As part of the LifeQuest Couples discovery process participants create a time-line of their lives using different colored sticky notes. The colors represent different types of experiences we have faced. Seeing important events laid out flat, and in various colors representing different events, helps us see our lives from a more objective perspective. Sometimes it clarifies or even gives us new ways to think about what happened in the past. It also shows us where God has moved in our lives, often during or after difficult events. These show up as pink sticky notes on the time-line.

The details of our life events, as we learn, are not as important as the lessons we have learned from them. These life lessons come at a price, sometimes a very high price. These are the lessons we need to share with others. They are our true testimony. Others can then apply these lessons to their own lives, but in their own way and at a time of their choosing.

Giving someone unsolicited advice is not helpful. There is a saying that giving unsolicited advice is seen more as criticism than help. Looking back, I seldom took people’s advice. Solutions I created for myself had greater credibility and strength in my life. There are those times when I wish I had followed someone’s advice. Believe me, I carry some regrets about lessons I learned the hard way. But those lessons I learned at my own doing are much more impactful to me.

Life lessons are often something we hold in common with others. When I hear others speak about them, I have heard myself say, “Yea, I learned that one too, some time ago.” How we learn these lessons can be far different from someone else. Other people’s circumstances are not our own, but lessons for living emerge just the same.

So these days, when I talk to my adult children, or men and women in our coaching ministry, I focus on life lessons and how I have applied them in my life. They may have learned the same lessons, only through different means. The commonality of what we both understand seems to draw us together. We have a relationship that we can build on. It not the details of events we may hardly relate to, or advice neither of us is likely to take. It’s based on God’s loving us so much He doesn’t want to leave us the same.