...stress, and how it can affect the human body and mind. I've just come through four of the most stressful days of my working life and each day I have gone home shaking from the stress. Stress makes my hands shake and my elbows and knees ache. It's funny how busyness can affect the body. And I sit in a chair and stare at a computer screen all day! There is truth to the fact that our bodies and our minds are not separate from each other. They are intimately connected. One affects the other and vice versa.
...the heart, and how easy it is to wound. Especially if it is my own heart. You see, I have a bad habit of holding high expectations for things I plan, whether it is a romantic evening, a small group or a newsletter. And when those plans suddenly change, are canceled, or fail to live up to my expectations, my heart gets hurt. Oh, I'm sure I could try to be thick-skinned, calloused, and cold, but to do so would deny things that make me human. I have emotion. I have a heart. And it breaks. Too often, I believe, but it does break. God has replaced my heart of stone with a heart of flesh (2 Cor. 3:3; Jer 31:31-34). I will not trade it back. I just need to either lower my expectations or learn to better deal with their failure.
...the passing of time, and how my days seem shorter and emptier when the sun goes down earlier. I bought a new chainsaw yesterday -- an electric one -- but I don't have an hour of daylight to use it. Even when I come home from work a 5, I have other more important things to care for at home. By the time I get changed into work clothes, the sun is about to set and the trees are blocking whatever daylight I have left. I have work lights outside, so that I can tend my garden at night, but I feel I should refrain from using outdoor power equipment after the sun sets. I think it's a neighbor taboo. Time messes with us so badly. Makes me long for eternity and the sunrise that has no sunset.
...the heart, and how easy it is to wound. Especially if it is my own heart. You see, I have a bad habit of holding high expectations for things I plan, whether it is a romantic evening, a small group or a newsletter. And when those plans suddenly change, are canceled, or fail to live up to my expectations, my heart gets hurt. Oh, I'm sure I could try to be thick-skinned, calloused, and cold, but to do so would deny things that make me human. I have emotion. I have a heart. And it breaks. Too often, I believe, but it does break. God has replaced my heart of stone with a heart of flesh (2 Cor. 3:3; Jer 31:31-34). I will not trade it back. I just need to either lower my expectations or learn to better deal with their failure.
...the passing of time, and how my days seem shorter and emptier when the sun goes down earlier. I bought a new chainsaw yesterday -- an electric one -- but I don't have an hour of daylight to use it. Even when I come home from work a 5, I have other more important things to care for at home. By the time I get changed into work clothes, the sun is about to set and the trees are blocking whatever daylight I have left. I have work lights outside, so that I can tend my garden at night, but I feel I should refrain from using outdoor power equipment after the sun sets. I think it's a neighbor taboo. Time messes with us so badly. Makes me long for eternity and the sunrise that has no sunset.
...encouragement, and how words and e-mails don't usually encourage me nearly as much as actions. Though I must confess that I was greatly blessed by the retelling of a recent mission trip by one of my pastors. He went to Ukraine with a church missionary and encountered a church in Kiev that really blessed him. He met person after person who were kind and humble, offering service, food, and fellowship. The church across the world is amazing. Just reading about the neat people my pastor met really encouraged me as a believer.
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