At the request of some friends, (thank you) I’ve decided to write down some thoughts. I would love it to be a casual way to chatter about life, and insights good or bad, nonsense and seriousness. Things I have learned, humour, bible and hopefully conversation inducing ramblings. Regular? Highly unlikely, but God willing I will do my best.
Yesterday I had a full day. It was a good day of good deeds, and appointments. However unexpected things happened, which found me running through downtown with new high heels, with bare feet in them. I was running back to my apartment to jump in the car and meet the next appointment on time, (or at the very least a few minutes late.) My feet by the time I reached home were feeling pretty sore. The time was also getting away with me. I ran into the building and directly down to P6 to jump into the car and off to North Van. Ouch, my feet. No time for lunch or shoe changes.
Suddenly I recalled I had a pair of ‘emergency flip-flops’ in the back for spontaneous beach excursions. A snap decision was made to take an extra 90 seconds to run to the back of the vehicle, dig them out and put them on. Hucking the high heels on the floor of the front, a smooth exit was made out of the garage, while praying for safe travels and some kind of time marvel that I would arrive there at pretty well the same time I left the garage.
My next appointment was the dentist. I had realized my dental insurance for the year, ended May 31/15 (this week) and I hadn’t used much of it, so had called their office to see if any miracle could fit my appointment in earlier than next week as booked. It worked! Now I was stuck in North Van traffic and pondering the preponderance of awful drivers in North Van as opposed to downtown. (sorry, I know others would reverse this statement.) I had called earlier to say I would be late, pulled into their FREE parking and again made a snap decision to walk into that office wearing grubby brown, worn out flip-flops, with my rather sophisticated black dress pants and silk top, to save my feet, and the dentist’s time rather than my ego.
Yes, tilted back in the dentist chair, those grubby flip-flops and red swollen toes leered at me as I tried to concentrate on the television set (with earphones) so kindly provided by the dental office. Thankful at least the swollen toes were polished, I chose to re-focus on the news, thus dimming the drill noise, and the feeling of the Hoover dam they had jammed into my mouth. (just swallow, just swallow, you won’t die)
That evening when I noticed I had a black (shoe color) open blister on my heel, I actually took the time and cleaned and dried it and applied nice soothing healing stuff before bed. Oh my! So kind to my poor little feet! It’s been many years since having a shoe blister, but in the past I would have continued to wear those sucker shoes forever, all the while the blister becoming a deep cavern of pain. (so sorry for descriptive blister talk, but really I am going somewhere with this…)
When I looked at the blister today, I noticed it was quite nicely healed considering everything, and these words came to mind, “Sometimes life wears you down. Take time for it to heal.” Originally when I had looked at the blister the usual kind of self-talk began, “what an idiot! Who does that to their feet?!” “What judgement error did I make to allow this to happen to me?!”
Do you think that every little thing that happens in life was ‘orchestrated by the Lord,’ to teach you something? I think that is close to the truth, but not truth entirely. What I have found to be true in my life and the lives of loved ones, is that in in this world, ‘stuff happens.’ Sometimes you do everything right and wrong things happen. Yes, bad things happen to good people. It rains on the just and the unjust.
After saying this we must turn to the scripture, Romans 8:28 NIV And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. That pretty well includes all of us who believe the gospel message and call ourselves Christians.
Did God cause me to buy a pair of shoes that proved to be too tight? No.
Did He cause me to have a blister to learn something? No.
Did stuff happen? Yes.
Is God present to help, comfort, heal, teach, and bring others to Christ through the things we suffer? Yes.
Every hardship that we ride out with faith brings gifts… afterwards. Do we want those gifts? We do when we don’t understand how they… may… arrive. We want the gifts of the Spirit…love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. We want many other gifts that the Holy Spirit brings. We really want them. We pray for them. We pray for them to be in our homes, in our offices and on the skytrain.
Anyway.. I digress…what I felt like God was saying to me through the blister was this…. Ready?…
Life events can wear me down, similar to my skin literally being worn off from the constant irritation of the shoe. The reason for the ‘wearing’ in this context is irrelevant. The actions I took to take care of the wound expedited the healing. Choosing to take care of my feet, rather than suffer the embarrassment of my ‘fashion faux pas’ at the dentist, was the right choice for healing. (some of you are thinking, “duh of course,” but I’m telling you, the diehard fashionistas are thinking, “you could have made it into the dental office with the cool shoes, and then had your feet up the entire time anyway! Toughen up girl!”)
Healing can come in many forms. I took the time this morning to let some emotional ‘sores’ of this past week heal. I usually do this by turning to God in prayer, reading the bible, study material or listening to worship music. Today I added sitting with my coffee and leisurely watching, “Cityline FASHION FRIDAY!” on tv. (Marilyn Dennis is even better) Then I wrote this all down to remember later.
Basically life is beautiful, blisters and all. And ‘bad stuff’ brings ‘good stuff’ afterwards if embraced rather than raged against. Stuff like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
*Disclaimer: the word “embraced” here, does not mean “become a doormat, a yes-woman, or a wimp.” It means yield to life without always having to retaliate or be right. Stuff happens.
In Susan's Opinion 
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