Let's Talk Turkey

All week long my feathers were ruffled. Or maybe I was just in a foul mood. 

I overreacted when a colleague told my boss something I’d said to her privately. 

I introduced myself to someone who said she’d met me several times while I stared at her blankly thinking I’d never seen her before in my life. I couldn't think of a thing to say, except an inelegant, "Really?" that inferred she must not have made much of an impression for me not to remember her. I felt impossibly rude.

I covered up feeling awkward with brusque and ungracious words when I stumbled into the middle of a conversation between my sister and a friend of hers.

I felt terrible about the way I reacted in all of these situations. 

{Maybe you can relate?}

In much calmer moments, I realized what I’d told my work colleague wasn’t even remotely confidential and it didn't matter if she told my boss. 

I learned the woman I couldn’t remember meeting was sporting a new hairstyle so I wasn’t completely crazy for not recognizing her, but that didn't excuse my lack of warmth.

My sister told me she’d inadvertently given her friend wrong information so she wasn’t surprised I was confused at what they were discussing.

Then I got an email from Compassion International telling me the little girl I was sponsoring in Sri Lanka had been removed from their program by her family so my sponsorship would end. 

Her picture hung on my refrigerator. I was praying for her. I’d received a few letters from her. Although I’d only been sponsoring her for a year, I felt bereft.

So I got a little upset with God.

A tiny thorn of comparison was pricking me, bleeding resentful doubts that maybe God gives everyone else what they want quickly and easily, while my progress to change stalls. Maybe it's my own fault when difficulties arise and I make a muddling mess of the opportunities I could have used to turn things around.

Then I heard the news about Paris and everything in my week suddenly seemed so trivial.

Every so often I get a glimpse of things from God’s perspective. 

That bird’s eye view that allows me to see the greater saga. 

That our lives are just a page in the enormous tome that holds the stories of those who’ve gone before us, those who walk beside us, and those who will come after us.

Thinking my indignant words might have irrevocably damaged the fellowship between me and God, he reminds me that it just isn’t so as he invites me back into his presence. 

Still filled with remorse over my outbursts, I'm the hesitant one, not him. I feel sheepish but grateful.

I will be glad and rejoice in your unfailing love, for you have seen my troubles, and you care about the anguish of my soul. Ps. 31:7

Sometimes there is a long silence after God whispers a word to our hearts. There are more obstacles than we thought there would be, and we don’t realize that the fight is against the efforts to make us doubt God’s goodness.

But when I have the choice to doubt or have faith, I choose faith. 

The doubts are the catalyst that make me more sure that only God can pull off the impossible. Only God can breathe life into what’s dead in my life. 

And only God can move the obstacles that loom as big as mountains. It’s not up to me.

All these thoughts were still fresh as I watched the musical “Cinderella,” for the second time this year. My niece and I saw it in the spring, staged by her school but last weekend I saw the much more elaborate Broadway production. 

When the cast started to sing “Impossible/It’s Possible,” Devon’s eyes lit up and she leaned over and said, “Auntie, do you remember this song from the last time we saw it?”

My doubts of the past week were suddenly erased. 

I know I'm right where I'm supposed to be. 

Imprinting memories on the hearts of my niece and nephew, that years from now they will remember threaded through the fabric of their childhood.

I'm still sifting through cards from Compassion International of other children to consider sponsoring. 

I haven't decided yet but I'm leaning toward a little girl named Ana from Mexico. I'm going to think about it over Thanksgiving.

I don't think I'll ever have the personality to take things in stride like water off a duck's back, but I know every irritation and annoyance just offers me a new opportunity to change my reactions and responses. I'm eager to practice.

So I'm pretty sure by the time it's time to carve the turkey, I'll be in a fine feather.

I'm joining my friends at Holley Gerth's place at Coffee for your Heart.