Trouble, with a capital “T”; my life story. Yours, too! There’s a reason for so many songs, such as the Broadway classic, “Trouble, Right Here in River City”, or Travis Tritt’s country croon, “T-R-O-U-B-L-E”, to the old spiritual, “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen”. ...Oh yes, we do.
Daily, headlines ranging from natural disasters to armed conflict make the point in bold print. Scripture weighs in with verses mentioning trouble, too numerous to mention. I’ll mention two. “My soul has had enough troubles” (Psalm 88:3), and Jesus matter of fact, “in this world, you will have trouble” (John 16:33). Take that!
You’ll pardon me if I whine a little. Recently, the vagabond lifestyle within this ministry offered a brief respite. I was to have more than merely a couple weeks at home. Beyond work, my plan was to tick off just enough of the “honey do” list to maintain domestic harmony while catching a healthy dose of basketball games on TV.
Real life offered a different agenda. Unexpectedly, I found myself face to face with a litigious litany. First up, annual visit to the optometrist: new glasses for a tidy sum. The “check engine” light on my truck cost 600 bucks to extinguish. A back injury causing a paralyzed weenie dog required attentive care and numerous visits to the Vet (the tab on that is still open). My well-worn passport needed extra pages. Our esteemed Government, charges $82 to add 23 pages. That averages to $ 3.56 per page. And for good measure, I became uncomfortably ill...for the entire duration. You can imagine the endless whining and whimpering accompanying that! Two doctor visits and a wad of pills later; I’m feeling well enough to at least compose this diatribe.
There is a point here....somewhere. An essential life skill is the trite phrase, “Problem Solving”. Parents provide children adequate tools for life when they teach how to assess a situation, develop a response, and persevere until resolved. I’m not sure how well schools teach the “3 R’s” nowadays, but let’s hope they are training kids how to cope with adversity. For all our technological advances, the “School of Hard Knocks” still produces graduates as well as dropouts.
In a marriage ceremony, you best mean the vows “for better or worse...”, or you’ll never make it for good. Marital veterans will tell you, wedded blisters precede wedded bliss.
Actually, not all is tongue in cheek. Some of you reading this, find yourselves locked in mortal struggle. Your situation is serious, your pain severe, your problems devastatingly real. You know all too well, sometimes there’s nothing fun or funny about trouble.
I’m searching for an upbeat way to end this treatise. None exists. Fact: trouble is an unwelcome squatter in life. Deal with it. Jesus did. “He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3). Perhaps that is one central truth of our gospel of incarnation (John 1:14). This faith business isn’t just pristine theory or pious theology. In Christ, like no other, eternal life engages real life.
Like I said; deal with it.