Ridiculous
Well that didn’t work. Focussing on Parker and lifestyle changes only threw me into a more negative space. I have a lot of good things outside of Parker.
I think by making my pain the main character I was concentrating on the wrong part of the problem. I can look for solutions I can find things that they can easily the problem nourishes the problem it has a problem makes the problem grow. I can concentrate on the good things ... like the beautiful family I am living with – the good food, the good conversations and the wisdom…And then there is God –always bringing in the presence of love,
So this morning, I phoned my sister.
I know when she’s doing her Bible studies in the morning, I asked her, “What is God saying to you today?”
She paused, then said something that caught me off guard.
“I’m not supposed to focus on the sacrifices,” she said. “I’m supposed to thank God for the troubles of the day… and call on Him in the middle of them.” She was reading Psalm 50:15: Call on me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will honor me.
The message was not to avoid the trouble. Parker is always there.
But not to analyze it endlessly.
We can meet it with gratitude—and ask for help.
I asked her what “troubles” she was facing.
She mentioned a few ordinary things—aches, the small indignities of aging.
And then, almost sheepishly, she told me about a woodpecker that wakes her up in the morning. “I can’t see him,” she said, “but he’s there… pecking. And I don’t have a gun.”
That led to another story—magpies on the farm, when she was a young mother. She had actually placed a gun, fully intending to deal with them in the morning. She never did.
And suddenly we were both laughing—really laughing. Magpies and woodpeckers - little Parkers.
At the absurdity.
At the honesty.
At how trouble can be both real and ridiculous at the same time.
And somewhere in that image, there was a strange and a kind of joy--
a sense that I could be in charge again.
Not of everything.
But of where I place my attention.
And that… changes the story.
If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. – Wayne Dyer
I think by making my pain the main character I was concentrating on the wrong part of the problem. I can look for solutions I can find things that they can easily the problem nourishes the problem it has a problem makes the problem grow. I can concentrate on the good things ... like the beautiful family I am living with – the good food, the good conversations and the wisdom…And then there is God –always bringing in the presence of love,
So this morning, I phoned my sister.
I know when she’s doing her Bible studies in the morning, I asked her, “What is God saying to you today?”
She paused, then said something that caught me off guard.
“I’m not supposed to focus on the sacrifices,” she said. “I’m supposed to thank God for the troubles of the day… and call on Him in the middle of them.” She was reading Psalm 50:15: Call on me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will honor me.
The message was not to avoid the trouble. Parker is always there.
But not to analyze it endlessly.
We can meet it with gratitude—and ask for help.
I asked her what “troubles” she was facing.
She mentioned a few ordinary things—aches, the small indignities of aging.
And then, almost sheepishly, she told me about a woodpecker that wakes her up in the morning. “I can’t see him,” she said, “but he’s there… pecking. And I don’t have a gun.”
That led to another story—magpies on the farm, when she was a young mother. She had actually placed a gun, fully intending to deal with them in the morning. She never did.
And suddenly we were both laughing—really laughing. Magpies and woodpeckers - little Parkers.
At the absurdity.
At the honesty.
At how trouble can be both real and ridiculous at the same time.
And somewhere in that image, there was a strange and a kind of joy--
a sense that I could be in charge again.
Not of everything.
But of where I place my attention.
And that… changes the story.
If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. – Wayne Dyer
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