Grace for the Frazzled

Submitted by Jennifer Power

Well, I can tell Fall has arrived as things are really picking up around here at St. Paul’s! I have waited until the last minute to write my blog post this week, and for this reason it will be shorter posted later than usual.

I want to just take a moment a share a story with you from the last several days.

Friday night, I attended a “think tank” dinner with four other couples in the congregation. It was an encouraging evening which blessed me greatly. My thoughts were running a hundred miles an hour as I went to bed that night, and the following morning I actually awoke before the rest of the house and had some time to myself.

Drinking my morning coffee, I entered an inspired time of prayer and reflection with God. As I sat with God, an idea began forming in my mind. I became excited about the idea and determined to carry it out on Tuesday in obedience to what seemed to me to be the leading of the Holy Spirit.

The matter firmly settled in my mind, I went about the rest of the weekend without giving it much thought… until Monday morning.

Monday morning I had a doctor’s appointment with a new doctor. My husband met a friend for breakfast after work that morning and did not arrive home until moments before I needed to leave.

I had left my insurance card and car keys in our van, which he had driven to work that morning. If you follow my personal blog and have read my recent post about things in my home I actually remember to clean, you will see the van is not on the list. Our van often looks like someone dumped out the contents of our girls’ bedroom floor inside, and this morning was no exception.

I became frantic as I searched for my insurance card and car keys. I could not drive the van to my appointment because my youngest daughter had a doctor’s appointment after mine at a different location where I planned to meet them. I started in with some desperate prayers, “God! Help me find my card – help me find my keys! I have had this appointment scheduled for a month and do NOT want to reschedule it!”

God is good to me. I found my card and keys. Yet, I do not say “He is good to me” because I found my missing items but because He in His mercy continues to move in my life despite my regular habit of allowing stress to get the better of me.

Keys and insurance card in hand, I left for my appointment. My husband had given me directions and I followed them.

When I arrived at the end of his directions, I had not reached my destination.

I then called my husband and asked him for better directions.

It did not help.

My mom is a nurse at the hospital so I called her next (already on my way to being late for the appointment).

A few minutes into talking with her, my phone died.

I managed to find the building, but went up to the wrong floor. On the way back down to the correct floor, someone overheard which doctor I was looking for and said “Oh, I just heard she is in surgery…”

“Great,” I think.

Completely frazzled, I arrive at the right check-in desk only a few minutes late. I made some really lame jokes to the nurse who took my vitals and brought me into the exam room.

She didn’t laugh.

Despite the fact the front desk told me my new doctor was not in surgery, as I sat there for 10 minutes…20 minutes…40 minutes, I began to believe they had misled me.

Dead phone and nothing to do, I started thinking about what I felt God had been leading me to do at work the next day when I had sat in peace drinking my coffee, and I began to panic.

“I do not want to do that…I bet that was just me coming up with that idea, and God probably was not in it at all…right?”

I began talking to myself “Jen, you are being ridiculous. Stop it. Be obedient. You can do this. You know you will regret it if you take the easy way out.”

My pep talk was not working.

“I don’t care…I don’t want to do it so I will just come up with something else.”

The pep talk resumed with more intensity, “Seriously? Are you so weak that you cannot do something which is not even a big deal at all in obedience to God?” (I am not always very nice to myself.)

In a very weak voice in my head I almost whispered, “I know it is weak – I know it is pathetic – I know in the big scheme of things, in the vastness of the scale of suffering around the world, this small thing God has asked me to do is practically a cake walk, but I just do not think I can do it.”

In a very short time I went from stressed to near despair. I made it through the appointment and continued wrestling with God over the issue.

The next day, refreshed by a rare night of good sleep and seeing the previous day’s anxiety in its proper light, I did what I felt led to do.

I fumbled and babbled on a bit quite imperfectly, but I did it. And it was not nearly as terrifying as I had imagined at that moment in the doctor’s room.

As I drove home that evening, I felt like doing a little happy dance – I was thrilled I responded in obedience instead of cowardice and grateful for the strength God gave me to be brave in the face of anxiety. There have been just far too many instances in my past where I have not obeyed – where I have convinced myself the leading was not from God and was just my own thinking, and regretted it later.

In all honesty, it was a very small act of obedience – I did not lay down my life or even risk ridicule. At best, I risked feeling awkward. Nevertheless, that small act of obedience was life-breathing. It left me, once again, on my knees in utter dependence on God and wholly grateful for His immeasurable grace and mercy to me.

I pray He will give you the strength to be obedient and brave today in whatever you may face. May God bless you in this road we walk together with Him.