How I Learned About Peace at the Mere Age of Twelve

I’ve been learning life lessons well before my baptism in 2013. This one sticks out as one of the earlier lessons in my life about what I had not attributed to Fruits of the Spirit. In fact, at twelve, I didn’t really even know what that meant. And what harder of concept to grasp, such as peace, when the world falls apart on a daily basis? We’re stricken with grief almost daily. We don’t get that job we interviewed for which would provide better means to care for ourselves or family. We deal with the loss of loved ones to such awful things like cancer or murder. Such is the case with this particular post. What makes peace one of my favorite fruits of the Spirit? You’ll find out soon enough.

The year was 1999 in the first week of September. My mom and dad were pulling their hairs apart fitting in the pressures of raising me and holding down their jobs all the while helping my oldest brother John and his wife Diana pack and prepare for a big move to Salt Lake City, UT. The ironic thing is Salt Lake City is such an integral part of my family’s concept for leaving the nest, which I don’t know why, it just is. But I digress. Imagine wrangling an awnry twelve-year-old and worrying about the middle wayward son who at that time bounced between his dad and my house like a pinball.

We’d loaded up my dad’s truck, a trailer and a UHAUL and set for the open road. What is only a 4 hour or so trip from Grand Junction to Utah’s capitol city, is more like a boring and emotionally exhaustive trek which seems much longer than half a typical American’s workday. When we finally arrived to John’s new home, they unloaded the couch first so my mom, sister-in-law and myself could have a place to sit before helping them transfer the important things in for the night. Given this was in the days before the big book of mobile telecommunication, I cannot remember exactly how the looming bad news was discovered, but a message somewhere/somehow came through from someone that my brothers’ father was involved in a shooting outside a busy Grand Junction grocery store. And he didn’t survive. What’s worse, my middle brother TJ was sitting in his dad’s truck and watched the entire horror unfold before his eyes. And since TJ had been trying to get a hold of my parents and our brother John, he freaked out and decided he was going to drive the entire distance from Western Colorado to Salt Lake City in the middle of the night to be with us. This was my first major witness of life happening and furthermore, the bigger why do bad things happen to good people conundrum.

In the weeks following that horrible event, pastors and family friends would visit our house to console my brothers and my mom (who even though divorced the man I called Uncle Hobert, had maintained a better friendship with him than marriage). It wasn’t until one of my mom’s cousins whom is a local pastor here in town, taught us about peace. You might be thinking, How in the heck can someone be peaceful in the midst of such a tragedy? Well, I thought the same thing. And the ever so budding learner I was in my adolescence, I surprisingly understood as if I’d came up with the concept myself (though I sooo did not). He told us that while God doesn’t plan for someone to die of disease, famine, murder, etc, He is still presented with decisions to be made. Decisions which literally cause even our Great Father to change the trajectory of people’s lives.

He makes these reassessments so quick, 100 human beings couldn’t measure the speed of His Omnipotence. And while God didn’t plan that happening, He decided to take my Uncle Hobert home to the kingdom because should he have survived such an event, his quality of life would have been so terribly poor, he would have suffered until he passed away from natural causes anyway. And that peace is not necessarily linked to feeling good about a bad situation, but rather having our faith in God who knows better than all of us, is to provide us peace and wholeness in a different fashion knowing that he didn’t suffer long and that God had a better plan. It hurt for my brothers and especially so for TJ. I can only imagine what it was like to watch the man he looked up to so fondly being shot and killed just a couple of yards away. As a matter of fact, I feel like some of my issues are so minuscule compared to witnessing the hands of satan influence such a wicked event.

What I do know, is my uncle along with the other gentleman [David Gilcrease] whom died in vain, were the 9th and 10th Colorado recipients of the Robert P. Connelly Medal for Heroism in addition to the first recipient of Gov. Bill Owens (residing Governor at that time) who started The Governor’s Medal of Valor. Both men showed their selfless acts of heroism in trying to mediate an escalated situation involving an ex-husband dragging an ex-wife into the parking lot by her hair. Unfortunately, all three people lost their lives due to this wicked event. And the husband had shot himself before the police arrived on the scene.

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:6-7 NIV)

You see, the peace we sometimes receive from The Holy Spirit is not necessarily to be understood. And when we ourselves go to the throne of His Holiness, will we may even find out the answers to many things. But I can’t help but think, we can have peace every single day if we just give God our troubles (along with our praises) and watch as he washes away the hurt. We may never know why this happened or that. We may never truly understand why our loved ones fall ill to the detriments of Alzheimer’s or cancer. We can, however, find peace and stillness in knowing that God is in control and He will make things right again (when they were misaligned from His great plan) soon, if not sometimes instantaneously. If there isn’t much to be said for this fruit of the Spirit, then what is there?

Plastic Doesn’t ‘Always’ Make it Possible (and here’s why)…

This isn’t a brand new post. Some of you will remember this topic– especially if you live in or around Hamilton County back in my other home of Indiana. I posted this topic on the old Christian blog and everyone was coming into my pharmacy telling me how much they liked it and said they’d be asking for paper bags on the next trip to the grocery. But as I recount all my friends that are experiencing some hardships right now, this bears repeating. For myself included.

Recently I’ve been left wondering while in the grocery store checkout line why the clerks never ask for our preference any more—paper or plastic? It’s been an age-old inquiry that consumers from all walks of life have had to resolve ever since the first commercially available plastic grocery bag was introduced to the market in 1982. Thanks Wikipedia. But as of lately, I can’t help but question why we no longer are given that choice each time. Of course paper will always be available, however only upon request. I won’t deny that plastic bags seem to carry heavier items and if you’re like me, then you carry it all at once saving multiple trips unloading groceries upon reaching home. But the paper bags? They’re so roomy and can fit many items. However they’re very insubstantial when carrying heavier canned goods and the like. I know you must be thinking now, Carl would you just get to the point? This is probably the most boring thing I’ll read all week. But friends, I promise by the end of this post you might hopefully be able to grasp onto the thought provoking concept that I’m suggesting.

I’d like to think that our lives are in this 50/50 quandary all the time. You see, our soul is the grocer to our lives. It feeds us knowledge, it rewards us with our own unique personalities and it certainly doesn’t go without letting a few bad apples leave the orchard. On a daily basis we find ourselves faced with difficulties and hard times. It shouldn’t take my pharmaceutical expertise for you to know that one of the most popular drugs on the market is Zoloft or its generic formulation (Sertraline). Zoloft is a medication prescribed to treat neurological imbalances that lead to panic disorders, major depressive disorders and obsessive compulsivity. Depression is at an all-time extreme in our society today and I’d be lying if I said we might be able to cure some (not all) but definitely some of the darkness our hearts are shrouded with. In the letter Paul wrote to the people of Philippi, he communicates the importance of handing over their troubles to God.

“Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:6-7 NIV)

What the great apostle speaks of is that God doesn’t want us to hold onto our burdens. We need to choose that paper bag. It sure is less durable and it means more trips out to the car, but I think it might behoove any and all of us to do so. You see, we hold onto everything and I myself can be to blame for carrying it all around in a plastic bag with handles. Life doesn’t have to be as hard as we make it. Paul spoke to the townspeople about anxiety and worry. He aimed to encourage them (most of them being retired military families) to become unified and stray away from conceit. Today, I’m certain we all need personal and professional challenges to keep our minds fresh and the exercise (or lack thereof in my case) does us a lot of good. Those are the things that God wants us to carry upon our shoulders—tasks, goals, faith and love. Everything else should be cast upon Him. If we have faith that He’ll guard our hearts and minds through His son Jesus, then we shouldn’t have to worry about it anymore because God will deliver our needs through guidance and lessons. Sorry we won’t be getting that in the form of a government handout, but He will ensure we have the skills to earn it.

So you see, paper bags are meant to be handled delicately. Our soul is providing our life the ability to carry around the things we need. Those things we need are simple and lightweight and if we require more needs than others, then it will require more trips out to the car. But that’s okay because we need the exercise and besides—hard work always pays off. So why do the clerks never ask anymore? Is it the societal norm that because everyone uses plastic that you’d choose it too? What’s easiest must be best, they might think. But in truth, our overpowering ego makes us think that we can fit five or six plastic bags on each arm thus allowing us to carry much heavier loads. All that might potentially do is give us a serious back injury and then we’d be crying over spilled milk for certain. I also think there’s a reason most grocery store paper bags do not have handles. Biblically speaking, God doesn’t give us anything we can’t handle. And if it doesn’t all fit inside our arms at once, then there’s a reason he doesn’t want us to carry more than we can handle.

What does this mean for us? Simplify. Only carry the lighter things in life and hand Him anything that weighs us down. Ask for paper at the grocery store and recycle them afterwards. Make that second and third trip back to your car if required. If you take medication to aid in a mood disorder such as depression or anxiety, maybe simplifying things here and there will add up and perhaps in a year or two you won’t need that pill anymore. I sure am going to say goodbye to plastic bags from now on also.

Just a sidebar… paper bags are an organic element from one of God’s gifts to us (His green Earth)whereas plastic is synthetic and unheard of in biblical days. There’s a reason Jesus walked in leather sandals after all.