Less crabbing, more praying

I'm a self-absorbed person.

I hope admitting it in a public place lessens the reflection it bears on my personality.

See? Even my reason for admitting my myopic behavior is self-centered.

I spend time worrying about things (me) I know God will take care of. I end up frustrated knowing I can't micromanage my own life as well as He can.

And just when I need it most, He brings me back down to the place I need to be.

It happened this afternoon on my way back from lunch. I'd spent the morning cursing myself for not being able to work on my manuscript revisions faster, for not allowing myself to get the good night's sleep I needed, for trusting the stock market with my retirement fund, for driving into the road construction that took away three minutes of my free time.

In the midst of that, He brought me down to earth. As I waited for a stoplight to change, I saw a woman staggering across the street. Her heart looked as heavy as her body. In flipflops and mismatched clothing, she wandered west toward the mission pulling a suitcase and a bed roll behind her.

Homeless...in my town of 25,000.

I started thinking about all of the stories I've written for the paper on the poor, the tragic, the hurting.

A family of five lost their home in a fire before Christmas.

The father of eleven -- pastor to an entire community -- who struggled with liver failure.

The 1200 people who lost their jobs when the packing plant closed in town.

The mother who lost her five month old baby to SIDS.

It really makes me wonder -- what have I really got to complain about?