Take another look

Ever done something really stupid and then look around to see if anybody saw you? Yeah, me too. But I’m not spilling the beans in this post, haha. Well, nothing major anyway. Sometimes we just aren’t paying enough attention and just need to look a little more closely. So, I thought I’d share a couple of things that happened to me recently to demonstrate. Um, is it shifting the blame for me to word it that way, that things happened to me rather than they are things I’ve done? 😉

Anyway, not long ago I was looking for some clothes to wear (I’ve also done it a number of times since, lol), and I was in a bit of a hurry. We have the unfortunate occasional (ahem) habit of taking the clothes out of the dryer and just setting them…make that piling them on top of the dryer to put away later as we rush out the door. Sometimes later comes much later. (Yes, we really need to slow down our lifestyles and deal with the clothes at the time.) So, this day I was grabbing clothes and accidentally knocked one of my socks over the back of the dryer. That frustrated me. Now I would have to find another matching sock. I started digging again. I pretty much only have white socks and black socks, but my black socks aren’t all the same length. And this was a black sock I needed, so I had to search to find a match. I begrudged the time I was wasting looking for a sock that I’d already had in hand when I could be already dressed and out the door. I murmured prayers under my breath, prayers like, “Please, God! Why? Help me! Lord, don’t you know I’m in a hurry? Yes, I know it’s my fault, but still, where are you? Can’t you please give me some mercy this time?” And so on with my holy whining.

Later that night, when I was home from all the day’s activities, I did go back to look for my sock that had fallen back behind. Guess what? As I peered over the back of the dryer, I found that the sock had fallen on top of the vent hose instead of going all the way to the floor. It was only about eight inches away, well within reach. Had I just looked a little more closely instead of complaining, I could have grabbed it, been on my way, and saved all that time and trouble of complaining. I can only imagine God looking at me and shaking His head as my prayers had already been answered the whole time, and I was just too focused on myself to see it.

You’d think I would learn, right? Well…I’ve done that sort of thing a couple of times, although I really do try to learn a lesson only once and remember it. But yesterday I had something similar happen. I was at school conferences for my daughter, waiting to meet with one of her teachers. So, I had some time to work on some of the blogs I’ve started and haven’t completed for this website, lol. (Just to explain, oftentimes I’ll start writing something and then get interrupted by life events, which breaks concentration for a little while, or even just the time it takes to write. And then something else will happen that provides another topic to write about, including the one you’re reading now.) Anyway, I was using my phone to edit a blog article. When I saw the teacher was about ready for me, I saved the blog entry and closed it. This process took me back to the list of all my blog articles, published or drafts. But when I looked at the list, the article I was just working on wasn’t there anymore. A bolt of panic shot through me for a second. Not that I couldn’t probably recreate it, though that’s hard to do. But I knew I had saved and not deleted it. I scrolled down the list, looking for it anywhere. Maybe the date had gotten changed or something to put it in a different place in the list. Nothing. I scrolled faster and faster up and down. Then I finally got to the top of the list again, scrolling fast enough that the list bounced up and down a little as it does on my phone. Then suddenly it was there. It was at the very top of the list the whole time. Somehow when I saved and returned to the main screen, I must have bumped the screen and scrolled the list up one entry to put the second title at the top, pushing the first title off screen. Grr!!! Again, it was there all the time, had I just scrolled up one space instead of racing off toward the bottom.

Okay, now, there’s nothing really earth-shattering about lost socks and blog entries. And I could share some much more embarrassing things I’ve done. But we often expect and prepare for problems with the big things, when sometimes it’s the simple and small things that trip us up the most. And I just wonder how much trouble and headache we could save ourselves if we’d just slow down a little and take another look. 🙂