Broken Toe and Water In My Basement

This has been a very interesting weekend. For starters there was a big storm
that came through a few days ago and dumped a lot of rain in this area. The result of that storm front was water in my basement studio and a subsequent broken toe and this morning my coffee maker stopped working. I had a moments irritation when I realized I couldn’t make coffee. I am a coffee person. I have a little sign in the kitchen that says, “just give me the coffee and no one gets hurt.” Adhering to what I teach I started practicing gratitude. I gave up being concerned about my coffee. Gratitude teaches you to think upon what you do have not for what you don’t have. I had tea and lots of it. I made a strong cup of tea with honey and am just fine now. I have noticed that every day you are given opportunity after opportunity to flex your spiritual practices and use your new found skill. The spiritual toolbox is yours to use.
Now, backtrack to the water in my basement. While it was raining all day and night on Friday, I decided to do some laundry. I will grant you one guess as to where the washer and dryer are located? There it was; water in my basement and in my art studio. There wasn’t a lot I could do until it stopped raining. The next day was beautiful…sunny and
cool with a soft breeze. It was perfect to start cleaning up the water and collecting my thoughts. It wasn’t that bad and I determined that I needed to get extenders to my down spouts and get the water farther away from the house during rains. I was led to buy some and put them on that day. I did just that. During the mopping and vacuuming that went on for a while I went into the kitchen and had no shoes on because I didn’t want to track water into my kitchen. I rammed my little toe into a chair. If I had worn my shoes it would not have happened. By the way, am I the only person who thinks that we don’t need a little toe?
I knew instantly that I had broken it again. This is probably the third time this toe and I have tried to part company. My consciousness immediately registered great pain.
I sucked in my breath and did not let it out for at least thirty long seconds.
I make a funny sound when I have hurt myself in some way and it is the only time I do it.
It is a clicking thing I do with my tongue. I sound like some kind of chicken that has gotten itself in trouble. My first thoughts were I had things to do and it would not hurt that much and it hasn’t. It looks terrible but it will heal. There is not a lot that can be done to heal a broken toe except to stabilize it and gimp about for a week or so. Practicing gratitude is not impossible at times like this. In fact, it is more important at these times of trying circumstances to use your spiritual practices and skills. All throughout the long hours of cleanup and limping around I practiced gratitude. I found many things to be grateful for. A neighbor offered to come over and help and I gratefully accepted. I owned a wet dry vacuum and I was grateful for that. I was very grateful I had not broken an ankle or worse. There was very little damage. I had put my art supplies on shelving that kept almost everything off the floor! I spoke the words that my foot will not hurt much and it continues to be almost pain free for the most part. I am so grateful.
My point to all of this is my stress level during all of this was almost zero. I felt closer to God when I was going though my little ordeals. I know that I am never given anything that is too hard for me to handle. I continue being tempered through allowing God’s grace to appear and fill me. I am filled with such gratitude. Truth is I wasn’t miserable. I am not complaining or thinking like a victim. I am at peace.
I used to be such a whiner and a cry baby when things went a little weird in my life. Most of my role models had been complainers when I was younger and I had followed the footsteps of how they lived their lives.
There is no benefit to complaining and thinking like a victim…none whatsoever. You only feel progressively worse and peace is far away. You push away peace when you think and act in negative ways. In the center of a hurricane is the eye of the storm. The eye is calm and all the fury stops for a while until the storm crosses the rest of the way over land. I become like the eye at the center of the storm. In the eye of the storm is God
calling you to take shelter.
I am reminded how some people handle losing their entire homes to hurricanes and in some cases their loved ones. They feel blessed that they are alive and start rebuilding their lives while they are grieving their losses. Now there is a role model for you. A little water in my basement and a broken toe was not a big deal and I knew it. How many of you would view such issues by ranting and raving about it for days?
Now dawns a new morning and I think it might rain today so I will be able to test out my theory with the downspout extenders. It has only been two days since I broke my toe and I continue to feel very little pain. I purchased a new coffee maker yesterday. As I limped around Walmart, I noticed a few people in those mobile carts that couldn’t walk and I was grateful that I could walk although very slowly.
When I got home I sat outside for a while and watched the birds and soaked up some sunshine and talked to God and was filled with happiness and peace that God is always with me and that I now know this without any doubts. I had become one of those people
that I used to scratch my head over. I was one of those people I thought knew some kind of great secret that I would never know because they were so peaceful. Now, I know it is no great secret at all. What I needed to know had been there all along and that is that God is with me every step of the way. I am not sure where he was when I broke my toe! I just had to find my path to the creator my own way.
He was there the whole time waiting! Imagine that! This is just something to think about.