Go out in the world and live
March 28, 2011 by Billy Coffey · 17 Comments
photo by Aaron Jarrad
The story in the newspaper was accompanied by a photo of the street on which she was last seen. It was that eerie time just after the earthquake and before the wave hit. Taylor was riding her bicycle home from an elementary school in the city of Ishinoma-ki.
Use your imagination, and you will see houses and storefronts and perhaps children playing on the street corners. You will see that strange combination of resistance and joy that defines human life everywhere, that sort that makes you feel melancholy but happy to be alive.
That’s not the picture the photograph displays, however. All you see is death and destruction.
Though I do my best not to, all I can think of is her last thoughts as that wall of water came rushing toward her. I like to think it was fast. I like to think it was over before she knew it was upon her and that she didn’t suffer.
Derek Kannemeyer is a French and English teacher at St. Catherine’s, the school which Taylor once attended. In the article, he described his former student’s philosophy of life this way:
“You’ve got to go out in the world and live.”
This is the first time I’ve written about the events in Japan. I’ve wanted to ever since it happened, but I just…couldn’t. There are a great many things in this world meant to be written about by better writers than I, and what happened in Japan is one of those things. It raises questions in me about the things I believe and why I believe them. I’ve done my fair share of questioning God and shaking my fist at Him.
You should know better, I tell Him. Why didn’t You do something?
People smarter than me have been asking that question for a very, very long time. I suppose they always will.
Me, I have no answers. There is a lot in Christianity that must be accepted on faith. It is a rock you can break yourself against, that can tear you to pieces, unless you realize there are answers only God can know and you never will.
I still struggle with that.
But today I am thinking of Taylor Lane Anderson, whose life was cut short by shaking earth and raging ocean, but who still chased and managed to grab hold of her dreams. Her death was a sad tragedy, but knowing she died doing what she loved somehow takes a bit of the sting away. In the end, death that comes out of fulfilling our purpose is something to which we should all aspire.
I still question God. I doubt neither His existence nor His love, but I do His ways. They are higher than my ways, Isaiah said, as His thoughts are higher than my thoughts. I believe that. But believing that also brings a mixture of calm and fear, and I don’t believe I’m the only one to feel such things.
It is a scary time to be alive. There just seems to be so much going on—so much bad. There are days when I feel as though a black cloud hangs over this world, rumbling and swirling and ready to dump catastrophe upon us all. It’s easy to wake up in the morning and wonder, “What’s next?”
I’m sure I’ll wonder what’s next again, sure I’ll look up hoping to see the light and instead see that black, swirling cloud. When I do, I’m going to remember Taylor Lane Anderson. I’m going to remember the way she lived her life.
Because no matter what happens, no matter what fear entangles us, we’ve got to go out in the world and live.
Not only survive. Not just get by.
Live.
The changing tides
March 14, 2011 by Billy Coffey · 16 Comments
image courtesy of photobucket.com
June 1992:
Everyone’s telling us to leave, but we’ve already decided that’s not an option. Vacation comes once a year, which means I can only see the ocean once a year, and I didn’t make the four-hour drive from the mountains to the coast just to turn around and go home. Besides, what will soon rage outside is just a tropical storm. It’s not like it’s violent enough to be considered a hurricane.
And there is a strange beauty in all this swirl. The thin line on the horizon that usually separates sapphire water from cobalt sky is gone. Before me instead is a gray that gives the illusion of hole a torn in the universe that threatens to swallow us all.
The boardwalk is empty save for the brave and the stupid. I wander about, unsure if I should be included in the former or the latter. The tide flexes and roars, sending water where beach should be and breakers over the guardrails. Policemen in SUVs rove as sentinels, shouting in loudspeakers over the wind and rain for everyone to seek shelter.
I linger nonetheless, awed by the power of the sea and the smallness of myself. I grip the bench in front of me and squeeze as a sudden gale threatens to send me backward, rain now falling sideways, at first kissing and then slapping my face, and I celebrate that I am alive.
