Find your Purpose Love your Life

By Susan Parnaby

Prove to yourself (and others) what your purpose is. then use the three step restoration process in this book to fully step into your purpose.

We all know that we have been created with some kind of task or role in mind. yet many of us wonder if we have followed the path that we should have taken. Others have found that they have come so far and cannot go any further. If this sounds like you then this is the book for you.

In this ebook you will find help to gather the prof of what is your purpose. You will also be helped to gather the evidence that you will need for a brilliant time-tested restoration process based on the ancient wisdom of the middle east. Of course, you will learn how to use this process for yourself, i n such a way that you will be able to use it in relation to other aspects of your life.

This book also includes ideas about who to move forwards. In other words in this ebook is everything that you need to Find your Purpose and Love your Life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Susan Parnaby
• Release date: Jun 8, 2015

Susan Parnaby

The proceeds from these books go to Lily the Pink Education CIC. The aim of this community enterprise is to develop projects to help people who are in mental distress. These books are strongly influenced by Susan's personal experience. She knows what it is like to be imprisoned by circumstances. In her early 20s the choices she made left her struggling with various challenges. These became increasingly oppressive just as if she was in a shrinking room. Remember when this was a trial faced by the hero in low-budget movies. Escaping from the shrinking room was just the start of the process. There were many things to readjust to in a new unrestricted world. After her escape she realised that she was twice the age she was when she willingly, yet mistakenly went into captivity. It is not easy letting go of all the bad habits that have resulted from captivity. Those things hold us back and stop us being all that we can be. It gets worse, as the reason why she ended up in captivity was that she had already collected some bad habits. All of them needed to be tackled so that she could live in the fullness of a life outside captivity. If you feel as though you are stuck or even held captive then these are the books for you.

Book preview

Find your Purpose

Love your Life

Published by Susan Parnaby at Smashwords

Copyright 2015 Susan Parnaby

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favourite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

DEDICATION

To Carole Louise

Carole means a woman of noble character, i.e. a brave and dignified woman. Louise means fighter or warrior. Those names reflect the character you have needed to display because of the challenges that have been put in your path. I am so proud of what you have achieved despite these challenges. May the joy of your future far exceed the trials of the past.

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Chapter one Setting the scene

Chapter two Why did we lose the desire to stay in our purpose?

Chapter three What were the results of losing our purpose?

Chapter four How to discover your purpose?

Chapter five Accepting your purpose

Chapter six Releasing the past so that it no longer destroys the present

Chapter seven Retuning your heart to hear and accept positive beliefs

Chapter eight Reframing your thinking or how did the ugly duckling start to see the world like a swan

Chapter nine Where are you going?

Chapter ten Moving forwards into your purpose

Chapter eleven Making it work this time

Chapter twelve Next steps

Further resources

About the author

About Lily’s Place

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

There are many people whose lives have intersected with mine who have helped me learn the things I have written about. None of you are mentioned by name, to protect both the innocent and the guilty. Some of you might recognize who you are. Without you, and what I learned from you, this book would not have been possible.

Amongst the major players in my journey are the past and present members of Ferryhill B.C. and Bishop Auckland B.C. Thank you for standing by me and the contributions that you have made to my life.

In addition, I am grateful to the folk from Bethania who graciously welcomed me as I was putting the finishing touches to the manuscript. Without them, I would not have found the courage to complete this book.

Chapter 1

Setting the scene

Ever worked with a group of people on a project and realised that each one has a different set of strengths and weaknesses. It is more than just gender, or age, or qualifications, or experience. It is as if each one has a particular role that only they can fill.

Ever read the Bible passages, which talk about people having different gifts. If you have, then you will know that the Apostle Paul lists three different sets of gifts.

He gives one list of different roles that people might be gifted to perform in a letter to the Romans. In his letter to the Corinthians, he gives a list of activities, that are more like experiences, and calls them gifts as well. In a third list that he includes in a letter to the Ephesians, he describes different ways that people can help others. No wonder it can be confusing, when even this ancient academic included three different lists of gifts in his writings.

There are a multitude of ways of classifying the gifts that all human beings have. There are a multitude of different formal assessment tools to assess the strengths and weaknesses of different people. They often end up grouping people together under a series of headings, and then writing some kind of group description.

