Previous Challenge Entry (Level 1 – Beginner)
Topic: Fulfillment (04/06/06)
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TITLE: Outside the Box | Previous Challenge Entry
By Jim Alexander
04/12/06 -
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Frank penned a check mark neatly into the box.
“Three down, one to go”, he thought.
He looked over his last goal, vaguely sensing disaster.
“How much longer can I put this off?”, he thought.
By staring at it with his mind emptied, he had found a temporary hiding place. Procrastination came through for him again, sheltering him.
Briefly.
Then, with the same inexorable resolve as the shadow the trees made as it edged across his bedroom floor, his shelter began to pull away; his grasp of this one last refuge gave way to the dark reality of failure.
Last July, his goals had not seemed so daunting a task. Yes, he had sensed a tiredness as it was read out to him, but was Frank not the master of fatigue?
For years he completed all his goals, never considering failure. He set them up like a Brunswick machine at a bowling alley, then knocked them down. Each year, Frank created more record achievements at his company, and each year there was less of Frank left to put into it.
This year, everything had changed. His goals were going to be left just as empty as he was, he thought.
He reflected back to that decision he made eighteen months ago.
It was just a simple recognition of an emptiness deep inside as he read from the Baptist literature called "The Four Spiritual Laws", yet nothing compared to the fulfillment he felt at the moment he made that decision to receive Christ. Everything inside him yearned for this. His daily existence was eclipsed by the vision he momentarily had of his life as he read from the tract.
"That was definitely the right decision", he reminded himself once again, making it slightly easier to face the consequences he now faced. He hated to consider the possibility of being unemployed as a result of it, yet, to him, the value of the dollar seemed to diminish each time he examined his life.
"I put your jacket on the back of the chair so it won't wrinkle, honey," Jenny called out to him, as she walked briskly down the hall toward their bedroom where he was seated at the roll-top desk.
Frank suddenly felt like he did when he skipped class in school to enjoy a rare day off. Guilt and intense excitement churned inside him. Jenny and Frank were going to see a play she had wanted to see the last time it was at the theater, but Frank, as usual, had to work. She just didn't want to go with her friends, so she stayed home that night. Frank regretted he had not been there for her.
"I'm so glad you're going with me tonight, sweetheart!", Jenny exclaimed as she entered the room.
"So am I", Frank replied.
"So am I", he thought to himself.
Life was richer these days. Jenny and Frank were closer than they had ever been.
Jenny was the reason goal number four was left in limbo. Good as dead.
"I'm really excited about our trip next week too, Jen", Frank said confidently as he turned away from the page, his eyes finding Jenny's.
"I really feel... good about it."
"Frank, it is so good to hear you say that. Oh! We have to leave right now. Can you finish the work you're doing when we get back tonight?" she stammered, momentarily losing her drive to return the clothes she had in her arms to the waiting hangers in the closet.
Frank's eyes returned to the page as he leisurely lowered his pen onto the paper. The pen point made contact just outside the box marked “unfulfilled”. Frank sliced through it, finishing the pen stroke just outside the box on the other side.
"Nope. Can't do it later because I just finished it now", Frank replied, as a deep satisfaction began to encroach on the apprehension he had for weeks.
"Its outside the box, but it works for me."
Finding her voice, Jenny asked, "What's that hon?
"Just something about work. It can wait. Jenn, I’d like to sell that roll top desk. I’m not bringing work home anymore. How do you feel about that?” Frank blurted out confidently as he left the page of goals behind on the desk as they both left for the theater.
“I’m fine with that, hon,” Jenny replied. “I always thought it was a bit too box-shaped anyway.”
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I would like to have a few things made a little clearer. Like, to know he was reviewing and checking off a written list of goals, and what goal no.4 was - why was Jenny the reason it wasn't fulfilled.
Great messages, good witness - well done!