Granted, this title might not make much sense for a bit but hear me out. I've had an interesting start to 2022. I keep waiting for things to calm down, but it ain't happening yet. I typically live an unremarkable, quiet life, and the busyness was getting to me. Here is a short list of the stuff that has happened since January.
Every member of my family has needed further medical investigations and/or a visit to a specialist.
The valley in our roof was blocked and (unbeknownst to us) unsealed. A heavy downpour in January saw the overflow pouring down the walls of my house.
We've had to hire a roofer (for above), an electrician (for a faulty light switch that thought it would be fun to try and start a fire in the bathroom), and a plumber (for a pipe that decided retaining all it's water was boring).
Something broke in the evaporative cooler. It was thankfully covered by warranty.
My tennis elbow has decided it would like to play up.
One of those 'pests' that like to be at school came home, and I had a daily washing schedule of 5 loads a day for several days.
The power went out one morning.
I hung a load of laundry over night; the same night the council decided to do brush burning. Even after rewashing, my sheets and blankets still smell of smoke.
Apparently, telling the computer to SAVE this to THIS FOLDER was too complex. It saved 2/3 of my tax forms to an obscure place leaving me thinking I'd lost all my work.
There was more, but I think you get the idea. Still, I'd been keeping my cool. Noticing all the good things in the bad, like the electrician had been able to swing passed within an hour of the faulty light switch melting down and starting to smoke. That he charged me weekday rates even though it was Saturday. Stuff like that.
Then my superannuation sent me a letter to say my life and total and permanent disablement insurance was cancelled due to a lack of funds in my super account. Cue several 'Excuse Me' phone calls to explain/complain that they just can't cancel a person's insurance without telling them BEFOREHAND, so they can do something about it. Still, I was able to stay polite and mostly didn't let the stress/added work get to me. Thankfully, three weeks and several phone calls to the super and the ATO later, my super agreed they'd stuffed up their own policy protocols and gave me back my insurance.
I wrote my boss to let him know the outcome, and this was his reply:
"That is awesome – praise the Lord. I’m just sorry it used up so much of your time and energy (yet my morning devotion was about the fellow who slit the cocoon of the emperor moth to save it from all the struggle it was going through, only to discover he had doomed it – the struggle brought out the Maker’s fulness of glory!)."
You know, I'd read that story years ago and completely forgot about it. I didn't think much of the comment at the time, other than an, 'I remember that. I loved that story.' It was later that day that the comment came back to me.
I was hanging up laundry load number 4 (or 5 or 6... I wasn't really sure anymore) when I dropped a hanky. It was only a hanky, but the pressure was building up so tight I almost lost it over a hanky I'd have to rewash.
Just as the pressure was tipped to explode, that story my boss shared came back to me. Sure, I actually mistook it for a butterfly rather than a moth story but same difference. All I knew was that my cocoon felt more like a hangman's noose than something meant to squeeze all the moisture out of my wings so I could fly perfectly. The story helped me to change my perspective of the things pressuring me. They were not a trap, pinning me down and slowly killing me, but something I was breaking free from. Something I could and should break free from, but it wasn't there to hurt me, even if I felt discomfort.
The pressure was shaping me into a beautiful butterfly that would flutter it's pretty wings and fly free above it all.
Sometimes, when the pressures of life feel more like a noose than a comforting home built by God for my own good, a little perspective change does wonders. How's your perspective today over the pressures in your life?