Okay, it’s been nearly two weeks now since I’ve posted something. By all the blogging rules in the universe, no one will ever read this, since EVERYONE knows you have to post fresh content at least several times a week, or your readers will go in search of something fresher/better/more current.

But hopefully my “regulars” won’t give up quite that easily.

The first two weeks of Advent have been busier than usual, due to the fact that (a) Boosters has taken over 80% of my life and (b) various health issues (doctor’s appointments or actual sickness) have taken over the lion’s share of the other 20%. Well, maybe 10%. Whine. Whine. Whine.

Today was especially fun. Took Chris and Sarah to the doctor’s for their H1N1 booster (second dose), and found that Chris would have to get the injection because they’d run out of mist. Sarah heard the word “shot” and asked me point blank if she was getting one, too.

Not even the promise of McDonalds could stop the emotional tsunami that followed… After squirreling herself behind a storage cabinet as her brother bravely took his turn, Sarah nearly kicked a hole in the Venetian blind as we pulled her from her hiding place. It took three of us (two nurses and one red-faced mom) to restrain her legs long enough for the poke. From the screams (before, during, and after the actual poke) you’d have thought we were skinning her alive.

Later, when she was feeling more philosophical, Sarah asked me why the shot didn’t seem to hurt Chris as much as it had hurt her. I tried to explain to her that her muscles were all tense from her screaming and kicking, so it made the shot hurt more. “Next time, you might try taking deep breaths or singing a song, and not pay attention to the shot. I bet it won’t hurt as much.” (My nurse friend later suggested that we do Sarah first to avoid a similar scenario…)

Driving home, I thought about that. How often do we brace ourselves, worrying about some painful event until it turns our lives inside out? Just last week, I nearly made myself sick waiting for a particular confrontation that I had been warned was coming my way. When the moment finally came … nothing happened. No fireworks. No accusations. Nothing.

Most parents, I think, can relate to this sense of foreboding, the proverbial sword of Damocles hanging overhead. So much of the stuff that worries us, never comes to pass. No wonder the Lord urges us to brush worry from our lives (from Matthew 6:25-33):

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat (or drink), or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you more important than they? Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life-span? Why are you anxious about clothes? Learn from the way the wild flowers grow. They do not work or spin. But I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was clothed like one of them.

“If God so clothes the grass of the field, which grows today and is thrown into the oven tomorrow, will he not much more provide for you, O you of little faith? So do not worry and say, ‘What are we to eat?’ or ‘What are we to drink?’ or ‘What are we to wear?’ All these things the pagans seek. Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom (of God) and his righteousness, ¹⁹ and all these things will be given you besides.”