Life is NOT a Hallmark Card 

Waiting at gate A17 in San Antonio for my flight, I reached into my little, pink purse for a pen. I drew my hand out with a pen in my fingers and sugar/cinnamon grit under my fingernails. I had swept the grit off my table only moments ago, not realizing I had baptized my purse with a sweet sprinkling, leftovers from a feeble attempt to drown my sorrows with CinnaSweeties from the Cinnabon a few gates back.

I kept thinking I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to be here. My only consolation was the fact that I’d just checked my carry-on bag all the way to Harrisburg – for free. No more bumping it down the center aisle to the peril of passengers nearby, hefting it into the overhead bin or sweet talking someone else into doing it. Now I just had my super heavy “personal item” to contend with, the memory of those delicious CinnaSweeties and “wash your purse” added to my mental to-do list.

Soon my flight would start boarding and I would get up, gather my things and walk onto a plane propelling me over 1000 miles from my husband, Bobby. A series of weird and unusual circumstances lead to that disheartening reflection. Long story short, my husband’s job occasionally separates us. He’s asked to be at a job “yesterday,” I’m left to pack all the things we continue to accumulate and carry on the life we’ve been living. All without him.

Getting on the flight felt wrong and I felt profoundly sad, weighed down with the enormity of the task at hand. Instead, I wanted to be sitting on the porch of Bobby’s cottage, watching the clouds cross the big, blue sky. I wanted to prop my feet on the porch railing, looking for the calf we saw only moments after its birth. 

If you were to sit down beside me in that moment at gate A17, you wouldn’t see tears and tissues. But I could feel the tension of holding them in creeping up the back of my neck, seeping around my head to set up shop in my left temple and jaw. Apparently, I’m a very good actress. No one around seemed to notice I was about to burst into sobs or jump up and run out of the airport.

“God won’t give you more than you can handle.”

How often is this phrase uttered by well-meaning friends and clueless Hallmark cards? In my experience, it’s just not true.

Maybe you have a different kind of relationship with God, but in my dealings with the Almighty, He regularly introduces new scenes into my life that exceed my capabilities or coping mechanisms. Like the butler Carson showing an unwelcome guest into the library on the PBS TV show Downton Abbey, God often heralds new seasons and experiences that I can’t handle.

It happened when my dad got sick and passed away all in two weeks. Again, life seemed too difficult when my knees needed to be replaced, and I could no longer summon the desire to walk to the back of the grocery store for cheese. And I have felt its unwelcome presence each of the three times Bobby has moved for his job months ahead of me and our boys.

I can’t handle that stuff. I want to go to bed or eat cookie dough or get in my car and start driving aimlessly. God can fix all these woes and so much more. He can fix anything. He can handle anything that’s thrown at Him or at me.

But, often He doesn’t. He usually lets me struggle, at least for a while, like a Dad letting his child learn how to put on her own shirt. He has my best in mind and being rescued from trying to stick my head through the sleeve isn’t going to do it.

In the Bible in 2 Corinthians 12:10, Paul says we should delight in suffering and weakness. He says when we’re weak, that’s when we’re really strong. He should know. God gave Paul a hum-dinger of a story to tell. He was stoned and left adrift at sea. He was beaten and shipwrecked three times each. Paul couldn’t handle that stuff. No one could.

We’re told God goes with us. “He will never leave you nor forsake you.” (Deuteronomy 31:6) Paul knew that verse from the Old Testament and I assume he believed it. Otherwise, why in the world would he have set foot on a boat again after one shipwreck, let alone two?

I recently looked up the names of God completely expecting to find The God Who’s Got It Handled smushed between The Ancient of Days and The Lord is Peace. It may not surprise you that this very eloquent and relevant suggestion isn’t on any of the lists I referenced. Not a one, however true it may be.

God took care of Noah and his family amid a world overrun by wickedness. He had a plan of victory for Joshua in marching around the city of Jericho. And, of course, He orchestrated the holy rescue mission of Jesus coming to earth as a helpless baby, saving us from ourselves and our sin.

From a human perspective, all these situations seemed unlikely to work out. They all appeared to be bad ideas. Some might call you crazy if you were to suggest them today. But God used each for His victory, His glory and His people’s good.

Nowhere does the Bible say God won’t give us more than we can handle. Not being able to handle stuff is often what we humans are known for. It’s what we do and why we’re here. If we could handle everything that comes our way, why would we need God? In fact, John 16:33 tells us we will have trouble in this life. Jesus encourages us to take heart. When we trust Him to take care of us, we can have peace because Jesus has already overcome the whole world.

I feel certain God will keep giving me things I can’t handle. He made me and knows exactly how pressed and perplexed I can get. Yet, He continues to plop hard, unexpected things in my lap. He knows good and well I’ll soon be out of my depth, struggling to stay afloat, my nose barely breaking the surface of the situation while my arms and legs flail to stay in control.

The older I get the quicker I realize I can’t take it, so I call out to God. Only then does God get to show up and show off. He gets to make a display of Himself that I can point to when someone asks, “How do you handle all that?”

So… be like Paul, jump back in your rocking boat. We often can’t manage whatever is coming around the bend. But the God Who’s Got It Handled? He certainly can.

