This really happened recently at home. I went into the room where my husband was to tell him I had found my sunglasses, which had been misplaced for weeks and were avoiding me. Sunglasses are very important to me. I am very sensitive to glare, have been since I was a child, and as a grown up I indulge this oddity by using sunglasses whenever I feel like it, on cloudy days or sunny ones.
He looked up as I started to talk: "Honey, I found my."
I could not think of the next word. I could picture my sunglasses, which I'd left on the desk where they'd surfaced. I could picture how cool I think I look wearing my sunglasses, but I could not think of the word for them, that word that names them.
How odd. Another oddity among others lurking in the next sentences, when I tried to work through the problem or around it. I took off my regular glasses and held them out. "You know, the things like," and when I couldn't think of the next word again, I tacked on, "like these." Then to emphasize my meaning, I sort of bobbed the glasses up and down, one hand holding them out toward him, in mid-air.
He was staring intently at me, not moving, not saying a thing. Waiting.
I was waiting, too. I was waiting for the word for eyeglasses. Or spectacles. I usually call them "glasses." I could see my glasses, I was holding them. I wear them every day. But what were they called?
"What do you call these?" I asked him, puzzled. He just stared at me, intently. He waited.
Later, he told me that at that point he thought I was joking but he was trying to figure out why in that unusual way.
Then, since it was about two weeks before the Presidential Election, the day the country was then holding its breath for, I tried to name the candidates or their wives or the President and his wife.
Nothing. No name, no word. I could picture the Bushes. I could picture Barack and Michelle, John and Cindy. But, I could not think of the words that are, well, their names!
That was Scary Time. So, to take care of Scary Time, I pictured Texas, Alaska, and Illinois. Does that make sense to you? I could "see" those states on my mind's map, but no word, no names for those states would come. I tried to focus on their unique shapes, geographically. No names rose from the mists of my mind.
I'm making a big leap here, telling you about this, so don't leave me now. Stay with me.
I don't know for sure, but I think the whole thing was not only freaking me out but also was freaking my husband out. At our house, if political names will not come to mind, something big is wrong.
He filled in all the words for me as we sat there. I can only try to imagine what that must have been like for him, but he did a great job and now I remember all those names, as I am now proving to you. He is upstairs in bed asleep and I am downstairs alone and it is almost midnight. All systems are "Go" again and as far as I know the Bushes are at the White House preparing to move, the Obamas are in DC, too, I think, working on the new Cabinet and the children's school choice, and the McCains are likely commuting between DC and AZ.
I am even sketching rather accurate maps titled Texas, Illinois, and Arizona right now.
See. I'm doing fine, and I know I am blessed.
My new doctor, who is fantastic, thinks the Scary Time was related to blood pressure, which I have never had a problem with, and the high numbers of which she noticed the minute she took the reading for mine in the office.
After the brain systems checked out OK a few days later, we agreed to, well, she said we would definitely, work to lower the blood pressure.
"Are you under stress?" she had asked me right away.
"Isn't everybody?" I replied. I was not trying to be flippant, and I think she saw that, but I know that just about everybody is talking about how much stress they are under.
"Maybe you are bottling in stress," she said.
"Well, the other day I did sort of feel like I'd like to go outside and scream," I said. Don't psychoanalyze that, except that I once heard of something called scream therapy, and assumed it was for stress. Maybe I felt nervous and tried to introduce some humor?
She gave me a serious look.
"You think I should have done that?"
She nodded: "Yes, it might helped." Then I chuckled, and she smiled seriously at me, and then she wrote a prescription and said she would see me in two weeks.
All is better now, three weeks or so later. And you know what, that is the only medicine I take, so I'm very blessed, and...the Presidential Election is over! .
I know that not all correlations translate into causation, but in the instance of the Election, one cannot help wondering. It's all anyone was talking about for a year around where we live and all the chatter was stressful, in a way.
Seriously, everybody does have stress. Everyone has people and situations they want to stay close to during various storms or just bumps in the road. And many people have physical heart trouble, which is serious.
But all of us have some kind of heart trouble. In cases of losses, for example, or disappointment or rejection, many do not have someone nearby, as I did during my Big Brain-Freeze moment. Some do not have doctors quick to seek answers to their medical mysteries. Some do not have kind people at home who will listen, wait, and help them get through even slightly weird events that just happen.
And isn't life often full of slightly weird events?
Now that the election is over, there are other things still going on. People all over have concerns at work, at home, with friends, and other situations, or all of the above. There are worries about the economy and the future added on
Last week, my husband and I took a week away, in the next state from us, Virginia, a week planned months before. While there, we learned that someone somehow got our credit card numbers (we had the cards with us) and likely made bogus cards back home so they could have a good time spending thousands--yes, thousands!--of dollars on our account.
The bank's fraud department caught it. They said that kind of buying did not fit their profile of us: the charges were big ones over a day or two and no car fuel, tires, or batteries were involved, things to pay off at the end of the month.
So, without asking us, they froze those cards and that account. A nice lady at a Virginia store told my husband when he tried to use the card, his way of keeping up with where the cash goes when we're on the road. We managed without the cards. We kept on our way, cooking in most evenings and loving it. Enjoying some stress-free time during a rainy week.
Later, when we mentioned the credit fraud to people--we were traveling in Virginia while someone used our card numbers at Nordstrom's and fast-food Arby's in Maryland--more than one person said, "But you both seem so calm. I'd be freaking out!"
I felt tempted to tell them it was far better than forgetting the word for "sunglasses," but decided maybe that story was too long and involved. Also, the bank said they would not be expecting us to pay for what we did not buy. That helped, too.
Thanks for staying with me this far. Whatever the stresses or troubles of the heart, may that peace of God, which exceeds understanding, keep all our hearts and minds, in Christ Jesus.
Along with the little blood pressure helper-pill I'll take daily for a while, I'm trying to be more mindful of the important things, the really Important Things, including habits of every day, how I deal with stuff.
I know that God is working through these events of recent times. I think of what a man who trusted the Great Physician with his life wrote years ago. God inspired the apostle Paul to pen these words:
Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy-meditate on these things. The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do, and the God of peace will be with you.
Philippians 4:7-9--New King James Version of the Bible (NKJV)
Thanks for stopping by. May some of these words calm your heart and mind today, too.
~Jane
Jean Purcell is a book publisher and writer. Her first book was Not All Roads Lead Home under her pen name, Jane Bullard. Her web site is http://www.opinebooks.com and her Writing and Publishing Nonfiction Books blog is at http://janebullard.blogspot.com/ Sign up for the free Opinari Quarterly for Christian Writers, Publishing Professionals, Book Lovers, and Reviewers on her web site.
What a fright you and your husband had but your trust was where it should have been. Our Father, the Great Physician is the one who heals and restores that which was lost. You listened and were obedient as evidenced by your reaction to the fraudulent use of your credit cards. His Word is there for us which means He is there, too. We must lean on Him. Thank you for sharing this testimony of your faith and trust in Him.
» left by Jane Bullard (351 days 11 hours ago.)
Avis, in case I responded in the wrong SW box, the response is now there. This probably does not make sense... Jane
God bless you, Avis! All the glory to The Lord, and Amen. When Jesus said "Cast all your cares upon Me," there was a great promise in that, that He will handle our cares. Sooner or later, we will even be able to see more of what He does for us due to His great love and faithfulness! Thank you for your encouragement! Jane
This is a wonderfully perceptive article and very well written. You kept me interested right up to the end of it. No need to thank the reader for staying.
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