Distracted on Purpose

I want to share with you about a chat I had with God tonight…

See, the last 3 weeks have been rough. I am a professional secret-keeper, and things happened that I can’t talk about. I’ve had a huge number of deadlines in the past few weeks. I had a birthday. There was an awful bombing in Iraq. Innocent people have been killed in America. I’m completely not registering that I brushed my teeth or have my lunch sitting next to me. I totally forgot a really important day in my friend’s life, that I had planned to highlight. I really need to avoid people for a day or two, but there’s all that adulting stuff like the dentist tomorrow. I’m actually fine, and not exactly stressed (at the moment). But it’s been rough. 

Let’s put that on the back burner.

Not many people know that my mouth is really sensitive to strong mint flavors. They burn my lips. This is SO not a big deal. But, after years of trial and error I finally discovered that Crest ProHealth Advantage in Smooth Mint is the one for me. Yes! This is life-changing, folks. So of course I ran out. I’ve been using the nasty Scope-flavored stuff until I get more. Tonight I went to Target, the supplier of the 17 wonderful things not better found on Amazon, and ventured forth into the toothpaste aisle. After 5 minutes I accepted the dreadful fact: despite having a wall of about 20 different varieties of Crest toothpaste in every variety of descriptive mint flavors you can buy (including a flavor simply called “Extra Whitening Power” that would no doubt burn my mouth faster than dry ice), none of these were smooth. It was really annoying!

“WHAT is the problem with this week, God?”

“This is a first-world problem.”

I thought backward a few hours. Just after eating the lunch I’d forgotten I had, I met a man 2 years younger than me who has a Ph.D. He refused to return home to Syria from the country where he studied because he refuses to participate in mandatory military service that could potentially land him in the ISIS army if his region is taken over. His family lives in a city that is constantly under attack.

A little later in the afternoon I met an Iraqi woman 5 years younger than me. Her sister worked for the US Army in the 2000s, so the family has been targeted by terrorist groups for over 10 years. She was injured in a bombing. Fortunately, her family was not at the mall last week.

These two people are amazing, resilient, we laughed together, it was an enjoyable afternoon. These are actually very typical stories, and I hear different versions of these several times in most weeks. For me, this is just a Friday.

There I was annoyed in the toothpaste aisle, remembering. Now I was more annoyed with myself than with Target.

“This is so stupid!”

“What is?”

“Well, you’re right. This is such a little first-world problem. Why do all these annoying stupid little problems happen to me all the time?”

“Because I let them.”

“Well then what’s YOUR problem?”

“I give you the little problems so that you can bear the big ones.”

That took me a minute. Then it clicked. God DISTRACTS me. With stupid stuff. On purpose.

He’s right, He always is. I am called to absorb the stories and pain of others. Those stories and that pain are not mine, but easily can become mine if I don’t release them. If you know me, you know that I don’t like to let go. So God made my brain distractible. When we’re weighted down with stuff – our own or someone else’s – it’s really hard to get distracted by flowers and sunshine. So God takes away my toothpaste and gives me deadlines sends me way too many emails of random stupid stuff, then he cancels the Monday morning training so I have time to get it all done.

God distracts me.

And now I’m sitting on my couch crying because when I go through really rough weeks it can get really hard to remember that I’m not broken when I’m stressed and forgetful and taking forever to get things done and having to make jokes to my coworkers about having forgotten my meds to help them understand why I’m talking so much or failing to filter properly or hear everything they say or having such a hard time getting the sentences in my head to turn into words. But I’m not broken.  

I am made on purpose.

My brain was perfectly designed to do what it’s supposed to do.

God made me distractible so he can throw my attention and memory around as if He’s threshing wheat, tossing away what is useless or destructive and leaving behind only what HE sees and remembers. He helps my own emotions about something blow away so I can see more clearly. He refines my memories of what I have heard and seen until it is as close as possible to what He sees and hears. THAT is really cool.

God made me distractible to protect me, to empower me, to keep me tender and strong, to help me forgive courageously and love without prejudice.

“Wow. You really knew what you were doing.”

“I ain’t no fool.”