Perspective On Peace

"I asked Mark what has enabled him to keep so strong and wise during this entire ordeal. Without pause, he said with a smile, 'Four simple words: 'I won't go there.' Truthfully, that's our secret. We simply don't allow ourselves to go down that path of worry and dread. Since the situation is tough enough, allowing our minds to take us to even more difficult scenarios would make life almost unbearable." - Richard Carlson

In Mark's case, it was the near death of his youngest son, brain damaged in a car accident and in the midst of excruciating recovery even to be able to once again walk and speak.

What is peace? Lately, my definition's been the belief that "everything's gonna be all right." Easily said, and...

Last night we trekked down the coast toward the ferry for Ocracoke Island. In the interest of a whine-free ride I decided we'd drive separately in our rented Toyota Corolla rather than carpooling. We hadn't gotten a mile down the road when my eye drifted toward the gas gauge and the shock of a needle hovering just above "E." Back home, my fuel-efficient Saturn needs a fill-up every two weeks. Here, my daily trips to the fitness center had added up... the drive had become routine but was still over a half hour round trip.

Now, with two vans full of family in our wake, and 20-30 miles of highway to cover ahead, worry conquered me. There's a service station! I pulled in, as the vans swooshed by to catch the ferry that we now might miss. Sign in the window: "Closed." Go back? Go forward? We pushed on. Dena recalled another gas station ahead, and was right. And it turns out that this was the only station along the route.

Was "everything gonna be all right"? Sure. Worst case is that we'd have driven back, refueled, caught the next ferry and still made it in time for dinner. The experience would have been just as bloggable. But in that capsule of worry I probably aged an hour in ten minutes. The inconvenience to the family would've been cause for remorse, the act of stupidity to ignore the gauge a blow to anyone's confidence in me. But in the big picture, as with everything, part of God's sometimes incomprehensible plan. This day, however, the plan was to give me a chance to fail another test of faith, in the hopes that I'll learn my lesson before a much bigger one comes.