It's All Relative

I am learning that so often how I react to life is simply relative. It all depends on the context of what else is happening in my life.

Example, I've been dreading the arrival of our credit card bill. It has Christmas purchases on it and so I knew it would be considerably larger than usual. Then last week, I received an email from one of my neighbors warning us that someone had broken into her mailbox. She wasn't sure how many other people's mail might have been stolen, but she wanted us to be aware of it. This happened just about the time that I should have been receiving my credit card bill. Suddenly, the piece of mail that I wanted to see the most, was that credit card bill! And when it arrived safely, I was overjoyed. I'd never have guessed that reaction a week before.

My daughter has been living in St. Petersburg, Russia for the past four and a half months. It's not where I really want her to be. For the past couple of weeks, however, she has been traveling around Europe. Most of the time she was with friends. But I knew that as of Wednesday, she would be heading back to Russia on her own. This involved not only a flight by herself, but most disturbing to me, a 12-hour bus ride back into Russia. Since I knew that this same bus ride out of the country had resulted in a seven-hour delay at the Latvian border due to the discovery of drugs on board, I didn't have much peace about her making that trip alone. But God took care of her. So here I am today, overjoyed that she is in...St. Petersburg!

So you see, it really is all relative. Life might just be a little easier if I can keep that in mind.