Do
you feel your world tilted or upside down? How do you handle it?
“Yikes!” I said as my Zoom meeting opened. The whole
computer screen was upside down. I had a great view of the top of everyone’s
head and the ceilings in their homes. I didn’t know what happened. How did the
screen turn upside down?
No time to figure it out, I had to do the two-hour
meeting upside down. At least, I wasn’t upside down to them. It was
disconcerting, to say the least. I love to watch facial expressions and those
don’t come out the same upside down.
It hit me. Last night, my husband and I arrived home
from a three-week trip to visit our families in Colorado. We were tired from
the long three-day drive through six states. We came home to a mess. While we
were gone, a contractor painted our walls, laid new tiles, and put on new
baseboards in our home. Our furniture had been shoved out of the way into the master,
kitchen, and other areas where the flooring wasn’t getting an upgrade. A thick
layer of construction dust covered everything. I had forgotten how dusty the
job would be and didn’t close the doors to the bedrooms and bathrooms.
On top of that, our part of Florida had a cold snap
like the rest of the country and while we were gone, I called out an SOS to our
neighbors to put our plants into the house. Droopy outdoor plants were stashed
here and there and some colorful tropical plants got broken. They were inside
hidden from the sun and “breathing” the dust.
To get ready for my Zoom meeting, we had to set up my
office and the computer. We needed to hook up the internet. Everything was
packed into boxes. Where were the cords? Where were the “things?” I needed my
pens and notebook. I had to dust off the printer to print out the pages for
critique. In the chaos, the paper for the printer had been folded over and
didn’t want to stand up in the tray. I had to hold up the pile while it printed
each piece.
Joy and excitement over the new floors turned into a
bit of frustration. A headache came on. My fibromyalgia pain spiked. I got grouchy.
I snapped at my husband.
In my haste to clean and find things, I’d forgotten to
eat. We hadn’t gone to the grocery store yet. I scrounged around to find
something.
I ate, made coffee, got dressed and pasted on a smile
as I pushed, ‘connect with video’ for the meeting.
Scooting up to my desk, the folder in my hand hit the
keyboard, which flipped the screen so everything turned upside down. This made
the mouse work backward too.
God showed me what an upside-down world really looked
like. I had made a fuss over trivia—over an inconvenience. God got my
attention. I had to laugh at the situation. All the things that I let bother
me, were insignificant in the scope of life.
I apologized to my Lord and my husband.
In time, I’ll unpack and find all I need. All the dust
will be gone. All the furniture will be where it needs to go and filled with my
dishes and treasures. Life is too short to go half-cocked because things are
out of sorts. By the way, the floors look lovely. The contractor did a fabulous
job. The mess was the price of the process.
I hope I remember this lesson the next time things go
awry or the way I don’t want them to be. The dust will return when we do the
next phase of the tile job. Do you get out of whack when life throws you a
curve ball? How do you handle it?
“And
let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts. For as members of one
body you are called to live in peace. And always be thankful.” (Colossians
3:15 nlt)