30 Days of Excellence: Initiative

I really shouldn't be starting this today because I'm stuck without photos for awhile... boo! But I have to give props to my Boo Bear today. She is eight, and since she was a baby I have prayed for her to have Initiative. As I would define it, initiative is the ability to see something that needs to be done, and take action.

Often Boo demonstrates the Achilles Heel of this quality, sometimes known as Impetuous. As in, seeing things that can be done, and taking action without thinking about it. This frustrates me to no end.

Hence my sense that my job with her is to Steer. She exhibits so many leadership qualities, but they're still really rough.

But once in awhile, I see a glimmer of her stronger side of Initiative. Yesterday our neighbor sent over a snatch of a perennial plant after Boo impulsively decided to deliver her a thank you gift for being a great neighbor (wherever that impulse came from. She is a good neighbor, though, so I went along with it). Boo asked where she could plant it, and I thought we agreed she could do so in a little pot.

That's the last I thought of it.

An hour or two later, I went out to the backyard to water my plants, and suddenly noticed a new row of plants in my flowerbed. The row follows the scallop along the front edge of the bed, in front of my crape myrtle trees.

Turns out Miss ReNeau had given her ten snatches of Mexican petunias. And she saw where I had planted the three clumps of Mexican petunia Miss ReNeau gave me a month ago, one in front of each tree. So she followed my pattern and filled in evenly between the existing clumps.

I started to get mad, because it wasn't my idea. I'm sorta uptight about the arrangement of my plantings. But then I realized how much I like the intent of what happened there. So I'm going to leave it just the way it is, to remind me to appreciate my Boo.

Now I have a nice row of greenery along the front of that bed. It makes me happy to see green that belongs there. It makes me happy because I did not think about it and it's done.

It makes me happy because my firstborn daughter did it all on her own Initiative. I love seeing God at work in her heart, answering the prayer of mine.