What type of obstacle are you facing?

It’s summertime, and it sure is hot! I’m sooo grateful to have access to a pool. We love to go nearly everyday. It gives the kids a chance to work on their swimming and me a chance to work on my tan!

We were hanging out at the pool the other day, I was soaking up the sun on a green lounge chair. Kyah had hers situated only a few inches from me. Aaliyah came toddling over with her pink swim diaper and overlapping buddah belly and her green floaties (which she swims around the pool with all by herself).

She tried to squeeze in the small space between my chair and Kyah’s. She was managing fine, but then there was an obstacle in her way, that came up past her knees. She tried with all of her might to raise her leg up over it, however, she just couldn’t quite make it.

I looked down to see how I could help and realized that her ‘obstacle’ was a pink floatie- something so light and airy that she could have easily kicked it out of her way with her adorable little foot. Yet here she was straining to go over the top of it.

I easily related this incident to life. We encounter all types of obstacles in our lives. Sometimes we need to go around them, through them or over them.

Yet do we correctly categorize the type of obstacle that we are facing before we begin making herculean efforts to conquer them? Perhaps some problem we’re facing might seem difficult to surmount. It may be possible that if we approach it from a different angle, it could be easily kicked out the way, like a floatie!

Sometimes I think we magnify the size of our problems and make the proverbial “mountains out of mole hills.”

I know I do, when my children are all crying at the same time and all want something from me, and the phone is ringing and I have a million things on my ‘to do’ list, and I’m hungry and tired and feel like I’m about to go ‘crazy’- it’s only because I’ve lost perspective.

I’m trying to climb over this huge floatie, when really I can easily kick it out of the way, as soon as I make the decision to do so.

I’m going to improvise on Mark Twain a little and say, “I’ve had a lot of problems in my life, most of which never happened.” Too often we make up problems for ourselves, simply by having the wrong view of things.