A friend of mine recently confided some personal concerns she had as we walked together the other day. She was nearly overwhelmed with uncertainty about her husband’s employment, and I could empathize. I remembered all too well feeling just that way when Covid first came on the scene. Uncertainty can be a very uncomfortable feeling.
At that same time, my husband had arranged for our RV to be in a shop in Dallas for some repairs. Because the RV is our home and also because we have two pups, we had planned to stay at my husband’s family-home in an itty, bitty town in south-central Arkansas that had once belonged to his grandparents but that had been vacant for years. God bless the people who live in this town; it’s in the middle of nowhere and not on the way to anywhere. But the price was right.
At this particular time, the RV industry exploded while the supply chain imploded. What was supposed to take no longer than two weeks dragged on and on with no estimated completion date in sight. As a city-person born and raised, I thought I’d go insane. I was so restless and discontented and definitely not fun to be around; I was in a gap of sorts.
After a few days of not doing anything particular except play solitaire with a real deck of cards, I realized that I was creating my own misery. How much longer would I continue to do it? The uncertainty of when we’d get the RV back—something that was entirely out of my control—was making me ill.
In retrospect, I can now see that it was my dissatisfaction that made me start to search for the ways and means to pull myself out of it. What a blessing! I started walking around and around the property a couple times a day, and accumulated several miles doing that. Then the idea came to do something constructive, so I pressure washed all the concrete walkways, the siding on the house, and the carport floor, which took several days. Over time, I gained acceptance about the situation, and THAT was the real miracle of the situation. We ended up staying there almost five weeks.
Now, when uncertainty pops up in my life, as it does a lot these days, I try to remember that ‘this, too, shall pass,’ and that’s a relief. I’m grateful when I remember that right here and right now, everything is alright. That’s the only thing that truly matters, and that’s okay with me.
Guard your heart above all else, for it is the source of life. -Proverbs 4:23
