Sunday, August 8, 2010

Words of Wisdom - King Solomon stylez

It is amazing that words written in 900 BC would still apply to us today. At the time King Solomon was the leader of a very politically, spiritually, and culturally powerful and rich kingdom, and yet was not only for these things but also as being a wise man.... Here are his words and the lessons I am learning.

LESSON ONE - "To every thing there is a seaon and a time to every purpose under the heaven" Ecclesiastes 3:1
After my mother recovered from her major surgery and treatment - I needed to return back to work and get some money. However as I was just starting out after the boys, and committed to being a full-time mother, my options were limited. A friend put me on to this two night a week spot doing data entry. Before I went in to sit a speed and accuracy test, I remember sitting in the carpark with my mother and crying my eyes out. Here I was an intellectual educated woman with three degrees about to work in a position that didn't need any of those skills or knowledge and I felt like a failure. After hearing her full grown daughter, a mother of her grandbabies bawling - all she said was "Dear (her endearment for me), every thing has a season - and your time will come - it will come". I held on to that for the following two years until I got a part-time job lecturing - and the rest is history. Not only King Solomon was wise, my mother was pretty on-to-it too.

LESSON TWO - "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it" Proverbs 22:6
This is one of the things that I try and do raising my sons. I regularly observe and occasionally talk to women of sons for some guidance on what I can do and prepare for them getting older. The the advice is different and usually very helpful. The anecdotal evidence is sometimes hiliarious and always heart warming. Yet the most commonly held belief of these mothers is that ALL you can do as a parent is to raise your children the best you can, to ground them in good values, surrounded by love and the desire to want to do better. The rest will be up to them.... Some wise words are harder to apply than others - so if I make it through the next five years of teenagerhood, I'll let you know how I go ;-)

LESSON THREE - "A soft answer turneth away wrath" Proverbs 15:1
Its amazing that this was penned so long ago - as it has filled pages and pages of business and self-help books across the planet since then. In my current position I have had to employ this skill on more occasions that I care to remember and only survived because I have taken the less travelled path of softness and calmness. It typically has me apologising or as I call it eating 'humble pie' in many cases a pie that the yeller should be eating ;-) It sometimes ends in tears (never in front of the yeller) - because no one deserves to be yelled at, but that is a small sacrifice to pay to maintain control, integrity, dignity and the right to hold my head up high.

LESSON FOUR - " For as [s]he thinketh in his heart, so is [s]he" Proverbs 23:7
I wish it were true when we say - "Oops - that just slipped out" but the reality is that words don't just don't fall out of our mouths - because it is scientifically impossible for something to happen without a thought (unless you have turrets syndrome). What you think, is what you are- it really is that simple and something I reflect on everyday!

LESSON FIVE - "A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches" Proverbs 22:1
Names are important to me - I believe they carry connections between this generation and those that have been and hopefully those to come. My names (both the one that I was born with and married into) place me fairly and squarely in a family tree that spreads across continents and it is awesome. It is important to live a life that is worthy of the name that we carry - because unlike riches, which will not last - it is one of the only things we will take with us into the next life...

Proverbs and Eccelesiastes are full of words of wisdom that still apply to us some thousand years later and I am praying that it doesn't take that long to learn and practice them :-)

Yours in friendship

Mxox

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