Blue lights in the distance to my left and sirens to my right converge in front of my hotel. Police and rescue personnel pour out of flung-open doors, their binoculars fixed outward toward the raging water. One of them brings a bullhorn to his mouth. Says, “Return to shore immediately.”
I crane my neck around them, out towards the gray hole in the universe. A lone figure on a surfboard pops out among the whitecaps. Swallowed. Pops up once more. He sees the flashing blue lights and the man yelling at him. Reaches up with an arm and waves. Behind him comes a swell that seems stories high. He paddles after it, grips the sides of his board as the wave lifts him. He is to his feet, his arms outstretched, as if hugging the storm itself. Even in the wind and the rain, all this howl, I can hear his joy.
The wave deposits him close to shore but too far for the police to reach him. The man with the bullhorn tries once more—“Return to shore. NOW.” The surfer pauses, stares at us, and smiles. He turns to head back into the maelstrom. One more wave, he asks the storm. Just one more.
When it is over, the police handcuff him and unceremoniously toss his board into the back of an SUV. It’s an unfortunate end to his glorious morning. But I see the smile on his face as he’s placed into custody, and it’s a smile that says it was all worth an arrest.
And as I watch them leave, I know I would say the same.
March 2011:
The weather outside my window this morning reminds me of that long-ago day—gray skies, sideways rain, a gale that rattles the windows. The wavy horizon I’m used to seeing of sapphire mountains and cobalt sky is now a gray tear in my world.
I stand and stare, a cup of coffee in my hand. My thoughts drift back to the man on the surfboard, out there that day in a tempest of water and wind, all to catch that one big wave and to celebrate that he was alive.
I remember what I thought as well, that his deed was a noble one. Not in the eyes of the law, perhaps, but in the laws of existence. I remember envying his courage and the will with which he embraced that one small moment.
Yet as I sip and stare I realize how much I’ve changed in the years since. If I would stand and watch that man dance amongst the waves at thirty-eight instead of nineteen, I would see him as more dunce than hero. Far from believing he was embracing his life, I would think he was spoiling in an act both dangerous and stupid.
I would watch the policemen cuff him and take him to jail, and I would say he’d gotten what he deserved.
That’s what I would think now, and it is not what I thought then.
And honestly, I do not know if that should make me mourn or rejoice.
Johnny’s fear
January 7, 2011 by Billy Coffey · 12 Comments
image courtesy of photobucket.com
Let me tell you about Johnny.
I met him when I was eight. It was during Bible school, those dreaded five days during the summer when you’re trying to fight the sensation that you’re back in school because you’re afraid God will be mad at you if you feel that way.
He was sitting under the big oak tree by himself, which was where the wayward softball Brent Stinnett hit landed. I was playing centerfield, so I was the one who retrieved it. I asked Johnny to toss it to me. He wouldn’t, so I got it myself. Then I asked if he wanted to play.
“No,” he said.
“Why not?”
Johnny lowered his head and kicked at a root jutting up from the ground, then shrugged.
“Come on,” I said. “It’s fun.”
“No,” he said again.
So I left him there under the oak.
I found him in the same spot the next day for the same reason (that Brent Stinnett could really pound a softball). This time, Johnny was first:
“I don’t want to play,” he said.
“I didn’t ask if you wanted to,” I told him.
“Well, just in case you were gonna, I don’t want to.”
I suppose the Christian thing would have been for me to befriend Johnny right then and there, or at least do a bit of gentle prodding to see what was really bothering him. But I was your average eight-year-old boy, which often means doing the Christian thing is not nearly as important as playing a game of softball.
Besides, by then the chattering had gone around the Bible school playground that Johnny wouldn’t play because he was afraid. Of what, no one was certain.
By day three, I’d learned that when Brent Stinnett came up to the plate, I should back up. So I did, right next to Johnny under his tree.
“Are you really scared like all the kids say?” I asked him.
