Too Blessed to be Stressed!

Whew! You sure can get a lot of housework done when you’re upset! Since we added some inspirational channels to our network, I’ve actually found a program I like. It has all my favorite qualities: gorgeous photography, period setting, dramatic story line and wholesome content. But just as my husband left for his part-time afternoon job, I noticed the word “video” displayed on the television screen. I picked up the remote to catch the show that would just be coming on, but I couldn’t program it in on the complicated device.

My husband had turned it off after watching something, so I called him to ask about it. “Just push the button on top of the television, and it will come right on,” he advised. I did what I thought he meant, although I was pushing the button on the right that he said was on the left.

“Call the cable man,” was his next advice, but I decided to keep trying, even getting out the instruction manual. After repeated attempts, I finally turned it off in frustration. It wouldn’t have mattered so much, but I had been watching the shows of the apparently long-running series in haphazard order, sometimes seeing the characters as young kids, while in the next program they might be young adults. But now they were airing the series from the beginning. I had caught the first two programs, only just beginning to connect the dots, and now I would miss something.

I had already written my blog, and now there was nothing I wanted to do. The afternoon stretched out blankly before me. Well, I could always clean house, so with a determined set to my jaw, I moved things off a shelf and began dusting a bookcase. Room by room, I went through the house dusting everything in sight. Then I got the dust mop and went over all the bare floors, finally dragging out the cumbersome vacuum cleaner (Howard usually does the vacuuming) and doing four rooms of rugs.

Working off my irritation, I found myself starting to enjoy the way the house looked. After glancing through a magazine that came in the mail, I barely had time to get supper ready. As soon as Howard came in the door, he started for the television set. “You won’t be able to fix it; I already tried,” I told him. He reached up on top and “click” the picture was on! “I told you what to do,” he reminded me. But I thought he meant the button on top of the electronic box sitting on the tv set! All that frustration, so easily fixed!

Well, I may have missed “Wind at My Back,” the show I wanted to watch,
but I had my own wind at my back all afternoon! The title comes from a traditional Irish blessing some attribute to St. Patrick which says, “May the road rise to meet you, May the wind be always at your back, May the sun shine warm upon your face, May the rains fall soft upon your fields, And until we meet again, May God hold you in the hollow of His hands.”

The Bible was no doubt the origin of that blessing and says in Numbers 6:24, “The Lord bless you and keep you; The Lord make His face shine upon you, And be gracious to you; The Lord lift up His countenance upon you, And give you peace.” I should have claimed that blessing in the first place!