I was sitting at my desk when Veronica, a fourth grader in my school choir, walked into my room after school. She said in a worried voice, “Look at my chin. I woke up this morning with this on my face.” My eyes followed her voice up to her chin where I saw strange, tiny, purple blotches that started underneath her bottom lip and continued under her chin. I asked her what happened. “I woke up like this,” she responded. “I don’t know what happened, but my mama says if it doesn’t go away soon, she’s gonna take me to the doctor.”
I had never seen anything like it. “Do you need to see the nurse?” I asked. “No, I saw her this morning. She had me to put ice on it all day.” That made me feel better. “I wanted to stay home today,” she continued, “but my mom said that I should come to school. It didn’t matter if the kids made fun of me, I had to realize that I’m still beautiful and I shouldn’t worry.” I nodded my head in agreement. I had a Halloween flashback. (See my post – The Scar (Compassion & Life’s Adversities – Part 2).
Choir rehearsal started. We continued where we left off the day before. Towards the end of rehearsal, Shelly, another 4th grader, grabbed a stack of miniature rubber construction cones that had encouraging remarks printed on them. I usually allowed the students to pass them out whenever someone sang especially well. “Put those cones away,” I said. “Remember yesterday, don’t you?”
The day before, one of the singers discovered that by squeezing in on a cone she could attach it to her face. That’s all it took. Immediately, I saw children with 4-inch blue cones sticking out of their foreheads, or purple cones protruding out of cheeks and hanging off chins. They laughed so hard and were even trying to sing with them on their faces. They were being so silly that I had them to put the cones away and took away the privilege of using them for the next day.
“I told you yesterday, no cones today.” Looking disappointed, Shelly was in the midst of collecting the cones when all of a sudden Veronica yells out, “The cones!” We all turned. Revelation was written across her smiling face. “Yesterday,” she continued, “I wore a cone on my chin while I was walking around the room at the end of class.
A small smile slowly spread across my face as it dawned on me what had happened. I said, “I think you gave yourself a cone hickey!” “I don’t understand,” she said. Why did the cone do that to my face?” I explained what I thought had taken place. We all laughed in relief that she didn’t have to go to the doctor after all. I assured her that the spots would go away soon and she’d be back to normal.
I think that in life, we all have ‘cone moments’. Something in our lives may be going very wrong and we can’t figure out why. You can bet that it’s the other person’s fault. It usually is, isn’t it? If only they would… If only they had…
But wait! Cone moment!
Softly, the Holy Spirit reminds us of things we said or actions we’ve taken that were a major contributing factor to the present trouble. We weren’t so innocent after all. Now, what do we do? We can’t go back and erase our words or cancel our actions. Wouldn’t that be especially cool if we could?
I was discussing this with some friends. One said to another, “When you do your ‘do over’, can you do my life over too while you’re at it?”
While God does not allow us to go back and relive our lives, erasing the consequences of our past ignorance with our present wisdom, He does allow us to repent. We can choose to regret our wrong choices so much that we stop living by what we think is right and allow God’s Holy Spirit to teach us the right way to think, speak, and behave. We get to toss out our wrong beliefs and exchange them for God-centered truths. Wherever I am led astray by my own selfish desires, wrong opinions and philosophies, I get to turn and go in the opposite direction towards my Heavenly Father, who has wisdom stored up for me.
It’s not enough for me to know what God would have me to do, but I actually have to do it. We don’t get ‘do overs,’ but we do get the chance to ask for forgiveness from God, hopefully the chance to ask forgiveness from the person we wronged, or have the chance to forgive the one who injured us.
So if you have a ‘cone hickey’ today, know that the Holy Spirit is waiting to reveal to you why the bruise is actually there. He’s there to not only solve your mystery, but heal the injury that may have been caused by the choices you’ve made.
Until next time, I hope that you will enjoy the journey!
Love,
T’Alice
Question to consider:
1. Is there a chance that you’ve given yourself a cone hickey?
2. Have you spoken to your Heavenly Father about it?
3. What has the Holy Spirit revealed to you?
4. What will your response to this revelation be?
Scriptures to take with you on your journey courtesy of Biblegateway.com:
