Doing Something By Not Doing Something

 

 

So far, the summer of 2011 has been one of inconvenience. Breaking my ankle has put a serious crimp in enjoying the weather, outside activities, and just in general doing more. I’m still looking for the teachable moment, i.e. how God will use this as a positive. As someone on Facebook said, it may just be God’s way of slowing me down for a while. It’s certainly done that!

Then yesterday a rather intense storm came through, knocking out our power for nearly the entire day. I can’t even remember the last time we lost power around here, so I shouldn’t complain, particularly since I know there are thousands of customers still without. However… (there’s always a follow-up complaint to a preamble like that, isn’t there?) when you have a disabled child who depends on either television or computer games for entertainment the day can seem extremely long for him and everyone around him. Don’t feel sorry for me — I tried to help out but our two-year-old in a sixteen-year-old body moves a lot faster than I do so I ended up mainly alerting my husband whenever he happened to try taking a break from the general chase. But needless to say, between that and the power outage I didn’t make it to the computer until late yesterday and am only just now catching up.

As I was sitting around feeling just generally useless, one of the things I thought about was how many things we accomplish that have nothing to immediately show for it. Yet they’re the kinds of things that either need or should be done. That definition is just muddled enough to need an example, isn’t it? Here are several:

When I run errands, I expect to arrive home with something. But there are times that while I do accomplish my errands I can come home empty-handed. Like:

When I go to the Post Office, I drop off my packages but I don’t come home with anything unless I stop by my P.O. Box.

Dropping off clothes at the dry cleaners, I come home empty-handed.

I’d add dropping off books at the library, however unless the library is closed and I’m only able to use the drop box, I usually cannot resist bringing something new home.

Things I accomplish by not doing something:

My favorite along this line is losing weight. It’s such a long process, and while exercising or being more active does help with weight loss, the main thing for me is not to eat. I’m reminding myself of this more often these days, being stuck mainly on the couch waiting for my ankle to heal. I have to be vigilant about eating only at meals and not because I’m either bored or craving something when I’m not at all hungry.

Saving money is another thing we do by not doing something: don’t spend money. (Something I think our government needs a lesson in, at least in reducing spending, but I digress.)

Healing a broken bone: just sitting around, resting/sleeping, waiting for the body to do things you don’t even know it’s doing (knitting the bone back together).

I’m sure there are a dozen more things that get done by not doing something, but these are the ones I thought of while off the power grid. Strange how the mind works when you’re just sitting around without electricity, isn’t it?