Time to Throw Out the Red Pen!

After days of researching information from the local library, I have put my finishing touches on my essay and it was ready to hand in. I always prided myself on my ability to write and write well. With this latest assignment from my English teacher, I had to dig deeper than a simple narrative from one of my favorite memories, or to step beyond the ability to debate the merits of some injustice in the world. I had to research information on the topic for my research paper. If you remember before the days of the internet and computers, this involved using encyclopedias, magazines, and books from the library. It was using a card catalog and manually going on a treasure hunt to find the elusive book you needed for your paper. Often times, that book was missing when you went to find it.

Probably checked out by someone else, or simply misplaced for the time being. So I had to go back and look up other books I might be able to use. There was a requirement to find at least three sources and list them on your cite works page and to make sure you didn't copy down things unless you were using them as a quote. Once the researching was complete, then you had to compile all that information into about 4 or 5 pages of what you wanted to say. I remember mine was on the Bermuda Triangle and the mystery surrounding it. I thought I had a real winner, even claiming I wanted to be one of those people that were "taken" in hopes of explaining what was really happening.

But turning in the paper was only adding more stress to what I was feeling. I had hoped for a decent grade and one that was not filled with the dreaded red pen. If you have been in a public school setting, you can probably remember those "red pen" papers. They were graded in red pen and often included hints or suggestions on how to correct your paper, from spelling and punctuation errors, to how to start a decent paragraph and included the one we still dread today, the perfect thesis statement.

I did get my paper back and was pleased by my grade, but it was still marred by those red pen corrections on it. Oh how I would have loved to get a paper back with nothing on it but a perfect A and nothing more. But then again wouldn't we all?

Life is filled with those daily papers we are required to submit. It might be running our kids to school, paying bills, heading to work in rush hour traffic, or even caring for someone who is sick and can't help themselves. Each of us every single day has an opportunity to see how we can manage through our day in hopes not necessarily for a perfect paper, but at least one with less red pen marks than we did before.

In a world where lately every where you look you can find "red pen" marks. Whether it is some crisis happening in a country far from ours, from school shootings, or what our current president is doing to help in any situation, why a celebrity who has virtually everything he could want, takes his own life without explanation; why people begin rioting and arguing in cities of what injustice they feel the police are handing out, and it seems like the more we plug in, the more "red pen" marks there are to see.

I believe we need to be the ones to make the world a better place by finding ways we can eliminate those red pen marks in life. We need to step outside our own doors and try to be better neighbors. We need to realize that there are people hurting all around us and all they are searching for is validation that they mean something to anyone. We need to find ways to make this day better by making better choices instead of looking how we can play the blame game alongside everyone else. Choose your side. Take a stand.

We need to unite more and divide less.

We need to realize that people count, not what they may do that may cause us to judge them without knowing all the facts. If you trust the media in any form, to provide that for you, You are sadlybeing led astray.  News sells and they know it. So they will make sure you see only what they want you to see. But every day people are writing different stories that the media never shares. Stories that would show us that the world we live in isn't so bad after all.

I think we need to change our perspectives, open our eyes and change our focus. Lets start focusing on the good instead of the bad, and I guarantee you, we WILL find it.

There are people all around the world looking to make a difference. One that breeds an environment of love and not hate. One that offers joy instead of despair. One that helps instead of hurts. If you truly look hard enough you can find it.

I challenge everyone who reads this to share ONE thing you did to throw out the red pen in the world. Leave a comment below so we can help change people's mind sets about what is happening around us. I know we won't make this world a peaceful place, but perhaps we can shift our minds on things above instead of the evil in the world today. If only for today.

Like Chuck Swindoll so eloquently shared in his devotional this morning, "But I've got a hunch that when the score is added up one day as we stand before our Lord, many of us will wish we'd played a lot more Risk . . . and a lot less Trivial Pursuit." What are you willing to "Risk" today?

Break Out the Red Pen!

When I was a corporate trainer for one of the top communications companies, after we had completed our 6 to 7 week New Hire training class, we had a graduation day. It was something I felt was owed to these hard working individuals who had made it through training for customer service representatives. They had to endure long hours and no time off for illness or any reason. If they did, we had to let them go due to the intense and compacted training they needed to do the job.

So we usually had a class of about 40 people and we’re lucky to have 15 left by the close of our 6-week class. So on graduation day, I would give them a chance to provide feedback on my training, being as honest as they felt, and no names needed to be provided. I wanted the brutal honesty. If I was a bad trainer, I wanted to know it but also what they felt I did wrong and suggestions on how to improve my training.

It was something I looked forward to the most. Most of what I got was great, but occasionally I did get the brutal honest feedback, and I feel it made me a better person. I wasn’t out to get the person who gave it to me, but I felt, others could sometimes see things you are often to close to see. That’s where I believe we can all use some brutal honesty.

However, I think we have to be in the mood to hear it. Sometimes others want to offer their dose of brutal honesty to us, but we aren’t ready to hear it. I think a warning is in order. You have to mentally be prepared to deal with their honesty. You have to see it also for what it is, honest feedback based on their perceived opinion of you at that moment. A hard pill to swallow for some of us. We don’t want to hear any negative. All we look for is praise and compliments.

It’s like the red pen circling our errors we have made in life. Remember when you received your paper back from your teacher in school, only to find it riddled with red pen, marks of correction? How did you handle it? If you were like me, a perfectionist in every sense of the word, I hated it. I didn’t see it until my high school years, that it was a way to improve. A way to better yourself. A way to be a better person to those around you.

In high school, I looked forward to the red pen marks. I was always looking for how to be a better person, and the people, who could provide that kind of feedback for me, were the experts in their field, my teachers. Who better to provide feedback and correction on my English paper than my English teacher? My parents could offer some suggestions but unless they had an English degree, I had to wait for the red pen! I knew I was getting better when the red pen marks became so few, that they didn’t appear any longer.

I didn’t know it then but I do now, how those red pen marks made me a better student. It’s all about not so much pointing out the negative things, but on how to improve on the positive things. That is where God spends so much loving time with us.

Many times we are faced with similar situations in life. Times where I believe, God breaks out the red pen in our lives. Sometimes we are so stubborn, we choose to look at a difficult situation God has placed in our life, and all we choose to see is the red pen, all over our paper. We don’t want to go back and fix it, we don’t want to hear what is wrong, we simply want to see a great grade on top and move on to something else.

When we take that attitude of refusing to fix things that God wants us to fix, He may allow the situation to pass, but brings it back to us in a different form.

Many times as a teacher for my daughter, when she gets frustrated learning something new, and wants to quit rather than see the lesson before her, I try again. Many times, I have to see that my attitude or method of teaching her that new concept isn’t getting through to her. I have to change my approach so she learns without me losing my patience with her, or having her end up in tears. I have to try a different way of teaching her that concept. My methods weren’t able to reach her in the manner I needed it to, so she was missing the point. The goal is to get her to learn something new. Something, that will make her a better student and move up a level.

God is the same; He presents situations to us, many times in different manners so we can learn what He needs us to before we can move up another level. We may get frustrated and cry. We may run from our situation, but God keeps lovingly bringing it back to us, until we see that situation or red pen for what it is. A lesson to be learned. A way to make us into the wonderful person God sees. It is His goal for us. We are on that path to becoming better people! We simply must change our hearts, and our attitudes, and be willing to see the red pen marks for what they are in our life.

God, please continue to use the red pen, until I achieve all you want me to be in Your life!