Building Blocks

As a senior citizen, I must acknowledge that I am. I have a lot of life to look back on. Hind sight is 20/20.  I have had a lot of failures in life. As I look behind me I realize some of those failures have been building blocks in my life. Sometimes I learned more from failures than any thing else. Maybe I have a thick skull and just won't listen when given advice, and end up learning through hardship. I have learned through hardship. We have all heard about Thomas Edison and his many failures and yet to day as I write this blog, I have a light bulb behind me lighting the room. Thomas had many failures until he found a filament that would work. Today our light bulbs are even better than those of Thomas Edison. He learned much from his failures, he at least learned what did not work. They were building blocks until he found something that worked. And lighting engineers have learned even from Thomas Edison's successes. As I have looked back on life I realize many of my failures have been building blocks. I failed in marriage and I learned not to do some things. Simple little things, like I have many times used the wrong names for people. I have a neighbor named Janet and a sister in Law named Janice and almost every time when I speak of Janice I say the name Janet, When I speak of Janet, I say the name Janice. Don't know why it just happens. It has been that way for years. Two church families from years ago, the Morleys and the Masons, I did the same thing. This does not work in a marriage and I learned to use names of endearment, like sweetheart and honey, sugar and the like. They work, but when I had names like Jenie, Joanie, Jean, you can see with my history that was dangerous. In the same way failures can be building blocks in my life. I remember a time when I took over a set of drawings as an engineer. My first set of drawings for a new customer were a disaster. I thought I understood what I was taught by the engineer that taught me. He even recommended me to take over this set of drawings when he left. But my very first set of drawings came out wrong and I did ADCN and DCN the next three months until I had those drawings corrected. I learned so much from those mistakes, I never had that problem again as long as I had that set of drawings. Those failures were a building block in my career as an engineer. They helped me to understand what I missed during the prior six months of my training.  Enjoy prosperity while you can, but when hard times strike, realize that both come from God. Remember that nothing is certain in this life. Ecclesiates 7:14.  It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn your statutes. Psalm 119:71.  Some one once said God does not waste a trial. I feel I can say that in my life, God has used the afflictions of my life for my good.  Someone also said God is more interested in our character than our comfort. I learned much from failure, they have been building blocks in my life. I feel my driving is much better today than even in my forties. I had 4 traffic tickets and one accident in 2001 and my drivers license was suspended. I had to get SR22 insurance to get my license back to be able to drive to work. I once checked on what my insurance would cost me if I bought a new car during my three years on SR22 insurance. It would have been $430 a month, more than the car payment. I learned to set my cruise control, it is much cheaper than paying all those tickets and having to buy SR22 insurance. We can learn from our mistakes and the afflictions in life. Sometimes it is God that sends them our way.  God bless, LVZ.