Silence. Which to me even then meant yes.
“You ain’t gotta be scared. It’s just a game.”
“I ain’t scared,” he said. Then, as if remembering he was in Bible school and thus that God was watching, he added, “Much. I ain’t scared much.”
“What are you scared of?”
“Lots of things,” he said. “Falling down. Striking out. Getting hurt. Hitting somebody. Getting my clothes dirty. Getting stung by a bee. I’m allergic to bees, you know.”
I didn’t know, but at that moment Brent Stinnett flew out to left field and the inning was over. I jogged back toward the field and shouted at Johnny over my shoulder, “You’re just thinkin’ too much.”
Johnny never did play softball that year. Or any other, as a matter of fact. But he did keep coming to church, and it didn’t take me long to realize he was afraid of much more than playing softball. Much, much more.
Like telephones, radios, the dark, spinach, horses, thunder, and butterflies. The list was endless. Johnny was a walking neurosis. It’s a wonder he’s survived this long.
But he has.
I ran into him at the post office the other day, along with his two children and Mary, his wife. Nice family. Johnny has a big job at a bank now. He’s happy and content. And, finally and completely, unafraid.
There was no psychotherapy involved in Johnny’s transformation. No pills or prescriptions. To hear Johnny say it, there was just his faith and his family. That was all he needed.
Maybe that’s all everyone needs. Because the truth is that we all harbor our own fears, those shadows that crawl and slink deep inside and get in the way of seeing the beauty of things. I’m not afraid of softball or telephones or spinach, but I am afraid. I’m afraid a lot. And there are times when I want more than anything else the opposite of that fear.
For the longest time, I thought that opposite was courage. Makes sense, doesn’t it? But Johnny’s taught me different.
He’s taught me that the opposite of fear isn’t courage, the opposite of fear is Love.
Resolution guy
January 3, 2011 by Billy Coffey · 3 Comments
Though the first of January was a couple days ago, I’ve yet to make my resolution. I’ve even yet to decide if I’m going to make one at all. It’s something I toss around in my mind every year–whether to do or not to do–but in the end, it’s always the same. I don’t change.
At least, I don’t change in ways that allow me to see I’ve changed. It’s a slow process, slow and slight, sort of like time itself. Watch a clock, and the minutes never seem to pass. Don’t watch it, and you’re amazed how quickly a day can pass.
Whether I make a resolution or not this year, they have always fascinated me. We make them because we want to prove we can be better, and most times we break them and prove instead that we’ll never be quite perfect.
I’m writing about my own experience with resolutions over at katdish’s site today. Feel free to hop on over there and include your own.
And Happy New Year!
A matter of time
July 1, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 30 Comments
I’m going to die on November 5, 2055. So says the nifty little quiz I just filled out on the internet. And though it’s hard to put much faith in the accuracy of a prediction based in part on how often I recycle (question number five), this is good information to have. Because whether the date is exact or not, the truth of it is.
One day, I’m going to die.
November 5, 2055, does seem reasonable. I’ll be eighty-three years old then, and my children will be in their late forties. I’ll most likely have grandchildren, be retired, and spend most of my days telling everyone who will listen that the world was a much better place back in 2009.
So yes, dying at eighty-three would be okay with me. That’s a good age to smile at this world and wave goodbye, right there in the meaty part between hanging around too long and not long enough.
At least, that’s what I thought. I’m not so sure now. Having forty-six years left for me to finish whatever it is I want to start seems like a lot of time, but it isn’t when you start to dig a little deeper. Trust me. Because that’s what I did.
If the scribbles on the sheet of paper in front of me are right, most of my remaining forty-six years are already spoken for. I’ll spend twelve of them sleeping, three eating, ten either exercising or resting, and another ten just on home maintenance.
All of which leaves me with a grand total of eleven years to live. One hundred and thirty-two months to make a difference.
Not a lot, is it? Especially considering the fact that November 5, 2055 is at best an approximation and at worst a clever marketing ploy designed to deluge me with junk mail. My end may come later. It may also come before I finish writing this. I don’t know.
