"Hello. My name's Val and I am a worrier."
"Hi Val!" responded a dozen or so voices.
That is how I began some comments I made a month or two ago at church. I suppose this confession seemed like a convenient segue not unlike those delivered by the perky talking heads we see on the television news seemlessly weaving from one story to another. You know the types: "...and sadly there were no survivors in this tragic explosion. And speaking of survivors, let's go to Chip in the Weather Center and ask him how we're going to survive the weather this weekend? Chip?" But I digress.
It was more than a convenient segue. It was true. It is true. I come by it naturally. My dad is a chronic and incureable worrier who remains convinced that we need to be stockpiling supplies and learning to speak Chinese. My grandmother, who also raised me after mom's death, has managed to go 99 years without any photographic evidence that she was ever able to turn that frown upside-down. And me? Well, I struggle with accepting blessings at face value. I am always suspicious that a blessing is a precursor to a curse or that a favor received is soon to be followed by a favor requested or that just when life is running smoothly, the other shoe is going to drop and the "dropping of the shoe" will be very similar to the "lowering of the boom."
Occasionally, I do consider times in my past when, in fact, the other shoe did drop; when things were as bad as I predicted or even worse. And in retrospect, those were important times. They were times when the love of God was displayed by many and when the hope of Christ was even more important.
I also consider how I have seen others react to adversity and how I have seen people use their hardships as a platform for helping others either by sharing their faith story cast in the light of their circumstances or by some other means. To me, that is the best possible way to respond to hard times. Not by waiting for one shoe or the other to drop, but rather by looking for ways to wash the feet those shoes may contain. I'll work on that.
"Hi Val!" responded a dozen or so voices.
That is how I began some comments I made a month or two ago at church. I suppose this confession seemed like a convenient segue not unlike those delivered by the perky talking heads we see on the television news seemlessly weaving from one story to another. You know the types: "...and sadly there were no survivors in this tragic explosion. And speaking of survivors, let's go to Chip in the Weather Center and ask him how we're going to survive the weather this weekend? Chip?" But I digress.
It was more than a convenient segue. It was true. It is true. I come by it naturally. My dad is a chronic and incureable worrier who remains convinced that we need to be stockpiling supplies and learning to speak Chinese. My grandmother, who also raised me after mom's death, has managed to go 99 years without any photographic evidence that she was ever able to turn that frown upside-down. And me? Well, I struggle with accepting blessings at face value. I am always suspicious that a blessing is a precursor to a curse or that a favor received is soon to be followed by a favor requested or that just when life is running smoothly, the other shoe is going to drop and the "dropping of the shoe" will be very similar to the "lowering of the boom."
Occasionally, I do consider times in my past when, in fact, the other shoe did drop; when things were as bad as I predicted or even worse. And in retrospect, those were important times. They were times when the love of God was displayed by many and when the hope of Christ was even more important.
I also consider how I have seen others react to adversity and how I have seen people use their hardships as a platform for helping others either by sharing their faith story cast in the light of their circumstances or by some other means. To me, that is the best possible way to respond to hard times. Not by waiting for one shoe or the other to drop, but rather by looking for ways to wash the feet those shoes may contain. I'll work on that.
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