CAUGHT

This morning I caught my almost three year old son about to jump from his race car bed to a nearby wooden chair in his bedroom.  I'm not quite sure how he thought this was going to work out for him, but I quickly scolded him with threats of taking toys away and standing in the corner if he ever attempted this again.  It may have worked for today, but I'm sure they will be another equally appealing not-so-great idea around the corner.  And, while he might not think so at the time, hopefully one day he will appreciate the fact that he got caught.

I sure feel that way sometimes.  I feel like I'm just going about my day, swimming along, looking for something to eat, and someone just yanks me by the mouth out of the water and I'm left flopping around on the deck of the boat until they get bored with me and throw me back in.

I used to feel frustrated and angry when things didn't go as I'd planned.  I have an idea and can't make it happen or plans fall through and you just feel irritated.  And this morning in the midst of my son's attempted acrobatics, I realized something.....

What if maybe, just maybe, I was yanked out of the water before something REALLY BAD was about to happen?

Like what if a bigger, faster, stronger, smarter fish is about to swallow me whole?

And I'm pulled to safety just before he reaches me.

What if every time I've had a genius plot and it's been foiled, it has been to my benefit, only I'll never really know because I don't see what horrors might have happened instead of my minor inconvenience?

I never really thought of life this way until I realized just how close my son came to breaking some unknown bone this morning.  Thank goodness I caught him, and thank goodness I didn't miss the lesson.

So I'm going to think of "getting caught" in a different way now.  I mean, if you ever found yourself in the air, free falling towards certain destruction of some kind, wouldn't you want to be caught by someone before you have a chance to crash into the ground?

Instead of feeling like I've been hooked, maybe I'll think of it as someone throwing a safety net under me.

And maybe then I'll stop feeling like a fish out of water when things don't go my way.