None of us do.
Which is why it amazes me that we always think there is time. Plenty of time. There’s always tomorrow, we say. And that may be true for some of us. But not for everyone.
About 146,000 people in the world will wake up this morning thinking there’s plenty of time, not knowing this will be their last day in this life. That’s 6,098 people an hour, 102 people every minute, and about 2 per second. In the time it took you to read this paragraph, twenty people have died.
Amazing, isn’t it? Sad, too. Not because our lives must end, but because the thought of death rarely crosses our minds.
Life fools us into thinking it is this hulking, indestructible beast, when it’s really as fragile as a porcelain figurine . It is holy and sacred and fleeting and never guaranteed. Believing otherwise is not only dangerous to us, it’s dangerous to how we live.
The truth? We don’t have plenty of time. Our every breath is the oil that moves the gears of our days, sending us closer to the moment when we say goodbye to this world and hello to the next. We can’t put off chasing that dream. We can’t delay making those amends. We can’t wait to say “I love you” or “I’m sorry.”
We can’t linger when it comes to the things that make living worthwhile, the people and the dreams that give us meaning. We have to take care of them every minute, every moment. Because maybe they or we won’t be here the next.
There is no time for doubts. No time for hate. No time for hanging on when it’s time to let go and letting go when it’s time to hang on. We get one shot at this world, one chance to do something good and right and true. That time isn’t later. It’s now.
Don’t think it’s never too late. Because sometimes it is.
From concentrate
May 19, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 35 Comments
I know there isn’t much difference between the sort of juice you get from concentrate and the sort of juice you get any other way. Not when it comes to taste, at least. I’ve sampled. No, concentrate is used in our home for another reason. It’s a reminder of sorts, something tangible that helps keep me focused on one of life’s greater truths.
My mother always had orange juice concentrate in the freezer. Easier on the budget, she said. And though my childhood interests tended to involve things far away from the kitchen, I was always around when she made orange juice. The process amazed me.
One frozen tube, small enough to fit into my tiny hand, suddenly transformed into an entire pitcher of juicy goodness? Simply by adding some water? To most, it was a powerful example of human ingenuity endeavoring to make the world a simpler and more orderly place. To me, it was a minor miracle.
Though water seemed to be the magic ingredient, I always thought it an unnecessary step that took a bit away from the finished product. Why bother? Water didn’t taste good. It didn’t taste at all. On the other hand, the stuff in the tube had to be loaded with taste. Sweet, with just a hint of sour. Delicious.
So why not forget the water all together? Why not just serve it right out of the tube?
According to mom, that wasn’t such a good idea. Concentrate on its own was awful, she said. It was too sweet and too powerful. That’s why water was the magic ingredient. It diluted the concentrate and made the juice drinkable.
I never bought that.
One day, alone in the house, I decided to see if she knew what she was talking about. I climbed up on a chair, took the concentrate out, and peeled off the cover. After a few minutes of letting the orange goop thaw in a bowl, I sniffed and smiled. Heaven awaited.
Thinking back, I probably should have taken a sip. Just in case. But I didn’t. I took the biggest gulp I could. Swallowed half of it, too. The other half was launched right back out through a retch that spewed the juice through my mouth and nose and left me teary eyed. I coughed and hacked and, for a moment, almost blacked out.
Mom was wrong. The concentrate wasn’t awful. It was worse.
How could something be so sweet and have too much taste to drink? And how could diluting something so bad make it so good? It didn’t make sense then.
It does now.
Because I’ve spent years wanting a concentrated life. Years on my knees, asking God to help me be and do more. My days were filled with too many mere moments. I wanted defining ones. Moments that lifted me up and rescued me from the hum-drum of life.
And there have been some, to be sure. Like the moment I met my wife. Or when I first held my children. Or the moment I knew beyond all doubt that there was a God Who loved me. But those moments have been surrounded by years of seeming nothingness, when the days seemed to drift by rather than stand out.
