I opened the oven and was shocked to find these sweet potatoes. After a few minutes of confusion, I remembered my husband asking me questions about spiralizing and roasting them 3 days before, but didn’t remember ever eating them for dinner. . .

Roasted sweet potatoes just might be my favorite food – I seriously love it!

And there in the oven it sat, looking a little . . . moist . . . and old and sad. I was so sad I couldn’t eat it!

Turns out he did all the work to get it prepped and cooked and then put it back in the oven to warm til the rest of dinner was ready . . . and forgot about it.

And I found it 3 days later!

I love that in our house there is no blame or anger or shame or penalizing for things like this. How often have I put something in the microwave and forgot it and found it after dinner or something similar? Enough times.  

I love that we don’t get attacked or rubbed it in or say anything negative at all about it. (This wasn’t always the case)

It just happened. So what.

What a bummer we didn’t get to eat it! It doesn’t mean anything negative about him or his abilities or anything.

I could have said, “I can’t believe you left this in the oven for 3 days!” or so many other unkind things. He could have beat himself up for it and felt dumb.

But he just thought it was funny, making an all time record for forgetting food.

What story are you telling yourself? What do you want to make your mistakes or forgetfulness mean?

I love this story and hope to apply it to more areas of my life, the areas where I’m telling a useless negative story.

It just happened. What do I want to make it mean?

Let me help you identify the stories you are telling yourself and see how they are affecting you.

I’m doing free sessions for missionaries and parents. Schedule a time for a FREE session. Have a quick question? Shoot me an email at info@jillfreestone.com. I’d love to hear from you.