There is no right or wrong way. Each of these tools helps us understand a bit more about ourselves, as we see something in the description that rings true. Sometimes, we see something in our makeup that helps us decide what is the best way to do things. For example, are we someone who soars away with ideas, or are we someone who plods away putting the ideas of others into practice. Each little bit of insight helps us focus more on the things that we love and are comfortable doing, and in the process reach our full potential.

Why is being in our purpose is such a good idea?

Find where you fit and you can become the best you that it is possible to be. It fits. It feels comfortable. You enjoy doing it therefore, you are better able to do it well. You can do it well therefore, it is easier for you to serve other people better.

The problem is that it feels so good and so comfortable that we can struggle to accept that we are doing the right thing. Being in our purpose can seem so indulgent, so relatively easy that we get our knickers in a twist. In other words, it fits so well that we try doing things a different way because we do not believe that it could really be that simple, that easy. The problem is that if our underwear is not put on right, then everything that goes on top of it will not look right or feel right.

Very close to the passage about gifts in Corinthians is what is probably the most famous passage in the Bible about love. Paul reminds us that it is not what gift we have that is important, but the love that we show others. One way we can show love to others is doing the best that we can for them and that includes living in our purpose.

An example taken from a child’s toy

Remember the shape sorting toys young children have. They learn that a triangle cannot go through a square shaped hole. If for some reason the shape gets broken, it might be able to go through the wrong shaped hole.

Some of us are so broken that we are able to go through the wrong hole. Do that with a toy and there will be a hole where nothing goes through. There is nothing that fills that gap or matches that need.

Imagine if there was no one who was able to fulfil the role that we were supposed to have. Who would miss out on what they needed? Living in our purpose is not just about ourselves. Others benefit as well.

Some people I do not want to help

Amazingly, some people do benefit if I am not living in my purpose. They include those who offer stress relief therapies. Another group who benefit are those who provide legal and illegal coping mechanisms like alcohol, cigarettes and drugs. Crumbs even chocolate and ice cream can become coping mechanisms.

There are those whose role in life is to pick up the pieces after other people have tried to live without fulfilling their purpose. I do not want them to benefit at my expense. I want to find my purpose and live the life that I was designed to live. I suspect that you do too, or you would not be reading this.

Things to ponder

1. What things have you done in order to work out what your purpose is? Have you done psychometric tests at work or school that were supposed to show what you were good at? Have you done computer based tests offered by those giving careers advice? If you have, the things that you learnt would be useful later on so try to remember what they said or if you think you still have it have a look for the results sheet.

2.How can living in your purpose help others?

3.How does the analogy made with a child’s shape sorting tool apply in your life? Are you someone who has tried to go through the wrong hole? Are you someone who is not sure if they have discovered the right hole?

4.Has anyone benefitted from you not living in your purpose? The tobacco manufacturers? The pharmaceutical companies? The breweries or other people who make alcoholic drinks? The bakers who made all the cakes you ate? The chocolate makers? The dentists who fixed your teeth after eating all that sugar? Anyone else?

Three ways of thinking how you fit into the world

Ever seen a picture of the little shacks that people put up from whatever materials they have been able to gather. Not really proper homes, as they are little better than tents, but it is all that they can afford.

I had seen photographs of them at school but, some ten years after leaving school, I saw some for real in Turkey. I was with my family on holiday when we came across a handful of these sort of homes at the side of a road. I was struck by the huge difference between their lives and mine.

My immediate thought was, God what can I do about this. The next thought that came into my head was that I should do what I have been called to do. I realised that if I played my part in the big scheme of things that their lives would improve. If I had not concentrated on doing what I was supposed to be doing, could I have really have helped them? I certainly could not have achieved as much.

There are loads of ways of thinking about how we fit into the scheme of things and these are my three favourites.

Jigsaws and all their pieces

One way of looking at things is to see ourselves as part of a jigsaw. Each one of us doing our own thing, and that thing is like a piece of the jigsaw.

When all the pieces are put together then it is possible to see the entire picture. My small piece might not look like much, but when it is put together with the other pieces, it is possible to see the whole picture.

If you fulfil your purpose, then that is one piece of the jigsaw in place. You could put that piece in place because of what you do as an individual, or because of what you do while working for a business or other organisation. You could even set up a business or organisation yourself.

The jigsaw will only be complete if all the pieces are in place. It is when all the pieces are in their right places that the entire jigsaw will be revealed. If one piece is missing, then it will not look like it should. Something will be wrong with it.

One of the problems with some jigsaws is that they have large areas that have a very similar pattern. It might be an expanse of sky or trees or even baked beans. Whatever it is, it is hard to put the pieces together because there are so many similarities.