I hated those times. A waste of living, I thought. But I’ve learned to think differently. I’ve learned that we may be proven in our defining moments, but we are made in our quiet ones.
Drinking life right out of the tube would sooner wear us down than lift us up. Rather than enjoy its taste, we’d spew it out. It would be too sweet and too powerful to swallow.
Which I think is why God in His infinite wisdom gives our greatest blessings to us over time rather than all at once. Why our days seem to have much more of the same old than the different new. Time, I think, is the magic ingredient. It waters things down. Which is why the wait we mourn for the dreams we have may in fact be His greatest gift.
It makes the living more delicious.
Leaving Faith
May 14, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 50 Comments
At seventeen and already a rising junior, she is a credit to her parents, who raised her to believe in God and love Jesus and work hard for the betterment of the world. And even more credit goes to her parents for her previous twelve years of education. She was homeschooled.
(A note to all of those parents out there who are homeschooling their children: keep it up. Because many of the top students here never went to public school. Never went to private school, either. Their school was the kitchen table or an upstairs study.)
All that said, college life has had its share of surprises. It’s hard work and long nights and very strange people, many of whom have no use for all things religious. Ironically, the biggest surprise thus far has come by way of her religion classes.
Christian Scripture (New Testament) 102 appeared to be an easy A for her and a class that would require little in the way of studying. She had, after all, spent most of her life reading the Bible and acquainting herself with the doctrines and theology of the Christian faith. I did warn her to be wary of what she was getting herself into. “A college class about the New Testament isn’t going to be what you think it is,” I said.
She listened and nodded and smiled, and then ignored my advice. Much like my children.
In she stormed after the first day of class, throwing her books onto the table by the door and kicking a chair for good measure.
“Problems?” I asked.
“That class sucks,” she said. “S-U-C-K-S.”
Told ya, I thought, but said nothing. I merely nodded sympathetically and sat down beside her instead. Because young people do not want to hear the words “Told ya” by someone older. It makes them feel bad. Still…
“Told ya,” I said.
“If you were going to take a class about the New Testament,” she asked, “what would you expect the professor to cover?”
“—Yes!” she shouted. “Jesus. You know, CHRIST!”
“I’ve heard of Him,” I offered.
“Well, not to the stupid professor!” she huffed. “Look.”
She handed me her class syllabus. Early church? Check. Paul? Check. Apostles? Check. Jesus?
Jesus?
“I don’t see Jesus,” I said.
“She doesn’t see Jesus, either. Can you believe that? An entire semester about the New Testament, and she’s not going to mention Jesus at all!”
“Did you ask her why?” She shot me a look for an answer. “What’d she say?”
“She said, ‘Jesus wasn’t integral to the New Testament, and I’ve found Him to be a divisive figure in the classroom.’”
“Jesus wasn’t integral to the New Testament?” I asked.
Another look.
“Divisive, huh?”
“Divisive,” she said. “And you know what’s worse? She’s not just a professor. She’s the college chaplain.”
I nodded. That sounded about right.
The worst thing, she said, was that the class was strictly lecture-oriented. No discussion. And the prospect of sitting in that classroom having to keep her mouth shut was more than she could bear. She was dropping the class, she said. But she was adding a class about faith in life, taught by the same professor.
“This one is all discussion,” she beamed. “I don’t have to keep quiet.”
And she hasn’t. Not for the entire semester.
Things reached the boiling point last week, when the professor professed that she hadn’t quite reached the point in her life where she fully accepted the existence of God. She still has many questions, she said.
“So the chaplain of the college isn’t sure if she believes in God or not?” I asked.
“Nope,” my employee said. “And she’s more than the chaplain. She pastors a church in town, too.”
So we have a college chaplain, who also happens to be the pastor of a church, telling her students that Jesus isn’t really important to the overall meaning of the New Testament and that she doesn’t know if God is real or not. Higher education. Can’t beat it.
