No Tale ...

I don’t have a tale to tell this week.

My anxiety episode was, to my great surprise, a short one. What I anticipated being a time of recuperating ended up being a really productive week.

This week, I was able to have lunch with an Austrian friend. Her biggest burden in life being the strain of being a full-time working Mom and feeling like a part-time effective Mom. I get that.

Last night, I spent an evening preparing 9 high school girls for the Prom. Partnering with precious Parker for hair and make-up for all (should I mention that 5 of them spent the night and we did a big breakfast for the sleeping beauties?) they left our house looking like the masterpieces they truly are!

After working her long fingers to the bone and using every ounce of creative energy she had in making the Prom girls fabulous, I took Parker to dinner. We ate at an Italian cafe and sat outside and talked. Afterwards, she took me to a new yogurt place … yummo! We found a great people-watching place and sat downtown watching all the tourists, trying to pick out their root of origin.

And, one of the things I’ve been doing a lot of in preparation for the closing of the school library for the summer is reading. I finally finished reading a very thought-provoking book called Soul Survivor by Philip Yancey. He takes a look at 13 people who have most influenced his spiritual journey. I won’t try to paraphrase what he says, instead let me insert a portion of his own words from the epilogue:

As I review the list in total, I see flawed, not perfect, people. Several of them a psychiatrist would probably diagnose as unstable. Each one had longings that went unfulfilled, dream that never entered reality. I learn from them how to handle my own longings. Soren Kierkegaard said, “With the help of the thorn in my foot, I spring higher than anyone with sound feet.” Some of the people profiled in this collection demonstrate that proverb as well.

One of the things that I may end up doing as my “summer project” is to head the suggestion of making a list of those people who have shaped my life for the better, and try to figure out why.

Ironically enough, I believe that at the top of my list will not be a person, but a thing … called Anxiety … that has shaped my life for the better. Funny, how at the first of this week, I stared into the all too familiar eyes of this thing I’ve lived with for so long, not desiring it’s company. However, its stay was short, too short to be anything less than a major miracle, an act of healing, and a supernatural intervention from a loving God who has authority over all things … even anxiety!