Newsletter-April 2021
Dear Family and Friends of Trinity,
I took advantage of the beautiful weather recently to play my annual spring game of “pick- up sticks”. Anyone who has old trees in their yard knows the “game” well. During the winter, due to wind and the weight of ice and snow on trees, twigs, branches and limbs break off of the trees, and clutter the yard, creating quite a mess that has to be cleaned up. Of course along with the small dead forest that has accumulated on the yard, there are the plastic containers, soda bottles, and papers that have blown in from points unknown that also have to be picked up. (Once I found some old love letters, but I’ll never tell their story!!)
What was unusual about this particular outdoor project however was that the garage door suddenly began to go up and down, seemingly, at will. I ignored it at first, but as it continued to open and close, open and close, I began to get more concerned. I did mutter, “O God, what now?” (okay admit it-you have said that a time or two as well!). Of course I really didn’t believe God had anything to do with an erratic garage door opening and closing, but you have to start the blame game somewhere. As the door continued to open and close, sporadically, I then wondered if somehow it had been installed wrong several years ago, and was only now going wonkers, or perhaps there was a malfunction in its production; perhaps it was inferior right off of the assembly line. I even looked to see if there was someone hiding in the garage, playing a mind game with me.
This went on the entire time I worked outside-that door going up and down, up and down, with no apparent pattern or reason. Then of course I started to worry that it might come crashing down unexpectedly as I put the car in the garage, or that it might come down and stay down and I couldn’t get out for church. Now the curious mystery had also become a reason for worry about the future. It was not until I was putting my tools away and put my hand in my jacket pocket that I realized the reason for the busy garage door. I had put the automatic garage door opener in my jacket pocket, alone with some other junk and each time I bent to pick up twigs, or turned to move the trash cans, or reached for twigs with the rake, that movement caused the other item in my pocket to push against the garage door opener! The problem wasn’t God, or the manufacturers, or the installers, or the age of the door, or even a prankster. The problem was me!
Blame is a wonderful excuse for a lot of the things that go wrong in our lives. When confronted by God in the Garden of Eden, Adam first blamed Eve, and then had the audacity to suggest it was God’s fault because God had given Eve to him in the first place; then Eve blamed the serpent. “It’s not my fault” seemed to be their theme.
I would suggest we are often like that as well. Certainly there are many things in our lives that are not our fault. As far as I know, I have done nothing to invite cancer into my life three times; on the other hand some of the other health issues can be directly attributed to my preference for chocolate chip cookies over carrots, and for sitting in my recliner watching movies over exercise!
How often have you fallen into the blame game trap, instead of facing the possibility that YOU are/were the problem or at least were a contributing factor in it? It happens all the time in work situations, in marriages, in personal problems, financial difficulties, accidents, and more. “It’s not my fault”. Maybe it isn’t, or wasn’t. but maybe, just maybe it was or is. Pray about it this week.
Proverbs 19:3 says, “People ruin their lives by their own foolishness and then are angry at the Lord’.
Another proverb, not from the Scripture, but equally true goes, “Some people create their own storms and then get upset when it rains!’
Peace and Joy, Happy Spring!
Pastor Penny
