Escaped Pills

This morning when I was filling my own pill organizer, I noticed Dean's pill organizer had one of the little boxes open just a little. Much to my chagrin, Tuesday night's pill door was not only open, but there were three little "escapees" on the loose! Did they fall on the floor somewhere that only a curious dog or child would be able to locate and put in "solitaire" (i.e. their own mouth)?

Dean came into the kitchen at about that time and when I asked what he knew about the "pill break", he informed me that he had noticed that pills had dropped to the floor when he took his pills the night before. But not to worry, he found them and taken them along with his other pills. Well, there's a whole new thing to worry about...what pills were they?

They ended up being "significant" pills, but evidently Dean was able to weather the storm overdose, because, after all, here he was at five in the morning, wide awake and telling me about it with coherent speech and everything.

When bigger things start falling out of their prescribed places in our lives, we follow a similar pattern of wondering, worrying, questioning, and searching. How patient a God we have, who allows us to experience these very human responses. In the end, we often don't get our questions answered, we never find what we're looking for, and it's especially then that our worry can spin out of control.

But God has given us a special tool to help us weather these very real storms of life. It's called faith. Nothing gets the emotions under control better than a healthy dose of this worry-buster. When we turn the controls over to God, He never steers us into waters we can't handle. Things find their perspective in the bigger picture that God Himself controls.

I needed this little reminder this morning. God has the answers and He's in control.

Who's Steering?

I went shopping today again with my daughter and two granddaughters. The littlest one was riding with me on the power cart, sitting so still and being so good. But then she got to playing with the horn. Discovered just where and how to push it. Next thing I know she's taking over the steering too!

Good thing I was just a bit stronger than she was and kept us running safely down the middle of the aisles and not bumping into the shelves. She was having so much fun trying to wrest the steering away from Grandma, but her sister and I were laughing and enjoying it as much as she was. The joy for her came from doing something Grandma was supposed to do and getting away with it, even though I was the one who had the cart under control.

How often do we think we can steer better than God too? I imagine He humors us somewhat, letting us think we are in charge, even though He is really the strong one and is keeping our life on the straight path. Just like I kept our cart from crashing into anything. God will gladly be in control for us, if we ask Him to. Is there really a safer way to travel?