Yes, the sky in the picture might be a darker blue on that side than it is on the other side. This makes it obvious that some pieces don’t go together because they are slightly different shades.

Of course, the pieces have to fit together and it can be a matter of trying them to see if they fit without any gaps or overlaps. It is often very obvious that some pieces just do not fit even if they look the same colour or are the same pattern.

When you are working on an area like that in a jigsaw, it can be a matter of trial and error. You can guess approximately where a piece goes, but it is trial and error to find the exact right place for that piece. Often you try one piece after another to fit in that gap, before finally finding the right piece.

We can be like that. We have a good idea of where we think we fit into the picture but we try one place and we do not fit. Then we try another and another. We see other people find their place and wonder why it is so hard for us to find just the right place. Yet there is a right place for us. It may take time and patience, but eventually we find the exact place where we fit in.

Part of the created world

Another way of seeing how we fit in the world is to look at the created world around us. We see that nature has loads of systems that work together, and loads of different animals and plants that fit into those systems and help them work.

Trees have a role to play in making sure that the atmosphere is kept the way we need it to survive. Not only that, but, some trees provide us with food such as apples or oranges or walnuts.

The whole thing fits together in an amazing way. In fact, it is so seamless that we hardly notice it until something goes wrong. The more we see on nature programs, the more we gasp in awe and wonder at how everything works together.

Every living thing seems to have a purpose. The bees pollinate the plants. When something like Colony Collapse Disorder strikes, people get really worried about how they will be able to continue producing the food we need.

On the other hand, few of us like bee stings. Some people even die from them. There have been rumours of bee stings being helpful to people, although that might be stretching things a bit too far. Even those dirty flies and sneaky little ants that we hate to see in our kitchens have a purpose, and a reason for being created.

Parts of a body

The third way that I find useful when thinking about our purpose is to see a group of people as being like a body. Each of us having a specialisation and each being given the respect and honour due to it. I let the expert explain how this works. This is what Paul wrote in a letter to the Corinthians

For the body is not one part, but a number of parts.

If the foot says, Because I am not the hand, I am not a part of the body; it is no less a part of the body.

And if the ear says, Because I am not the eye, I am not a part of the body; it is a part of the body all the same.

If all the body was an eye, where would be the hearing? if all was hearing, where would be the smelling?

But now God has put every one of the parts in the body as it was pleasing to Him.

And if they were all one part, where would the body be?

But now they are all different parts, but one body.

And the eye may not say to the hand, I have no need of you: or again the head to the feet, I have no need of you.

No, those parts which seem to be feeble are the more necessary;

And to those parts of the body which seem to have less honour we give all the more honour; and to those parts of the body which are a cause of shame to us we give the greater respect;

But those parts of the body which are beautiful have no need of such care: and so the body has been joined together by God in such a way as to give more honour to those parts which had need of it;

So that there might be no division in the body; but all the parts might have the same care for one another.

And if there is pain in one part of the body, all the parts will be feeling it; or if one part is honoured, all the parts will be glad.

1 Corinthians chapter 12 verses 14 to 26

(The Bible in Basic English)

There is not much I can add to what the expert has written on that subject.

You and I are unique

Ever looked around and realised that there is no one quite like you. It is even possible to tell the difference between identical twins. They may look the same but when you get to know them there are slight differences, both in appearance and in character.

You could copy someone else or try and be someone else. However, that would mean you were setting yourself up to compete with someone else. If you are trying hard to be the best you that you can be, you are not trying to compete with someone else.

Not only that, in a competition to be the best you that you can be, you have the best chance of winning. After all anyone could try to be you, but you are the only one who can be the best you possible. No one else can be a better you than you can be, and do all the things that you are designed to do better than you can. They can try, but they will never be as good a you as you can be.

Read and digest those last few lines carefully. Others can try to copy you. They can try to be like you. They cannot be you. You are the best person to be you. No one else can be a better you than you can be. I must admit I am more used to hearing this other way around, i.e. there is little point copying others because we cannot be them. By trying to be someone that we are not, we are not being the best person that we can be. The only way we can be the best that we can be is to be the person that we are designed to be.

The same is true for all of us. There are specific things that you and I are designed to do. There are also specific people we are designed to work with. There is a specific place we are called to live so that we can be a part of a particular community and gain specific experiences.

