Habits That Heal

“And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, ‘Peace, be still.’ And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.” Mark 4:39

BE YOUR OWN ANGEL

Recently, I was having a pretty horrible day. I had let myself become overwhelmed with the pressures of life and I felt as if I was barely keeping my head above water. There were financial pressures (putting two sons through college, buying an investment property that needed to be furnished and decorated); emotional pressures (becoming an empty nester, feeling isolated from family and friends); work pressures (helping my husband run a consulting business, writing my first book) and family pressures (becoming a grandma for the first time, worrying about my mom’s health). I desperately wanted someone -- anyone – to come to my rescue. I felt that I needed support, and I needed it fast. My journal entry from that day reads: “Today I am feeling submerged. I am drowning. I feel hopeless. I have no idea what I am doing. I am overwhelmed. So many major life events are coming up at the same time. My stomach is in knots. My knee is swollen and painful all the time. My body is screaming at me with headaches, fatigue, sleeplessness, inflammation, pain – all while I am trying to write a book about physical healing through spiritual habits! I can see the irony. I want to laugh about it, but right now I just feel like crying. I’m trying to do all I can to let go of this giant ball of stress inside of me, but it just seems to keep on growing. How do you stay relaxed while still functioning at your highest level? God, please show me what to do. I am asking for your help. I am totally useless without you.”
After writing that journal entry, and still feeling distressed, I knelt down and asked God to send someone to support me that day. I just needed to know that someone was out there who cared about me and was sympathetic to what I was going through. I had heard stories of others who had prayed for help and received it in the form of some earthly angel who felt prompted to stop by and say hello and deliver cookies or a kind word. I wanted –no, I needed – my own angel to come to my rescue. So I asked for one.
A few hours later, I met my husband for lunch. I didn’t tell him how stressed out and emotional I was feeling, mostly because I thought I would start to cry if I did. All morning I had been trying to think of a catchy title for my book, so I ran my latest idea past him. He usually had great insights and feedback for me, so I was eager to hear what he thought of it.
“So, I’m thinking of calling it ‘Holy Habits’ “, I said. “What do you think of that?”
He waved his hand back and forth in a gesture that implied it was just so-so. “I don’t know,” he replied, “it kind of makes me think about nuns.” Then he moved on to some other subject, not even realizing how devastated I was at his lack of interest in my amazing, well-thought-out, best-selling book title.
“Well,” I thought to myself, “apparently David is not going to be my earthly angel today.”
As the day wore on, I kept waiting for my angel to appear. Would it be my next-door neighbor stopping by to chat and see how I was doing? Would it be a friend calling to see if I would like to go to lunch with her next week? Would it be a stranger who gave me an unexpected compliment or offered to buy my herbal tea at Starbucks? I didn’t know, but I was excited to see who it would be and what sort of random act of kindness he or she had planned for me.
All day long I waited, but no angel. The funny thing is, I wasn’t really surprised. Did I really think that God was going to send someone to cater to me just because I was having a rotten day? Not really. But a small part of me had hoped that He would, because that would be such an easy way for me to feel better. That night as I lay quietly in bed reflecting on the day, it hit me. God had not abandoned me or forsaken me. True, He didn’t send me the angel I had asked for, but that was because I didn’t really need one. I knew deep down inside of me that eventually everything would be okay, even if it didn’t feel like it right now. There was a part of me that trusted not only in the belief that all would be well, but also in the knowledge that it already was. I had been looking for an angel, some outside source, to come and give me the support I thought I needed, but all the support I really needed had been there all along. In the stillness, I could feel it. I could feel Him, and I thought I heard Him say, “Linda, I love you, but sometimes you have to be your own angel.”