Do not be anxious about anything, but in
every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your
requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will
guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:6-7 NIV).
It was Sunday and fifteen inches of incessant, grueling
rain had already fallen since Friday with more expected. To match the sluggish weather of the day, my
husband and I both were feeling flooded with overwhelming financial stress.
Fighting, fear and frustration had conquered our weekend. In the midst of our conversation, my husband
was attempting to put back an abundance of tangled hangers on the rack in the
closet. In his frustration, he threw
them all in the bottom of the closet.
In my clean-up mode, I picked them up and
attempted a trip to the laundry room where I planned to put them neatly away. I
was unable to let go of our earlier discussion and once I made it to the kitchen;
I threw the whole bunch of hangers on the floor. I’m not exactly sure what the strategy
was of the hanger games the two of us were playing, but I’m pretty sure I won;
my hangers scattered much further and some of the annoying acrylic ones broke
into tiny pieces making a much bigger mess than his.
In the
midst of my temper tantrum I could only think of one thing, “I just don’t want
to do this any longer, I want to go back to my childhood and eat my dad’s famous
banana pancakes. I want my biggest fear of the day to be ‘not getting hit with
the baseball’ when the neighborhood kids play at the top of the hill.”
I was shaken back from the 1960’s to the reality
of the year 2012, when my husband hugged me and said, “It is going to be okay.”
What was at the root of the hanger games? Our fussing and fighting had been a
result of allowing fear, frustration, worry and stress to consume our thoughts
and lives. In Francis Chan’s book, Crazy
Love he says, “Worry implies that we don’t trust that God is big enough,
powerful enough, or loving enough to take care of what’s happening in our
lives. Stress says that the things we are involved in are important enough to
merit our impatience, our lack of grace toward others, or our tight grip of
control” (Chan, 42).
The
Bible Study that I am currently doing recommended an interesting undertaking.
The competition consists of writing thank
you on sticky notes and attaching them to items in your home, car etc. I t
was inconceivable the small and large
things that I take for granted or think I’m entitled to have such as: a toilet,
running water, a coffee pot, a warm bed…
I quickly realized that I would run out of sticky notes way before being
able to identify the many things I am fortunate enough to have. On that raining
Sunday, had we of been viewing things differently, instead of playing the
hanger games, we would have instead been playing this more productive game; one
of appreciation and thankfulness for our many blessings.
Michele
Work
Cited
Chan,
Francis. Crazy Love. Colorado
Springs, CO: David C. Cook Dist., 2008. Print.
061112
