Wisdom

Okay....a little late in the game today but better late than never to have posted at all. Right?! I guess the same goes with wisdom. For some strange reason, we never gain true wisdom until much later in the game. Why is that? Well, life experience of course. You can't be wise about things you know nothing about. Again....right?!

True wisdom and prayer, are in my opinion, right up there in the top ten of the greatest gifts we are given in this life. I say true wisdom with the emphasis on the "true," because it is only real and only comes after we have lived and experienced life. However, at every age we think we are wise and honestly, we are wiser at seven than we were at six and wiser at 18 than we were at 17, but just how wise is that?

At 18 we are not wise enough to comprehend that cigarettes will actually kill us, that college is one of the most important steps we will ever take in life and that our parents aren't going to be with us forever. We are just too limited and inexperienced to understand the gravity of the choices we make and the wheels we set in motion at such a young age that can and often do effect the rest of our lives. At 18, we are only wise by an 18 year old standards. To the rest of the world we are simply young and foolish. However, at 45 when someone finds out they have lung cancer and won't be around to watch their kids grow up, that their job opportunities and their ability to support their family might have been a lot better had they gone on to college and the realization of how much they miss hearing their parents voice, hugging them or simply having a conversation with them, that is when true wisdom sets in and the impact of just how little they really knew or understood the world way back when..... hits home like a brick.

A favorite saying of those who grow older and gain the wisdom of their years is "Youth is wasted on the young." Their perspective is more of an "If I knew then what I know now," but the fact is, the young have to be foolish. They have to make their mistakes, burn their bridges and live with their consequences. Without these things, then they would not grow up or grow wiser. It is the mistakes and failures that we learn from. That is when and where true wisdom is gained.

As a parent, I struggle with this. While my wisdom is surely far more advanced than that of an 18 year old, I still don't have all the answers and never will. I can however see further ahead than 18 years and I know when mistakes are being made, bridges are being burned and when the consequences of bad choices are likely to have long and lasting effects on life. The problem is, my wisdom to an 18 year old is antiquated, ridiculous and unnecessary and try as I might, you can't fix foolish and immature...only time and experience can do that, so I have to back off and let them proceed. That is when I invoke that other great gift....prayer. 

Wisdom! To gain it is to be thankful for the past....both the good times and the bad. I think though, it is to be most especially thankful for the tough times, the hard times and yes.... the bad times, for that was when we grew, we learned and when we became wise. So it is true, with age comes wisdom, but thankfully, there will always be those who are older, wiser and still think I am nothing but young and foolish! God bless them all!