This post comes under the heading of Practice what you preach and just don’t preach too much! Also known as — we teach what we need to learn.

My 82 year old friend Barb is afraid of caterpillars. No judgement there, I find frogs send me over the edge of sanity, but here’s what happen that got me thinking.

Barb prays and she talks about her praying all the time. Says she won’t do anything without checking in with her god and he takes good care of her. Most of that is like water off my back, in one ear and out the other for me. But last week, she said she prayed that there wouldn’t be any caterpillars on her deck when she went outside because, like I said, she is scared of them.

So… in my mind, thinking the way I do — I thought if she is going to pray for stuff like that, why doesn’t she just pray that the fear of caterpillars go away. We live in a place that has a lot of caterpillars and I figure it takes the same time and energy to pray for one thing as it does another; and lack of fear is way better than lack of caterpillars — right?

Okay… back to me and the lesson I need to learn from this awareness.

The lesson is once again acceptance. See Peet likes to sleep on my legs. I do not like Peet sleeping on my legs. As far as I’m concerned, he can sleep on or next to my head, arms, back — anywhere actually, just not on my legs. I don’t pray for him to be different, because I don’t pray, but I am constantly trying to change him and this habit of his and because I can’t, I get grumbly. (Ed would call it “prickly.”)

Then I think of Barb – praying for things to be different from how they are is futile. What SHE really needs to do is accept of what is. Duh… me too, I guess.

Peet and I have been going round and around for almost 16 years about him sleeping on my legs. He is not trainable, but I am. So, acceptance is the key.

Peet slept on my legs last night and I just let him.

Change is hard, knowing what we can change is harder.