Things we cannot change

You know the words well - God grant me the serenity to accept the things we cannot change...

Sometimes we make a decision and then have the option to change our minds.  That's a good thing. Sometimes we make a change in our lives - that we don't like - or that seems to have been a bad decision.

I was chatting with a couple of mothers whose children are under 6.  One of them showed me a photo of a darling little girl whose long curls, the ones I had admired just a few days before, were missing.

It reminded me of the day that Becca, aged 6, brought me a handful of her hair and said "Mommy, can you glue this back?"

I'm sure that at that time I needed serenity.

"No, but it will grow back" and if you have seen my first born you know that it did.

But then there are some things that we just cannot change.  One of those things would be our words - spoken in anger, disgust, sometimes in fear.

At the Florida versus East Carolina University football game this past Saturday, no doubt there was anger, disgust and maybe even a little fear.

This was supposed to be a cake walk for the Gators - and it was not.   There was disgust, anger and maybe a little fear.  Former Gator "great" Fred Taylor said his son, Kelvin, the one who was the object of Florida coach, Jim McElwain's wrath following an unsportsmanlike penalty, was angry that he wasn't getting enough playing time.  That didn't make it right.  McElwain is sorry that he was so disgusted and all of Florida nation at that time was surely fearful that the game was about to go the other way..and God forbid, we would lose.

Words - we can't take them back.

And in this case, a media frenzy ensued.

Fortunately no one really cares about some words I wish I hadn't spoken.

As I was going through the grief process after my daddy died in 2009, I thought back to many of the words we shared.  Once he told me that he didn't like my hair - and I thought - do I wear my hair for you, daddy?  And I was irritated that he thought I did.  As I was missing him, I thought why in the world did I let that bother me?

Another time when I didn't like the fact that my house smelled like bacon when I came home and showed my distaste he got after me for having what he "loved to call " a short fuse.  And I shook my finger in his face and said something like "Daddy, you have got to stop saying that to me".

Six years down the pike, I think back to those words and feel pretty yukky.

I suspect Jim McElwain felt pretty yukky after the game when his mother chided him for his actions at the football game.

There are some things we just cannot change - but if we practice thinking before we speak - at least we have a chance.  Oh yes - that's where the courage comes in.