Yes, there is something for you and I to do that is important enough for us to be specially designed to do it. That is an amazing thought isn’t it.

Things to ponder

1. Have you experienced any pivotal moments where you have realised just how important it is to fulfil your purpose? (Remember the story about how the lives of the people I saw would be changed if I fulfilled my purpose.)

2. If you were a piece in a jigsaw at the moment, how would you feel?

a. Would you be uncomfortable because you are trying to squash into the wrong sized space?

b. Would you feel out of place because somehow the part of the picture on your piece does not fit in with the one next to you?

c. Would you be the piece that was left on the side because no one could find the right place to put them and therefore you feel as if you don’t belong anywhere and that you have no purpose?

d. Would you be in the right place?

One of the things about the created world is that one thing depends upon another in order for things to function as they should. The animals depend upon the plants for food and the plants depend upon the rain etc etc. Can you think of anyone that you depend on to fulfil your purpose, or who may depend upon you to fulfil yours?

What do we want from life?

That may sound a strange question. I think most of us would say something like, I want to be happy. Another popular one is I want to make something of my life and make it count for something. Those are ideas that are closely linked to living in our purpose.

If that is what I believe is right for me, then, I will behave as if I expect it to happen. In fact, most of us do things to make what we expect to happen to actually happen, whether or not we realise what we are doing.

We have what we expect we will have (even if it is negative)

There is a dark side to this. I became misshapen over the years, I then settled or tolerated or agreed to stay in situations, which did not make me happy. The reason was that I had become misshapen. It was as if I was so out of shape that I was only happy when I was in a situation that other people would find completely unacceptable.

I discovered the hard way that it did not matter what I believed I should have, I would make an effort to get it. In other words, if I wanted something that was not good for me, then my natural inclination was to do something that would lead to me getting it. I literally got what I believed I could, or should have, even though it was not good for me.

My misshapen beliefs were so normal and natural to me that they took quite a bit of excavating to expose them. They were buried deep and had influenced my expectations and hence my actions, for so long that they were old friends.

If it happened to me, then it is possible that it could happen to you or, has happened to you. The fact that a principle can work in a positive or negative way, shows just how effective that principle can be.

For the moment, I will concentrate on the positive aspect of this principle. Doing what you are good at makes you happy. Think about it. You are good at something, and it comes easily to you and you enjoy doing it so that makes you happy.

I like to do things that come easily to me or that I can excel in doing. It is just more comfortable, and I suspect that you do too. Later I will explain how this helps us to work out what our purpose is.

Matching our desires with God’s desires

I have moved into a new home that I have been responsible for furnishing on at least five different occasions. On one of those occasions, I had a completely blank slate to start with for the majority of the rooms. There was no carpet, no paint on the walls, no light fittings, no curtains anywhere. There was some bedroom furniture and some dining room furniture that I could bring with me, but the living room was completely empty.

I was overwhelmed and had no idea where to start. I gave up trying for myself, and said God you sort the lounge out for me. A series of coincidental finds then followed. It started with finding some really pretty lamps but by the time the room was finished so many things matched it was amazing.

The new carpet and the new settee and chairs were both a similar shade of blue with a very similar pattern, i.e. tiny pale pink flowers with small dusky green leaves on them. The shades of the lamps and the main light fittings were similar shapes and had similar pink flowers on them, although they came from different places. The curtains were plain blue, but toned in beautifully as well. I really liked the completed effect.

It was amazing and it happened with very little effort on my part. I just saw something and somehow it matched everything else. Some people search high and low for ages to find things that match so well, yet everything fell into place almost without trying.

The kitchen was another matter. I knew what I wanted and the planners had their own ideas. We humans did it by ourselves. The result was a disaster. It all went wrong from the start.

The radiator was in the wrong place in relation to the table. The table was fixed to the wall above the radiator so it ended up being so high that we had to use high stools that were not very practical. The wiring and the plumbing had to be adapted to the new kitchen units as it was not in the right place. I found out the hard way that this made it easier for the drains to become blocked. Not only that but it was harder to use some appliances.

There was always something not quite right with that room, yet that was the one that I had most confidence that I could get right. I was never truly comfortable using that kitchen.

I learned a lesson from that experience. It dawned on me that God loved me so much, that when I asked Him to help me sort out the décor of a room, He did it in the way that I felt comfortable with. He used my favourite colours.

