“Create beauty from the unexpected” is a beautiful tagline for a pregnancy medical clinic. “Create beauty from the expected” just isn’t as impactful. It’s almost easy to make beauty of the expected. Our confidence grows as we experience the expected; a child trusting a slide on a playground, a teenager getting miles on the road under their belt, or a frequent flyer making one more landing.
Do you find yourself making beauty of the unexpected?
How do you do so?
If you reflect on that question and determine that it is more common for you to feel stress followed by pressured responses, leading to drama, it may be valuable to consider other approaches. In some cases, it may not be you, but a team member who brings others into such a scene. You may be an observer to such an event, and find yourself asking, ”Who set this stage?”
A mindset of “expect the unexpected” has a way of changing our perspective as we walk through a path of new interruptions waiting to be turned into adventures. If we can’t get into it as an adventure, maybe it would work to consider it an “exploit with a valuable return.” Seeing the beauty in the unexpected doesn’t happen without intention. Creating something beautiful out of the unexpected can only happen in my life with divine intervention. Without an understanding and appreciation of divine intervention, the unexpected would just be a frustration or nuisance.
As a leader of your organization you have many unexpected events to address. Some of these events happen with time to spare, some overnight, but both impact your world as you knew it. My experience with you has provided me a window of unique glass with which to observe these experiences through your eyes. It would seem to be best described as stained glass due to all the different colors or issues that contribute to such life changers, and some actually stain our lives tapestry never to be removed, only fading over time.
Growing up in a home with an alcoholic parent, it was natural to expect the unexpected—it was our life. That experience has served me well. As an adult I grew to embrace the fact that God allowed such circumstances and used them to create in me a fundamental approach to complications that does create beauty from the unexpected. Have I always utilized that approach? No. I have some “shoulda’s,” but He was still preparing.
What has prepared you for handling the unexpected?
What was the most unexpected thing that has happened in your life, and how did you handle it?
Did it become a thing of beauty? So beautiful that you now cherish it?
The topic of creating beauty from the unexpected can take several different formats. It can be a family action plan, it can be a dialogue in the work place, or it can be a retreat topic presented by Sparrow Solutions Group. For this article, I want to provide some thought provoking questions for you and your team to use around the lunch table to prepare for the next unexpected adventure or exploit of valuable return.
- What was the most impactful unexpected event for you to date?
- How has God prepared you for the unexpected?
- What are the top three things to do when confronted with the unexpected?
- How do you prioritize the top three above?
- Do you have a verse you pull from your heart when experiencing the unexpected?
From these questions you can build a team strategy for addressing the unexpected and turning it into a thing of beauty for the organization. You may know the answers to some of these things for various staff and volunteers already, but everyone else doesn’t. Let God use it to grow your team and prepare them yet again.
Psalm 46:10 Be still and know that I am God.
Psalm 27:14 Wait upon the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord
Psalm 85:13 Righteousness goes before him and prepares the way of his steps
Psalm 143:9 Rescue me from my enemies, Lord, for I hide myself in you.
The clinic that uses the tag line; “Create beauty from the unexpected” is Collage Center in Kearney, NE. Gaye Tillotson is the Executive Director and she leads an incredible team. www.collagecenter.com
Connie Ambrecht
Sparrow Solutions Group, Founder & CEO
Picture used by permission by Nicky Bay Photography sgmacro.blogspot.com
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