Mistakes?

According to dictionary.reference.com a mistake is defined as "an error in action, calculation, opinion, or judgment caused by poor reasoning, carelessness, insufficient knowledge, etc." with an error being "a deviation from accuracy or correctness"

So my question today is... are what we consider "mistakes" really mistakes? If I look at the above definition, it seems like a mistake can only be a mistake when we know that what we are doing is wrong, when we deviate from accuracy we need to know what is right to begin with. So, when I think back on all the things that I've considered to be mistakes I need to ask myself, are they really mistakes?

There are a lot of things in my life that I considered to be mistakes, but when we see them as mistakes I feel as thought it puts too much of a negative feel on it. When we think of things negatively it often makes us feel bad about it which can then lead us down the path of insecurity or self doubt. So, instead of looking at things like they were mistakes, I am choosing to look at them as lessons. 

There is a saying that goes, "There are no mistakes in life, only lessons." I would have to say I agree with this quite a lot these days. 

I've come to realise that there are times in my life where the choices I have made have not turned out the best for me, but I don't look at them as a mistake, I look at them as a lesson. The problem with these lessons is that sometimes it may take a while before we realise what the lesson was. 

I went through a really tough time about 7 or 8 years ago, and in the space of a few months, I had made so many bad choices and made many, what I would have called, mistakes. I was once a very depressed, diffident person. I felt unloved and unwanted and I would do anything to try and feel anything different. So, I made choices which were not right for me, I let myself do things that I now know were wrong for me and I let people take advantage of me because I thought it would make me feel better. At the time, I thought it was the right thing to do, I thought that maybe that's what I was meant to do. I carried on like this for a while until I realised I was living life wrong and I was making a lot of mistakes. I stopped a lot of what I had been doing, but my attitude toward myself worsened because now not only did I feel unloved by others, but I hated myself for making the mistakes that I had been making. 

Thankfully, I had not let myself get so down that I gave up on everything, I had decided I needed to make a change, and I did. I moved myself across the country knowing that I was running away from the mistakes I had made and not wanting to deal with them. We can take our mistakes with us, if we don't think about the lessons that we've learnt from them, they weigh us down, we let them run our lives, and I lived like this for a few years. I wouldn't go out with friends in the evening because I didn't trust myself, I was living with my mistakes, and I didn't want to make more. 

Then one day, it finally clicked. They weren't mistakes that I needed to be carrying with me. I needed to change my perspective. I needed to see the lessons in them. Once I started doing this, life started looking up again for me. I started to trust myself. It's taken a while but I'm at the place where I know I don't have mistakes. Everything that I went through, everything I did, was for a reason. I have learnt how to look after myself, I have learnt how to be a strong individual, I have learnt more about love, I have learnt to be happy in the life that I have been given. And I really could not have done that without finding Christ. He has taught me so much, He has taken away the weight I was carrying, I can now face the things I did, and not let them affect my future. The greatest thing about learning my own lessons is that now I can share my lessons. There are a bunch of teens that I know will be going through the same thing that I did when I was their age, and because I have been through that, I can try and help, I can talk them through what they are going through, so they don't go about life with the weight that I had on my shoulders for years.

Stop thinking you have made mistakes, and realise they are lessons... we can learn lessons every day. What lessons have you learnt from the choices you've made? 

Thankful for: His Love

When I was younger I used to joke and say that I didn't want to get married, as a child we joke about boys having cooties but, as we get older that need or want for a partner becomes more apparent. So here I am, 27 and still single. I'm not complaining about being single, but there are times when I can feel very alone, especially when the people around me are all getting married and having babies. At times like that I know there is only One that can fill my heart with love... that is God. So I'm thankful that I have His love in my life and I don't feel the need to go elsewhere putting myself in meaningless relationships just to feel a little bit of love.