I Am So Ill I Can Hardly Speak - Jane Austen, Persuasion

“I bought NyQuil, Kleenex and orange juice,” I sniffled into the phone.  “Sounds like a party,” my helpful husband, Bobby, quipped.  I’ve been sick for a week.  Other than quick excursions to the dollar store for the above supplies and a treacherous, snowy drive to the grocery store, I confined myself to the house for almost a week. Those short outings felt like huge accomplishments, especially since all I wanted was to tuck myself back in bed or prop myself up on the couch for the duration.

While my cold wasn’t the worst I’ve had, it hit me hard in the lethargy department. I didn’t really want to do anything.  But I still had enough wits about me to try and fend off the pesky germs. 

Here’s what happens at my home when someone’s sick:

As quick as we notice a sniffle or sore throat, we drink the dreaded “feel good drink.” It’s the opposite of delicious but has become our go-to cure all. You heat one cup of water, add a tablespoon of honey, a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar, two drops of Thieves essential oil and two drops of lemon essential oil. The first taste will be a doozy but keep sipping. If done early enough, this almost ensures no sore throat not only for this cold, but for most of the cold/flu season. Hit yourself with another cupful a couple of times a day, morning and night is a good idea. It’s magic.

My friend, Heather, swears by Zicam. So much so that she hands the swabs out to employees and friends saying, “The first one’s free.” I heard such Zicam praises from Heather that Santa delivered boxes of Zicam nasal swabs to my family’s Christmas stockings. Just after drinking the “feel good drink” this week I opened my own Christmas Zicam. It didn’t help as much as Heather promised it would.  Later, she told me I have to keep using it, like every three hours, for a day or so to get the full cold-shortening benefits. Oh well, next time.

I’m an essential oil diffuser newbie. So, I probably didn’t keep the diffuser going as long as I should have. But I did spend some time sitting by a steady mist of Thieves and lemon essential oils, breathing deeply the scent of what I hoped would be good health and healing.

My son, Allen, presented me with a box of chamomile tea after a trip to Germany. I don’t know that German chamomile is any more potent than chamomile tea bought in the U.S. But seeing the “Kamille, bio” box with little white chamomile flowers on it and trying to make out the German directions and descriptions makes me smile. That’s got to count for something. Plus, a steaming mug of chamomile is very soothing. That’s why the Germans put chamomile tea in the bottles of their fussy babies.

Nicole is my friend who I consult for all things medical.  Her sons were sick about the same time I was.  When I asked what she was doing for them she replied, “Nyquil, zinc and vitamin C.”  It was right after I spoke with her that I made my trip to the dollar store.  While I didn’t get the zinc, I did get OJ and Nyquil, day and night.  Though my husband thinks I’m having cold delusions, I promise the Nyquil daytime formula makes me sleepy.  I kept taking it as long as it lasted and enjoyed those daytime and nighttime ZZZs hoping it was promoting some super immunity.

Then, I brought out the big guns. Probably more soothing to me than even German chamomile tea is Jane Austen.  The boys in my life don’t understand or appreciate how comforting a Jane Austen movie can be.  But, man, are they missing out.  

I started my week with Mansfield Park.  I used to have two versions of this classic, but alas, I broke one of the DVDs, the one where Fannie Price is quite smart and headstrong.  I followed Mansfield Park with Persuasion, sepia and misty and romantic.  Then, I watched the Gwyneth Paltrow version of Emma and the Emma Thompson version of Sense and Sensibility.  I watched Keira Knightley as Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice and got part way into the long, PBS version of Emma before realizing I felt better.  

While I’ll still finish Emma and will probably move on to the long, Colin Firth Pride and Prejudice in days ahead, I don’t feel the need to lie on the couch for long periods of time anymore. My movie watching is now interrupted by errands and meetings and cleaning out the garage instead of nose blowing and refilling the diffuser and taking another dose of cold medicine.  

When that starts to happen, I know I’m better.  It may not be scientific, but it works for me.  

14 Things I Don’t Understand

1. How you can electronically unsubscribe from a newsletter with the click of a mouse but it takes days or weeks to actually be taken off the email list?
2. Why black bean soup is inherently "Mexican." Why not Italian or American?
3. What Mr. Clean Magic Erasers are made of.  What planet did that material come from?  Clean sharpie off painted walls? Check.  Clean soap scum from glass shower doors? Yup.  Would it clean the freckles off my arm?  Maybe.
4. I consider myself a fairly good cook. So, why do I often smoke up my entire house when I make dinner?
5. Why it's called a station wagon.  
6.  Why I'm thinking about station wagons.
7.  Why it’s socially acceptable to wake yourself up with caffeine in the form of coffee, but not with Coke?
8. "Titanic The Musical"
9. Why I can never get my eyelashes exactly the same when I put on mascara.
10. Why people insist on driving slow in the fast lane. No one is insulting your manhood if they pass you. Just get over!
11. Why people lived through one winter north of the Mason Dixon Line then thought it was a good idea to live through another.
12. Why people lived through one summer south of the Mason Dixon Line then thought it was a good idea to live through another.
13. Why my very Southern mom has so many linguistic similarities to people in Maine. Neither pronounces Rs for example.
14. Why I often find all the 6s in my Sudoku puzzles before any other number.

Cold Kayaks in Bloomsburg, PA

Just wondering....