Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Small Attacks


Maybe it's just the small town, Southern Baptist girl coming out in me. But at times, I feel like I'm under attack. And as often the case, it's nothing major but small. Take last night for instance. I'm washing the dishes before bed. I'm actually enjoying the task, something that I've struggled with since our dishwasher bit the dust. All the troubles of the day seem to be flowing down the drain when suddenly, the hot water pressure goes away. Dave just installed the new faucet himself (so proud of him!) last week, so I'm standing at the sink baffled. The cold water worked fine but not the hot. Dave comes downstairs to try and figure out what's going wrong. In the process of trying the fix the hot water, water starts spewing from the hose underneath the sink and the water shut off valve gets broken. So now our kitchen sink is inoperable and we have to pay someone to come out and fix it. Ugghhh!

Considering past occurrences, this should have been expected. It really seems like every time we reach some personal or financial goal, something happens. This week, we just reached the halfway point of our Baby Step 3 emergency fund goal. The sink breaks. Last year after we completed our initial emergency fund, the upstairs shower broke and the roof in the sun room developed a leak, damaging the hardwoods. As we neared the end of paying off our debt in Baby Step 2, Reed was admitted to the hospital, the transmission and water pump in our van needed to be replaced and Dave's car also had engine issues. And then as we finally did pay off our last debt, the dishwasher broke. Coincidence, I'm beginning to think not!

Small things irk me, to the nth degree. Being aware of this, I'm trying to stop before I react. To realize that in the grand scheme of life, these "things" aren't important. And that maybe my attachment to them is too great. But why so many numerous attacks on such a small level?

It was after reading Jenn's post this morning about A Woman Inspired Conference, that the small attacks began to make sense. In short, God seeks our obedience with the small things. He wants our "yes" in those areas. So it makes sense the enemy would attack on the small level! Therefore, my defense has to be saying yes to God with each setback and frustration. Finding His lessons for me in each small trial and not giving myself over to the negative feelings the enemy would have me believe.

Slowly, I'm learning.

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