ENTRY RUINED! NOW WHAT?

Our older daughter was about 14-15 and there was a contest in a National Home Economics magazine that she entered. It was where you designed a room and if you were good enough, the grand prize was that you got that room recreated for you as your prize.

She worked really hard on her upstairs bedroom and collected samples of carpet, paint, bedspreads, etc. She put it together and made her entry into a booklet form. She covered the cover page & back page with material, etc. A lot of work went into this entry.

As she had it very close to sending in her entry, she had it laid out and her younger sister was playing with "Silly Putty". Now this was a "fun" putty, but a golden rule with this stuff, is that you always put it back in the container it came in. This particular day, she didn't follow the rules. The silly putty was left out on top of our older daughter's contest entry. Now the silly putty had flattened and gone into the fabric on the back of her entry. Our older daughter was devastated, and thought all her hard work was for naught.

She came and showed what had happened to her "work of art". Mother's always have a solution up their sleeve on just such an occasion as this. Mothers have had lots of experience, since lots and lots of occasions happen like this. You learn to teach them to pick up the pieces and move on.
My solution--I told her that she had to cover the "Silly Putty" mishap with her own "Work of Art". So she put an easel over the big ugly spot. Then she put a paint brush (dripping with paint), and a pallet of paint. On the easel she wrote, "HOW DO YOU LIKE IT?" That was the back page of her entry.

No she didn't get the grand prize, but she did get "Runner Up". For this she was presented a Broyhill Lingerie chest. Her picture was in the paper when this was presented to her.

Her entry was placed in the New York Design center and she received a note from someone in New York City, that saw her entry and she took the time to tell her how well she liked her design.

Since our older daughter entered this, then our younger daughter decided she wanted to enter the same National Contest when she was a few years older. She did, and she too received "Runner Up" status and received a nice prize equal in value.

Wisdom--When you think that you want to give up and things looks dismal, that's the very time you keep on keeping on. God has something better for you around the corner! Perhaps this back page caught the judges attention that otherwise they would have passed over if it were not finished in this unique way! Who knows, but God turns everything around for "Good" if we trust Him!! KEEP ON, KEEPING ON is a very good RULE!!!