麻豆约拍

Experience is that marvellous facility that enables you to recognise a mistake 鈥� when you make it again!听听Or so the saying goes.听听And oh boy, have I made mistakes in my life. Which is why I鈥檓 rather grateful for the advice and guidance of others. Such as:

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• Never weigh more than your fridge.

• Never, EVER, mix sleeping pills & laxatives.

• Never trust a man with a comb-over - if he's lying to himself he's likely to lie to you too!

There are some truths about life which I鈥檝e taken note of such as:

• You cannot use your kid's trampoline without laughing like an idiot!听听Similarly, it鈥檚 impossible to skip and be unhappy.

• If someone talking to you starts by saying "With all due respect ..." it actually means they think you're an idiot.

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But, as I say, all the above are someone else鈥檚 lessons, I鈥檝e just noted them.听听The real problem in life is that we really do need to learn lessons ourselves.听听Life is pretty much a DIY thing!听听Until we鈥檝e tried out some rule or advice from others, we haven鈥檛 actually learned the lesson. Things like this Pause For Thought or my Sunday sermons are pretty much just passing on some ideas and insights which work for me 鈥� but until they鈥檝e been experienced, they鈥檙e just words, second-hand platitudes.听听Which is why faith for me is always about living life, not just believing certain things.听

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The other side of that coin is, of course, that you can鈥檛 take people some place you haven鈥檛 been yourself.听听I can鈥檛 preach about forgiving, or loving your enemies or trusting God in hard times unless I鈥檝e been there myself and actually done it. And one profound lesson I鈥檝e learned is that it is the times when things go wrong, the self-inflicted disasters, the times when God has been well and truly silent and apparently absent 鈥� that is when I have actually grown most as a person, learned most about others and truly learned that God is a loving God and is to be trusted..听听No amount of advice from others could have taught me the things I learned in those times. So, perhaps my guiding mantra should be the quote usually attributed to Tallulah Bankhead, 鈥淚f I had my life to live over again, I鈥檇 make the same mistakes, only sooner!鈥