Wednesday, June 23, 2004

How to Respond

How can I respond with love?
How can I correct or change in my attitude?
How can I learn from this?

When life gives us lemons, we can make lemonade and drink it, serve it and enjoy it.
When life gives us lemons, we can exchange them, smell them, sell them or give them away.
When life gives us lemons, we can hate them, reject them, avoid them, or condemn them.
We are always choosing how we perceive and interpret each experience we encounter.
We can continue to react according to our historical pattern or choose a new way to respond.

When life is too good to be true, it probably is, but maybe not. …
I prefer to stay open for miracles and magic, for surprises and gifts.
I prefer to look for the good in all things.
I prefer to learn from everything.
I prefer to dance in joy rather than drown in tears.
I prefer to stay open and willing rather than become closed and resistant.
I prefer to remember my holiness even when experiencing my humanness.
I prefer to sing in the rain rather than wish it were a sunny day.

My attitude is my choice.
My attitude brings me down or lifts me up.
I can choose and change my attitude.
I can choose to let my judgments convince me of what is wrong.
Or I can let my curiosity and determination show my what I can do to make it ‘right’.

We are free to choose whether in prison, in poverty, or in pain.
We are free to choose how we respond to rejection, misunderstanding, deceit and attack.
We are free to choose how we live and to whom we give.
My attitude determines what I think and what I think determines the outcome I experience.

What do you do with lemons?
How do you respond to your own mistakes, what others may call “sin”?
How do you respond to other’s errors?
With Love and forgiveness or fear and condemnation?

Definitions:
Sin literally means “off the mark’ in Greek. It is an archery term.
React: To come from fear and protect, defend or attack back.
Respond: To come from kindness and seek to do good with what is.
Proact: To seek to do good and choose to Love in all circumstances by taking no offense.

I am loving you, proactively….
There is nothing you can do or say that would convince me to not “Love You”.
Betty Lue