I
wish I could tell y’all how many times I’ve said “seriously?” over the last
week. I mean really… I think I would be
a very rich woman and certainly in more ways than my name. Lawd have mercy! It has been one thing after another. Most recently I felt like what I imagine one
of my brother’s childhood friends felt like many years ago. Tony was barreling down the road on his
sparkling 10 speed bicycle (flashing that “I’m
up to something and you know it’s cool” look) when all of a sudden the hand
brake came loose, fell into the front spokes, locked the wheel up tighter than
spandex on an elephant and flipped poor ole’ Tony over the handles bars. Why he would’ve been dead if his face hadn’t
stopped his fall on the asphalt! He was
a mess for quite a spell after that.
Well
that is the way I felt a few days go. I
was riding along full speed ahead working on the finishing touches of my latest
book, crossing off all the things on my
business check list and getting just about ready to launch our new family business
website; when bam! Those brakes fell
into the spokes, sent me spinning and knocked me for a loop and I found myself
sitting dazed and confused in the middle of the “street” licking my wounds and
wondering what in tarnation had just happened!
Life’s like that y’all. I surely
wish it wasn’t but it’s just that way sometimes. Sometimes it’s our fault for trying to ride
too fast, for losing the grip on the wheel or forgetting to take care of the
daily things that keep our “ride” in tip top shape. This is really what happened to me, I have to
confess. I was trying so hard to make
use of several days when my fibromyalgia wasn’t acting up, that I pushed so
hard and so fast that I didn’t keep a check on things. Before I knew it, I found
myself stopped dead in my tracks looking like a deer in the headlights.
Okay
so here’s what happened. I got an email
from a women’s shelter here in town.
Everyone who knows me knows how close to my heart those outreaches
are. I didn’t think twice about checking
out the email or noticing that something wasn’t “quite right.” I clicked on an attachment and quicker than grease
lightening, a virus attacked my computer from a nasty group of cyber
criminals. It encrypted about ¾’s of my
files and destroyed my saved copies of my recent work. I say “recent” because I had not slowed down
enough to back up my files for quite a while.
Seriously y’all? I know better
than this! Gracious anybody that does
any work on the computer knows better than this! But I had a deadline I was trying to meet and
didn’t stop to eat or even for a bathroom break hardly. Why I ought to be ashamed. I am now, but at first I was mad as a wet hen,
until I finally calmed down to realize the person I should be maddest at was
me! I went through all the phases of “grief”
and finally decided I had to make a choice.
I could crawl in a hole and give up; I could bust a gasket with all that
anger. (My blood pressure was like a reactor with a jammed release valve.) I felt like I was going to explode for about
24 hours. I could jump in my car and
head to the beach or do what southern belles love most, head to the mall and
buy me something “purty.” I could vow with
my last breath to track those sorry sap
suckers down; I could cry a pity party river forever, or I could clean myself
off, pick myself up and let that southern pride and determination rise up in me
and say “oh no you don’t! I’ll show you” and with my last breath do
what I had to do to “save Tara.”
You
know, they say that it isn’t until something is squeezed that you truly find
out what’s inside. There’s nothing
anymore true than that statement. At
some point in the wee hours of the night/morning while my eyes were glazed over
from watching the scan bar on my virus scanner, I felt everything that had been
bottled up inside of me beginning to ooze out. I wasn’t yelling anymore or pitching a hissy
fit. I wasn’t crying like a baby
either. No I was praying! I was praying for those hoodlums that had
turned me upside down and twisted me inside out. I was praying for my attitude, praying for the
know how as to the best way to restore and move forward. Why once all that oozing started, things that
had been deep inside of me for a month of Sundays started coming out! Fears, frustrations, negative thoughts and
just about everything in between. Now I
don’t mean to sound like an angel in white because the good Lord Jesus knows I
am far from that, but what I am saying is that sometimes when we try to move
too fast in life without really getting clear direction and keeping a check on
our motives; when we are not thorough in our preparation, when we don’t fully
protect what is precious and stay focused on what truly matters, we can be
knocked for a loop and find ourselves face down in the asphalt like Tony. I am not totally clear on that day with that
boy. I am not sure if it was his bike or
my brother’s but either way, he paid a high price because someone wasn’t paying
attention. Gracious, I don’t want to be
responsible for anybody being hurt because I’m not paying attention. Seriously y’all!
Life
is kind of a puzzle and even with the best made plans we don’t always know how
things are going to turn out. Remember
what Forrest Gump said… “life is like a
box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get until you bite into
it.” I suppose the best we can do, is to do the
best we can do! Then when we get turned
all catawampus, we can take time to figure out what good is going to come from
the situation that we find ourselves in. I
feel a heap better than I did a few days ago.
Tomorrow is Good Friday – a day in history where it seemed like
everything had been flipped upside down and had come to a halt for those who were
following Christ and believing for a better world. It was a dark day; all that was good seemed
defeated and wasted, but guess what?
That dark day wasn’t the end at all.
It was simply a necessary step into what was coming next. There is a message in that for all of us y’all. No matter what flips your world upside down,
knocks you for a loop and throws you to the ground, get up. It’s not over! I wish I could tell you that these kinds of
things like I faced the last few days eventually stop tormenting the daylights
out of us, but frankly they don’t. I
know, I know… seriously? Yes seriously. It’s not so much about what we face as how we
face it y’all. I hope that helps
somehow. It has surely helped me knowing
that. It has also helped me as I’ve come
to understand that whatever produces our “seriously” moments eventually fades
away. We find that we get through it and realize that we are not alone!
As
you go through the weekend maybe attending services or watching those
grand babies hunt for Easter eggs; as you get dye all over your hands trying to
make it all perfect for your little ones, or try to grill the perfect “baby
backs” for the family or whatever it is that you are doing, be reminded that
everything in life is a blend of sunshine and rain, daylight and dark, bitter
and sweet and it all comes together... not to make the perfect life, but to make
life perfect. Seriously? Seriously y’all! God bless and Happy Easter!!!
