Survival Issues

A while back, I posted Help From the Faeries over at the Prosperity Project. And from that post, I came up with When you were three over at Question of the Day. As I was writing my answer to the question, I discovered something really interesting about myself. Something totally new about Shirley. So, here's the question:

Most people have decided by the age of three or four what they must do in order to survive. From this decision, this belief about how the world is, most of our fears and self-limitations grow. If this is true, what did you need to do in order to survive when you were three or four? How has this influenced the way you live your life now?

Good question, isn't it?
So, my answer was totally surprising to me. This is what I came up with:

I'd say that I learned... never give up. You will outsmart them in the end... wow! That one was a surprise! It just popped right out of my keyboard. Interesting!! I also learned the world is not safe, and if you don't do what God wants you to do it's even less safe. But if you do what God wants you to do - you won't be safe either..

so... the world is not safe and neither is God. So... never give up. You will outsmart "him" in the end!

And so, is that really true?
Well, I think the first part is. Yes. But the second part, the part about not being safe in the world isn't something that I learned when I was three or four. That came later. Before I went away to boarding school, I felt totally safe in the world. I was absolutely convinced that God loved me, and that my guardian angels were always with me, and so was Jesus. I talked to them all the time.

So, that second part, must have come later. I remember once when I was 5 years old, in boarding school, I plugged a lamp into the wall and there was a short in the plug. I got a pretty good shock from it, and I thought I had gotten electrocuted. Well, I "knew" that when you get electrocuted, you die. So I made myself comfortable on the couch, and waited for Jesus to come and take me to heaven. I waited a really long time. After a while other children came in the room and asked me what I was doing. When I told them, they laughed at me. I was horribly disappointed to find out that I was going to have to stay alive.

Clearly, I still felt good about God then. Not so good about life on earth, but God and I were still friends.

This picture, by the way, is me packing, and getting ready to go away to school. If you look closely, you'll see that I put my shoes on the wrong feet.