The Key First

 Someone said, "Sometimes a key arrives before the lock,"  For me, it means that past experiences can open me to future opportunities.  The experience is the key and the opportunity is the lock.  Some years ago I gave up drinking.  It was interfering with my paying attention to possibilities, and opening myself to growth, new experiences.  I learned a lot about paying attention, learning to listen, overcoming fears at the new and untried, becoming comfortable with just being and being with someone without having to do anything to prove myself.  And so on.  These were all keys, but the lock was yet to show up.  It showed up years later when my parents were both dying, and still living, helplessly, in their Florida home.  I had no experience with caregiving of this sort, but I went to live with them and gave myself over to caregiving.  I asked for advice from professionals, did what they said in nursing care, sat with my parents, listened to them and took it one day at a time, abandoning myself to God to lead the way.  Had I been drinking none of this would have happened.  Fear, self-centeredness, fragile ego not wanting to fail, would have won out and I would have been rather useless.  So pay attention to what is going on in your life and around you.  They could be keys.  The lock will show up when it is time.