The strangest thing was that looking back many years later I realised that He used a pattern that had a symbolism I did not understand at the time. It was five years after leaving that house behind that I finally understood it. My name means lily and lilies are used in some places as a generic term for flowers, so the main pattern in the room was linked to my name!

He was allowed to take over but it was done in such a way that it satisfied my desires. Yet when I left Him out of the planning process, and did it my way, the whole room turned into a disaster zone, both in terms of fitting it and using it.

That may sound like something that has nothing to do with purpose, however, it is the principle that is important. Of course, as I look back I can see how I have fallen into the trap of thinking that I knew best only for things to go wrong.

Some of those poor choices have had serious implications for my purpose. From where I stand now, they have prevented me from moving into the fullness of my purpose. Some of them have become the mess that has shaped my message, so maybe good things can come out of bad. They were hard and painful lessons that looking back, I would rather have not experienced. Yet they were the result of what I thought best at the time being different from God’s best for me.

Where do these abilities and desires come from?

The answer I learnt from ancient middle eastern philosophy is that is that this is how a bountiful God made us. A woman is made so that she is able to do this, but will find that hard. A man is made so that he can do that, but will find this hard. Abilities are distributed between people but, have you ever noticed that there is a pattern in the way abilities are distributed between men and women?

Think about the way that the different genders notice what is happening around them. Men are often so focused on one thing that they miss the second thing that is right under their nose. Women on the other hand see what is happening around them, and struggle to focus on one thing. It is as if men and women are two sides of the same coin.

One explanation for this comes from the creation story. The man, Adam, is created first but then God performs surgery on him. He takes bits out of him and makes Eve.

I can imagine God saying. This is the purpose I want Adam and his male descendants to have, so I will leave him with these qualities and abilities and I will give these other ones to Eve.

Or, maybe He looked at it the other way around, and said This is what I want Eve to have, so she and her female descendants can fulfil their purpose and I will leave Adam with the rest. Whichever way round it was, the qualities and abilities of human kind were split between men and women.

When they come together as in a marriage, both sets of qualities can be seen and it is like bringing together two separate entities to make a whole. Remember though that neither gender can fulfil their full purpose and potential, if they are not equally valued. Men and women can have different roles and different purposes, but they are both important and valuable members of the community, including the business world.

Let’s take this a step further, and think about this from God’s perspective. You have created a woman with a female set of skills and outlook on life. You also want specific things done in the world. You then decided to give that woman the strengths and abilities and even design her experiences, so that she can do some of those specific things.

It works the other way around as well, as you give a man a masculine set of skills and a masculine outlook on life that makes him better able to do certain things. You give each person the strengths and abilities to do certain things, so that everyone is given a task to do, and everything that you want to get done is done.

You want people to become nurses and care for the sick. You give some people specific abilities, strengths etc. to do this and then you put the desire to do it in their hearts.

Paul in his letter to the Ephesians says that we were created to do good works on behalf of God. He even suggests that before the start of the world there were tasks assigned to us to do.

The strange thing is that the word desire comes from the Latin meaning of the father. Could the Latin be suggesting that the things that we want to do and that could be described as the desires of our hearts could actually come from God? For someone using this middle eastern philosophy, thinking that God put desires in everyone’s hearts and then helped them achieve them would make a great deal of sense.

The problem is that some of us believe that if we are serving others then it should be hard work and involve a lot of effort. Following our purpose seems to be too easy, almost selfish in a way.

We have a talent or a desire and we put it to one side. We believe that what we are passionate about gets in the way of following our purpose. If our passion is about doing what we like, and our purpose is about doing what we are called to do, then I suppose that could be possible. However, I struggle to believe that we can have a passion about something without it being involved with our purpose somehow.

If we have the desire, the way will be made so that we can fulfil it

It would be extremely cruel if we were given a desire and we were not given the resources to do it. The way it is often put, is that doors open so that we have the opportunity to go forwards into our purpose. This story will explain what I mean.

I knew I wanted to be a teacher growing up. I just could not work it out. Every time I tried to complete a teacher training course to help me qualify to teach children, something happened. It was crazy. I would try, only to find it did not work out.

I can only remember one bus strike, and that day was the one I was supposed to go for an interview to join a teacher training course. It was painful being held back again and again.

The last time I thought about trying to apply, I decided to apply if something else did not happen. Guess what, that other thing did happen, and happened in a surprising way, so I did not apply. That was when I really gave up on the idea, and took the hint that this was not the right thing for me. The problem then became what was the right thing?

