No Net

Pss. 10:9 “He lieth in wait secretly as a lion in his den: he lieth in wait to catch the poor: he doth catch the poor, when he draweth him into his net.”

Think about it. Have you ever seen a trapeze artist walk a thin line attempting to get to the other platform…with NO NET? That’s what having no internet is like, kind of.

You’ll be surfing along that fine line, focusing on your completed task, then WHAM the internet cuts out. WHOA, you try to make some sense of the lack of balance but there is none. You don’t fall to your death I assure you but you do get that feeling of isolation and being cut off from the outside world abruptly.

We live out in the middle of nowhere and we’ve had internet issues for years now. First the wind knocks the dish out of whack, then a tree limb is in the way, then we get a new dish only for it to work temporarily, then we get a new tower but again the trees are blocking the little beam from our dish that needs to connect to the tower. This has been our balancing act for years now.

Then last week with assured confidence the internet guy comes out and tells us that there is a NEW tower we can use to connect. A new dish and a new beam that supposedly cuts through the trees like a lumberjack! Yeah it worked excellently for a day or two, then WHAM, back out again; off and on. He said we were the guinea pigs on the new system so I guess we can assuredly tell HIM that the lumberjack grew tired and left the job, eh?

I’m a writer and my blog and writing is pretty important to me as much as games and YouTube is to my guys! No net, no access to any of these things, so if you see me not blogging for periods at a time, think NET or the lack thereof. 

We also have NetFlix so you can imagine the irritation when right in the middle of a movie, the internet waves bye bye! Or worse yet, when 10 minutes are remaining and the climax is unraveling then POOF…no movie!

We don’t have many luxuries like a telephone with internet, heck we don’t even have texting available on our phones! We have the internet, that is a luxury to us because we PAY for it every month! We don’t have the luxury of pilfering/stealing/borrowing our neighbor’s wifi because as you can guess, they don’t even have internet! NetfFlix was our New Years splurge and I’m wondering if and when we’ll have good enough access to actually use the luxury on a daily basis.

Assuming everyone knew of my net woes, I excitedly posted on facebook “The net guy is here!” Well, to someONE who don’t pay attention to my wall or my posts, they thought for sure the whitecoats were coming out here with a net to get me and I maniacally went running around the yard screaming as I flee from them with their net. How funny. NOT! Although I’ll probably need them if we don’t get this internet fixed soon!

Don’t get me wrong, the net does work sometimes, I should say when it is good it is really good but when it is bad, it is really really bad! And so it goes, life without a net is not a good idea, just as walking without God is not a good idea. Good thing we have unlimited access to HIM, free of charge, without interruption! Funny thing is, with no internet, the closer I feel to God… hmm, now there’s a concept for ya.

Okay, gotta run…my garden is calling me.

Pss. 25:15 “Mine eyes are ever toward the LORD; for he shall pluck my feet out of the net.”

Don't Worry

Acts 2: 24 Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it.

Don’t Worry

Last week, I knew something was wrong, we had missed a Sunday service and Adam came to me mid week saying, “Mom, you’ll probably never hear me say this again, but I think we need to go to church.”

Sunday came and no whining about the early wake-up call to Adam, we went to a wonderful service. He came home and said, “I got my answer.”

What answer, I thought. But then I remembered that the service was about not worrying and I thought he might be worrying about something needlessly. I won’t go into details out of respect for his privacy, but needless to say, he had been worrying about something and he felt the only answer would be in a church sermon, and ironically, Sunday’s service was catered just for him. What an awesome God.

We all tend to worry. Am I doing enough? Can I do more? How will I pay my bills? Is God leading me? All of these are natural worries but Pastor Dave says that they’re not LEGITIMATE worries.  Legitimate concern is when your son or daughter is having a medical issue. THAT is legitimate concern, but worrying about bills? If you can do more than you’re already doing? They are needless worries.

You see, if we have truly given ourselves to God, He’s already handling everything. Worrying is NOT from God! God has you where you are at this very moment and knows and understands your concerns. He’s walking with you. Get it?

Now it was my time to worry. Adam came home with a clean bill of health after the doctor sent him on his way saying he could find nothing wrong. Adam and I were relieved. To celebrate I came home and made some chili-dogs. You know, the kind where the hot dog is oozing with chili? I paid for it, dearly.

The burn came almost immediately. Something like indigestion only stronger and more painful. No Rolaid, no Maalox, no nothing was relieving the burn. I almost felt like I was having a heart attack and my hours were numbered. I’d die right here on the sofa. With no worry, I just lay with my heating pad close to where the pain was coming from, passing on dinner.

The pain was so bad I just lay for hours and didn’t even go to bed. Oh, I tried but returned to the sofa so I could whine without waking everyone. My arthritis in my back doesn’t like me immobile for long periods so when I went to get up the next day, my legs were like jell-o. I stayed on the sofa going in and out of sleep the entire day, not even getting up to shower. Steven was home that day and he made me some toast and butter that I had requested and all was okay.

I felt weak the entire day, and I did make it to bed but still, although the burn was gone I was in pain. Thursday came and I was so hungry. I wanted something light in fear the burn would return. I had a peanut butter and jelly on toast and it came back, lightly this time, so I passed on dinner AGAIN! No morning coffee, no dinner meal, I should be tearing my hair out at this point, right? Well, no, I wasn’t, instead I was remembering Sunday’s sermon, ‘Don’t worry’.

Friday I woke, made some coffee but only had one cup. Yeah, coffee isn’t all THAT good for you. With scarce internet (that’s a whole different story) I tried to Google my problem. What else is one to do when a doctor is not affordable? I had warned Adam of Googling his symptoms because he’d find out he’s dying! And here I was, Google my friend.

The good news is, I’m not dying, I think I may have GERD, a gastro esophagus reflux disease. Yeah, self-diagnosis via Google, not a good idea but it gives you a round-about idea of what’s wrong. It did give me some things that I could safely eat and oatmeal, which I had, was one of them. Time to boil some water and eat me some oatmeal. By this time I was starving so a bowl of oatmeal hit my stomach like a ton of bricks! And guess what? No burn!!! Woohoo! Look out dinner! I’m having oatmeal.

Right now I’m attempting to eat a ham sandwich. I’m only having a half of a sandwich because I don’t want to make myself sick from over-indulging because I’m starving. Whatever the case may be, I’m not worrying. I’m taking the blows as they come, going to change some eating habits like spicy foods and tomatoes and such and maybe I, with the power of God, might nip this thing in the bum!

Moral to the story? Sometimes things in life make an abrupt appearance like sicknesses, or chronic illnesses that surface after only being mildly hidden. The first thing you do is worry which is quite normal, but take a stand back, evaluate the situation calmly and collectively, Google it if you must, but don’t allow it to hold weight with what your instincts are telling you, in other words? Let go and let God handle the worry while YOU make a plan to change the outcome!