I am a logophile, a lover of words.
I have a 'word a day’ calendar in the Library and am always excited to experience the new word of the day.
Last week there were some fun ones:
Dreck – rubbish or trash
Fleer – to laugh imprudently or jeeringly
Bushwa is my favorite! - rubbish or nonsense
I admit that sometimes I make up words just because they sound cool! For years I said “ped-is-train-ians” instead of “ped-es-trians” – because it was so much better sounding.
I was explaining to someone that right now in my circle of life – I, myself, seem to be “okay” but I am surrounded by piles of “doo-doo”, you know that gross, icky, smelly stuff – often called crap. It seems that whatever direction I am about to step in, I am going to step into a pile of poop. It has encircled me.
Sometimes in life there are poop piles to be avoided, circumvented, retreated from, but other times, you just have to hold your breath, put one foot in front of the other and tread right through the piles of muck, they cannot be avoided. I am there.
This person I was talking to said her pastor – Pastor Dean (I hope it’s okay to copy his word) calls them “Crapertunities” – Oh man I love this word! He was able to put into a word what I am feeling.
Crapertunities are the opportunity to go through the mud and mire with an outlook of expectancy – remember our ‘expectancy’ word from a couple weeks ago? The very messy mess in front of us is an opportunity to bring some good, light, and hope into a dismal, disheartening and stinky situation.
We all have them right? Crapertunities
Whenever you find yourself thinking in your head, or out loud: “Oh shoot”; “Oh crap”; “Oh brother”; “Oh sh**” you have just found yourself in a Crapertunity situation.
For example when I dump my water bottle, coffee, or tea over inside my car – “Oh shoot” – or rather – what a Crapertunity. I can let this ruin my day or decide my car needed cleaning anyways, a reversal of the “poop”.
What about the ‘big’ stuff – my hubby calls and says he is out of a job; my friend calls and says she has been diagnosed with a heart problem; a car accident…. You name it – what if instead of calling them problems, we called them Crapertunities.
The choice is ours to decide how to handle these poop piles. I for one am still learning this lesson! We can get discouraged, give up, whine, complain, get frustrated, blow a gasket….. Or we can choose to think, what would be helpful in this situation, what is plan B, who needs some encouragement, who could help me, what would make this better and decide to handle the messy situation with a new attitude. I know I tend to hover around the negative instead of on the positive side; that is the crap part of “crapertunity”.
God uses poop piles as an opportunity – the “tunity” part of the word, to refine, stretch and add growth to our life to make us more like Himself. What a cool concept that only God could come up with – let’s take a poop pile and make it into an opportunity to become better, a character builder or a teachable moment if you will.
James 1: 2-3
“ Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.”
I always wondered how you do this because in my mind joy and trials did not go together, a weird kind of pairing; kind of like peanut butter and lettuce – but you know what – one time I tried peanut butter and lettuce in a sandwich and I absolutely love it!
Psalm 30:10-12
“Hear, Lord, and be merciful to me;
Lord, be my help.”
You turned my wailing into dancing;
you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy,
that my heart may sing your praises and not be silent.
Lord my God, I will praise you forever.”
The Bible gives us the remedy for Crapertunities – “Consider it pure joy….” None of us like messes, not even little ones, but when we know that opportunities in pain, suffering, confusion and heartache – will not be wasted. God never wastes pain – He always uses it to produce something beautiful then perhaps we can face our Crapertunities with a different attitude.
Crapertunity - such a great word!