Things then took quite a turn. Life had been very difficult in other ways and I was looking for a way forwards. I needed a way of coping with the difficult situation that I found myself in. That was when I decided that I should learn more about using computers.

At the beginning of the year, I wanted to make a fresh start. I had given up on the idea of teaching and started looking for something new. I started doing a level zero computer course, i.e. not much more than switch on the computer and type a few words.

Often it takes two or three years to go from there to a level three qualification. I wanted to do the next stage at that centre but, I could not afford it. However, I was able to go on and do another IT course.

Someone told me that they had been asked if they could help some trainees by providing them with work placements. My ears pricked up. These were people who were like me. They were doing this course to help them develop computer skills so that they could find a job.

I wondered if I could actually do that course myself. I checked and found that I could. The training centre was some distance from home, but I could easily get a lift. I could do the course for free, and in fact, I was paid for doing it, as despite getting a lift I could claim travelling expenses.

It was a very comprehensive course. I have never seen anything else that covered quite so much. We did a qualification as part of the course that involved putting together a portfolio of evidence drawn from the work that we did in class. We had done so much, that we could pick and choose what we included. So much that we could leave out about half of the exercises that we had done.

It was a better preparation for the future than any other course I could have done. Not only that, but it was a fast track course. I had a level three qualification in six months, rather than the two or three years it would have normally have taken.

When the time came to start the work experience element of the course, I was asked what sort of work I wanted to do, so that they could find the right placement for me. The old idea of teaching re-surfaced and amazingly, they were able to offer me a placement as an IT tutor working with adults.

Every time I tried training to teach children, nothing worked. Now I started to think about teaching adults and everything started to fall into place in an amazing way. It was a complete turnaround.

This fits in with the idea that an opportunity can show up in a different form than we recognise. After all, I had tried and tried to apply to do a teacher training course before deciding to do an IT course instead.

Some also say that an opportunity to go forwards can often be spotted in a defeat. Well I was defeated. I had given up trying to do a PGCE course to qualify me to teach children. I did eventually complete a PGCE course, over fifteen years after I first started trying to do so. Yet the PGCE I ended up completing, was one that qualified me to teach adults.

I can look back to the time when I was thinking that I should be a schoolteacher and see how when I had opportunities to use early versions of computers, I grasped them with both hands. I suspect you do not remember the Sinclair ZX Spectrum or the BBC Master. Believe it or not, the first desktop computer became available shortly after my first attempt to start training to teach children.

These days I can have withdrawal symptoms from not being able to use a computer. Seriously, not being able to use email or use the internet or just write materials like this leaves me bereft, hardly knowing what to do with myself. If that is not a sign of doing something that you are passionate about, I do not know what is!

The main subject I have taught has been IT. Even when I have taught a different subject like Ethics and Philosophy, IT has been an essential skill in the classroom. It also proved useful knowing enough to help learners with their IT issues.

I had a sense that IT would be useful, but I did not realise how important it would be in order to fulfil my destiny until many years later. What I needed showed up when I needed it, but I did not recognise how well things worked together until afterwards.

Timing can be important

Strange how I had a desire and ability to work with computers at a time when they were getting increasingly important. I am not sure if any of my grandparents ever used one in their lives. That sounds like a sneaky bit of planning there.

It would have been rather odd and even wasteful if my grandparents, who all lived just long enough to see the first stirrings of my interest in computers, had had a passion to use computers. They would hardly have started learning to use them before departing this world.

It works the other way around as well. There are relatively few people who have the passion to take up the old trades, which are not as common as they once were, such as blacksmiths or steam train drivers.

I followed the desires of my heart but the way I saw them was a little off. When I started thinking about being a schoolteacher, I was still a teenager, so I was too young to consider the possibility of teaching adults. When I started playing with computers, they had not become the tools that they are today. However, a good God knew what He wanted me to do, and even though I did not fully understand what I was supposed to be doing, He kept His promise of guiding me into the paths of righteousness.

Things to ponder

1. If someone asked, you to explain more clearly what being happy meant to you, how would you answer them?

2. If you were asked what sort of things you would want to do in order to make your life count for something, what would you say?

3. Be honest, has anyone close to you told you that you are not thinking accurately, or at least that you are not seeing the world in the same way as they do? If so, how have they described what they see happening?

4. What do you think of my story about the different results that came from asking God for help to furnish one room in my home and when I tried to do it myself? Have you had any similar experiences?

5. Have you struggled with this idea that men and women see things in