One of my favourite things I like to watch is the bloopers and outtakes that are shown of mistakes made during the making of a movie. Most DVD’s have a section of outtakes to be viewed, and often they will set me off laughing, especially when you know what was supposed to happen. In one sense it seems strange to laugh at other people’s mistakes, and yet we all do it, and our enjoyment is not usually of malicious intent. We laugh because we can all relate and identify how much part of being human such bloopers are!

Self-doubt and fear are the voices in our head telling us, “You’ll never succeed, so why try?” and “who do you think you are?”

We all make mistakes, and have many bloopers and outtakes in a lifetime. Some of them may be funny like movie bloopers, a stupid mistake and we are able to laugh at our selves. Other outtakes in life, however, are not funny, and are neither unforeseen nor self imposed. I am referring to the tragic turns of events that happen in life that can turn our life and routine around in a moment. Accidents, disaster, the death of a loved one happen unexpectedly, and can profoundly affect our lives. These are outtakes we would prefer not to happen or even replayed in life. Some of life’s outtakes have the potential to embarrass, humiliate, hurt, or disappoint us and also can stop our hopes and dreams for ever. Times of crisis and tragedy can not be prevented, but how you handle these outtakes will affect the rest of your life. There is always a choice in any crisis. We can choose to grieve, but cling on to hope and move forward, or choose to cling onto the past and become stuck there. We cannot choose our circumstances, but we do have a choice how we respond to them. We can succumb or overcome, and our choice will determine our future. When we drive a car our focus is the road ahead; if we spend all our time looking in the rearview mirror failure is more or less inevitable! The same is true in life, we will fail, or at best remain at a standstill if we keep looking back and focusing on the events behind us, reliving the past. A young African-American girl was born to unwed impoverished teenagers, in the racially charged backwoods of Mississippi in the middle of the twentieth