For a final exam, the class has to make what is called an “ethical will.” Instead of possessions, the students are supposed to write about what traits they would leave behind to friends and loved ones.
I just read my employee’s will. She left her love to her mother, her strength to her father, her hope to her brother, and her kindness to her sister.
And she left her faith to her professor.
She’s a little nervous about what grade she’ll get. I’m not. Because whatever her professor gives her, God gave her an A.
Letting Be
May 13, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 33 Comments
I spent most of last Monday trying to convince her that if she had to miss school because she was sick, then pinkeye was most definitely the way to go.
She didn’t buy that at first. How could having yucky goop seeping out of one of your eyes be a good thing?
Because, I said, her eye might be sick, but she really wasn’t. No fever or vomiting (thank you, Jesus). No stomach ache or sore throat. Which meant that the usual procedures of staying immobilized on the sofa under a blanket with a cool washcloth didn’t apply.
In other words, she didn’t need to act sick. We could play.
“Even if I called in sick to school?” she asked, which was how she preferred to phrase it. Really?”
“Really.”
She thought for a moment. Then, in an awed whisper, she said, “Wow.”
So we played. A game of chess first, which was awkwardly played with Barbie and Ken dolls. Then we made each other a pretend Play-doh snack, then we made each other a real one. And then we colored: Snow White for her, Mater for me (because that’s how I roll).
I was trying to make our day together a good one, the sort of father/daughter experience that she would fondly remember and I could use as leverage when she starts dating in ten years (because I roll that way, too). Yet she was solemn through the whole morning. Even quiet. She didn’t even scream “Gotcha!” when she captured my queen.
“What’s the matter?” I asked over a lunch of grilled cheese sandwiches. “You feeling bad?”
“No,” she said. “Yes. Kinda.”
“You sound like your mother,” I answered. “Say it straight. Does your eye hurt?”
“No.”
“Stomach?”
“No. I don’t hurt. I just feel bad.”
“Why?”
“Because I feel good.”
I squinted my eyes and flashed her the universal sign of male confusion.
“You feel bad because you feel good?”
“If I’m not at school, I should feel sick,” she clarified. “I don’t feel sick, so I should be at school.”
Oh. What?
“You don’t like taking a day off with your old man?” I asked.
“Daddy,” she answered, “I have a responsitility to go to school.”
“I think you mean ‘responsibility,’” I said.
“Yeah. That.”
Oh. That.
“You’re right,” I said. “Absolutely right. Going to school is part of your responsibility to grow up and be a proper lady who can do whatever God asks of her.”
“I don’t think I’m doing that today,” she whispered.
“Oh, I do.”
“You do?”
“No doubt about it. Because there’s another part about growing up and being used by God that doesn’t involve things like school.”
“Really?”
“Sure. And that’s the part we’re working on today. You have the school part down pretty good. You study and get good grades and help the teacher. Those are fine things. Fine. And I hope you always work hard like that. But a lot of people think they have to work all the time. If they’re doing stuff like we’re doing today, just hanging out and playing, they feel guilty.”
“Sort of like I’m feeling?”
“Exactly. But you don’t need to feel bad taking it easy every once in a while. That’s good for you, too. Jesus worked hard, but He still knew how to relax. He’d go for walks and sit by wells and tell stories and stuff.”
She gave me an appreciative nod. “So sometimes it’s okay to call in sick?” she asked.
“Yes. And sometimes it’s okay to call in well.”
“I like calling in well.”
“Me, too.”
But there is more we need to do, I think. And that can be summed up in one word.
Nothing.
We need to learn how to do more of nothing. How to sit still. God has a hard time using for His purpose those who refuse to stop and listen. Those who think it best to charge ahead rather than stand and wait. We spend so much time planning our lives that we often forget to live them.
Which is why the quality of our lives isn’t defined by how much we can get done, but how much we can let be.
