R.I.P.

We are gathered here today to mourn the passing of our dear friend, Personal Responsibility. After years of faithfully walking with us, she was bludgeoned to death by Righteous Entitlement and Delusions of Victimization. We will miss you, P.R. You taught us how to examine our consciences. You made us look at ourselves realistically and taught us that many times something WE did led to what we sometimes tried to think of as "bad luck." What will become of us without your guidance?

What, indeed? I read an article a couple of days ago about a 3 year old girl whose foot got caught in an airport escalator. It turns out she was wearing Crocs, and her shoe got stuck in between steps, trapping her foot and nearly severing a toe. She'll make a full recovery, by the way. I've heard of this sort of thing happening before on escalators with Crocs, and while I love Crocs I know they can be clumsy and unwieldy sometimes. Escalators and children don't mix well anyway, in my opinion, and anytime I am on an escalator with my kids I'm as nervous as a cat. It probably doesn't help that one of my childhood nightmares was getting my shoe or shoestring (yes, back in the day we wore shoes with actual shoestrings that you had to tie, BY YOURSELF) caught in the escalator. My girls like to jump at the end of the escalator ride and that's fine by me. I'm usually holding their hand right up until the moment that they jump so they don't jump too soon. At least if they're jumping their toes/shoes won't get caught. Anyway, the punch line to this story is that the mother of the 3 year old girl is thinking of suing the airport. For what? Because her daughter was wearing Crocs? I don't get it. I'm sorry the little girl got hurt, but sometimes an accident is just an accident and no one is at fault. And sometimes things that happen to you are your own fault.

Years ago a lady (questionable term) made headlines for suing McDonald's. She went through the drive-thru and bought a cup of coffee. The coffee spilled and burned her, so she sued McDonald's. Um..... Why? Because McDonald's told her to put the coffee between her legs and drive? I don't remember what happened with the case but I thought it was ridiculous. Common sense should tell you that the coffee will be hot and you should handle it carefully. If it wasn't hot, she probably would have complained about that, too. Sadly, common sense seems to be in short supply these days. We shouldn't need warning labels on appliances telling us not to use them in the bathtub. I've known since elementary school that water conducts electricity, haven't you?

I'm all about choices. Life is a series of choices that we make, thanks to God's gift of free will. Like right now: I'm choosing to write in my blog rather than do other things, like clean the kitchen, fold laundry, take a shower, etc. When I'm feeling lazy and I stay in bed instead of getting up for quiet time with God, I'm making a choice. (In fact, I'm revealing my priorities with choices like that one - my sleep is more important than my relationship with God, at least at that moment. But my speech on priorities can be saved for another blog post.) Much of the time I choose the easy way out. :-) I'm not a big fan of excuses. That doesn't mean I think people should beat themselves up all the time, but at least be honest with yourself. You'll never do any better if you can't acknowledge what you're doing now. One of my favorite sayings is, "Self-awareness is the first step." If you can't look at yourself objectively and realistically, change (as in becoming more Christ-like) is much harder. It's like trying to follow a map without knowing your starting point. I KNOW my tongue needs to be tamed, so I'm working on that. I KNOW I need more quiet time and I'm working on that, too. I KNOW that I let my anger rule me sometimes and with God's help, that's getting better all the time.

I try to teach my girls to make good choices in life. If your sister hits you, you have a choice: walk away or hit back. Make the right choice, and don't come to me with the excuse that she hit you first. The lesson doesn't always "take" and so, like me, they will need to hear it over and over again - Make good choices.