a different study, because all of the friends who were nearer to my age and sunday school class were in another one. The only problem was that I didn't want to study the topic of the study at all. I tried the study twice actually and I got some "nuggets' out of it the first time and not the second time. And then the pastor's study was reading a book that I really wanted to hear about. I went and it was THE PERFECT fit. I could have conversations with these people that I really didn't know at all, and they were fascinating and profound for me and I REALLY appreciated it. It was just a better fit, at that time. And then another major lesson that I learned was the first study group may appeal to me again at another time and I can switch over and do that one again. Shake it up. Change may be difficult, but it can be very good.

So I'm going to continue to think out of the box, shake things up even though the advice is coming from a three and a half year old. Although she cried buckets the last time we "shook things up" for her in her everyday routine, I will ignore that and roll with the idea that Mommy needs to shake things up.