The Slippers
May 11, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 26 Comments
No one is happier than I to see spring finally entrench itself into this year. I am not a fan of winter, of cold mornings and colder nights and darkness at four-thirty in the afternoon. Ba. Humbug.
We are in the main course of May now. The robins have returned outside my living room window, the trees in the yard are heavy with leaves, and I’ve cut the grass three times (a magnificent task, by the way. You learn a lot about God by mowing the yard. Another story for another time, though).
But even with sunshine and seventy degrees here in the valley, the tops of the mountains outside my window were clouded in snowfall just a few weeks ago. I was here, winter was there. And as I looked at that cold, angry storm, I knew it also saw me. Snarling, “I can come down there too, you know. I’m not done just yet.”
Which, ironically, was fine. As anxious as I was to put away the snow shovel and bring out my softball bat, I wasn’t so sure I wanted the cold weather to go away. Because even though spring meant birdsong and porch swings and windows-down-radio-up, it also meant I would have to put away my new slippers.
That they had been on my feet daily since Christmas, gently warming my toes and therefore my very heart, is an unlikely thing for me to say. I’ve never been a slipper guy. They’ve always seemed so un-me, so…girly.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
When I unwrapped them last Christmas morning, my wife asked me to just give them a try. “Please,” she said, emphasis included. Not because I wanted them, not even because I thought I needed them. But to, in her words again, “Finally get you to shut up.”
I love my wife.
You see, the floors in our home were cold. Very. The frigid temperatures coupled with an unwavering determination to cut down on the gas bill kept our thermostat at a barely tolerable sixty-eight degrees this year. By November, I was chilly. By December, I was a Popsicle.
It was easy enough to throw on a sweatshirt or a thicker pair of jeans to make things a bit more comfortable, but that did little to improve the condition of my feet. I tried wool socks, which did the trick so long as I stayed on the carpet in the living room. Venture out from there and onto the hardwood floors of the rest of the house, though, and it was like an ice rink in both temperature and friction. I almost broke a leg one Saturday afternoon carrying a bag of carrots into the kitchen. Almost died from hypothermia waiting for someone to help me, too.
Stupid house, I thought to myself. Stupid cold house with its stupid cold floors. Why didn’t we buy a house with a fireplace in it? Or two fireplaces. And radiant heat in the floors. Oh, yeah. That would be nice. Radiant heat…
Those thoughts were translated into words later on to my wife: “I hate living here, and I hate our life.”
She looked at me, puzzled. What in the world had brought this on? she wondered. Has something terrible happened? Has he finally cracked?
“What made you say that?” she asked.
“My feet are cold.”
Which brought about an even more puzzled look.
But it’s like that with us, isn’t it? We all have the unique talent of turning small inconveniences into major problems. And while I spent months believing that the source of my trouble was a drafty house, the truth was that it was something much closer.
The trouble wasn’t the cold floors. Not the weather, either.
The trouble was me.
There is a lot in my little world I pray that God will change. “Give me more and give me better,” I ask Him. I wonder sometimes if He’s not saying the thing to me.
I wonder if rather than making the rain stop, He’d rather just give me an umbrella. Because you have to learn to smile in the rain as much as you do in the sunshine.
Or if rather than making me comfortable, He’d rather leave me uncomfortable. Because that’s when I learn the most.
Or if rather than giving me a nice warm house, He’d rather just give me a pair of slippers.
Because there isn’t much you can change about your circumstances sometimes. But there is plenty you can change about you.
P.S. – katdish over at Hey look, a chicken! has been kind enough to offer me a guest appearance on her blog every Monday. Nice of her, isn’t it? So why don’t you follow me over there, and I’ll tell you how I learned to live in awe again…
The Second Thing God Wants To Hear
May 4, 2009 by Billy Coffey · 39 Comments
Author of Snow Day and Paper Angels (November 2011), both by FaithWords. But don't let that fool you. I'm just as confused as anyone.
And that is fine with me, because the great thing about wandering around in the fog is that you never know what you might run into.
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