Charming Patterns

When still young, I learned to make choices and decisions based on Principles. Even if emotions and rhythm were involved, there were rhymes and reasons. Obviously, this practice was not perfected, but it has been fulfilling and served me well. In my life, no cognitive PATTERN* was set before me at the beginning. Only as I looked back over the years did I notice a defining PATTERN. As I aged and began to look back over my life, I saw a Charming PATTERN picturing myself. My career choice and the pursuit thereof to fulfill what I perceived as my purpose in life, as well as my marital choice were based on Christian principles. As we live our lives, creating, building, developing, and managing are primary to us. The results and the outcome, or the out workings of our plans and practices are behind us as we consecrate on future pursuits. When we pause or slow the pace, and especially when we reach retirement years, we begin to look back. In so during, there is a PATTERN. Even as my eyes began to age, I saw things like flowers and trees never seen before. I became interested in people that I had long forgotten. Allow me to describe one very significant PATTERN that I observed. Early in my life and career, I and some others thought that I was going to be a leader of the pack, a pace setter, a recognized change maker, a trail blazer, a visionary. When I looked back over the years and examined what I had done and where I had been, I discovered that I was none of the above. In stead, at heart, I have excelled and served best as a devoted follower, an administrator, a teacher, a manager, a helper, an assistant. When I surveyed the path of my yester years, I understood better why I kept resisting the efforts of others to make me into something that I am not. I was not the apple on the tree that others desired, but I was the real McCoy, the genuine article. I did not realize it at the time, so I continued attempting to excel in things counter to who I really was at heart. When I looked back and saw the PATTERN, I immediately was okay and content with what I saw. Being 'second fiddle' was acceptable to me. It was okay being Tonto and not The Lone Ranger. It was okay being Hannibal Hamlin** and not Abraham Lincoln. I became more aware that I would be responsible to God for being faithful with the gifts He gave to me. In my case, I learned more about myself when I was able to look back and examine the PATTERNS that were developed. It is said that numbers don't lie. I say also that PATTERNS don't lie. 092721PSCtest, Charming Patterns, Julia Ward *Pattern: Something used as a model for making things **Abraham Lincoln's Vice President