Sunday, September 6, 2009

Dealing with Earthly Troubles

Some of you folks have left some very kind comments here about some of my posts. It warms my heart. The main thing to remember, I suppose, is that, if some of you feel the same way I do about some issues, or if some of you are dealing with the same issues, then it is enough for me to know that I help us all to feel not so alone in our earthly trials.

Remember that song from sixteen zillion years ago, "I never promised you a Rose Garden..."? Well, God never promised us Eden, either, after we botched the first attempt. What he did promise, over and over, was that he would see to it that we would never have more than we could handle. That's a tricky statement to handle in itself. Our human side automatically shouts, "...but what if I really CAN'T handle what I'm going through?"

At those times, we have to just rest in his love, protection, and guidance. We have to trust his timing. I remember Reverend Robert H. Schuller, the original pastor of the famed Crystal Cathedral in southern California. He loved to say, regarding our earthly troubles, "Don't Wrestle - Just Nestle." Forgive me if I have a word or two out of place, but you get the idea.

I do not think I could deal with what my younger sister (now 69) has been living through in a nursing home in California this past four years. Yet she has told me that she knows she couldn't have dealt with the Stage 3 colon cancer I had in '99 and the subsequent colostomy for a year before it was reversed. I don't think I could deal with living homeless on the streets with dirt, hunger, the weather, and yet some of those folks would not be able to deal with the responsibilities that I deal with.

Those are two good examples of God ensuring that we do not suffer what we cannot endure. Oh, I know I sometimes beg him for a break, now and then. But, in the end, it all works out, doesn't it? If it hasn't already, it's in process. God needs time to get all the right people, events, and solutions in place. We forget, sometimes, that our lives touch the lives of many other people, and like a standing line of dominoes, if the wrong one is touched at the wrong time, they all fall down.

Father, thank you for reminders, now and then, that you are there for us and it is all right to rest in your care while we wait for you to show us the way out of our troubles.

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