By Jenny Lou Jones<\/p>\n
During my elementary years, I walked home after school.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Well, it was more like I lollygagged and meandered, especially down the big hill that ended at my house.\u00c2\u00a0 That last perilous slope was littered with cracks in the sidewalk that I had to avoid to keep my mother\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s back intact.\u00c2\u00a0 Where did that superstition come from\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6step on a crack and break your mother\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s back?\u00c2\u00a0 Even at a young age, I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to believe it.\u00c2\u00a0 But just in case, I tiptoed around any cracks that would endanger my mom\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s spine.<\/p>\n
Superstitions came into vogue in the early centuries when poly-theistic gods were popular.\u00c2\u00a0 People at that time believed that everything was a god; there was a sun god, a wind god, a sky god, etc.\u00c2\u00a0 And whatever people did, they would try to avoid angering any of the gods.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Knock on wood\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to ward off bad luck came from people who were asking for favors from the tree god.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Can you imagine those prayers?\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Dear deciduous bark covered structure\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6would (wood) you save me from all harm including nuclear disaster.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0 That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just absurd!\u00c2\u00a0 The only trees that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen that interact with people are on the Wizard of Oz.\u00c2\u00a0 That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s when the trees threw apples at the Dorothy and her trio and their attitudes were not of a deity caliber.<\/p>\n
Our God doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t ask us to knock on the Keebler elves\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 house for good favor or to avoid cracks in cement.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 We can break a mirror any old time without incident.\u00c2\u00a0 Nor do we need to spit when we talk of someone who has died.\u00c2\u00a0 We don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even have to remember to eat black-eyed peas for New Year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Day.<\/p>\n
When we encounter bad times, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not the doings of a silly god that lives under our bed or in a closet.\u00c2\u00a0 Actually, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life.\u00c2\u00a0 Just plain old life.\u00c2\u00a0 We aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t given favor from God when we give more money or keep all of the ten commandments.\u00c2\u00a0 God doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t keep a tally card of what we have or haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t done.\u00c2\u00a0 Boy, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m glad.<\/p>\n
It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s easy to follow God when we come into money or good times.\u00c2\u00a0 But the same God of good things is also the God of tough situations.\u00c2\u00a0 It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the hard times that send us longing, searching, and praying for God\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s help.\u00c2\u00a0 The rougher the problem, the more we pray.<\/p>\n
My favorite quote from\u00c2\u00a0 A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis is, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I pray because I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t help myself.\u00c2\u00a0 I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping.\u00c2\u00a0 It doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t change God, it changes me.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
God isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t sitting up on a puffy cloud waiting for us to get just one more person to pray for our dilemma before He \u00e2\u20ac\u0153grants our wish\u00e2\u20ac\u009d.\u00c2\u00a0 He asks us to pray, in both good and bad times, because it changes our desires to line up with his will.<\/p>\n
The closest I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve ever felt to God was during the time that I had leukemia and a bone marrow transplant.\u00c2\u00a0 It was a tough time.\u00c2\u00a0 But it was a special time.\u00c2\u00a0 I almost felt God\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s breath behind me.\u00c2\u00a0 I sensed God\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s presence and I knew that God was with me, around me, and in me so I could face what lay before me.<\/p>\n
I would love to tell you that the feeling is still that intense with me, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not.\u00c2\u00a0 My explanation is that He comes in the worst of times to be our feet so we can walk. To be our hands to hold on just a little longer.\u00c2\u00a0 To be our mind so we can make good decisions.\u00c2\u00a0 And be our spirit when our soul feels wounded.<\/p>\n
Even if we work our hardest at keeping all of the ten commandments, that doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t keep us in perfect health with a perfect marriage and perfect children while working in the perfect job in the perfect town.\u00c2\u00a0 What we do have is a God who sent a perfect Son to help carry all of our burdens.\u00c2\u00a0 We can call on our Savior for help during calamity and praise him in abundance.<\/p>\n
So we can feel free to step on cracks, open an umbrella inside the house, and thumb our nose at a black cat crossing in front of us.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 But whatever we do, we must remember to accept the One who frees us from excessive finger crossings and all the other superstitions that the ancients thought would keep them in good graces.<\/p>\n
God bless you! (this too can be superstition).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Jenny Lou Jones During my elementary years, I walked home after school.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Well, it was more like I lollygagged and meandered, especially down the big hill that ended at my house.\u00c2\u00a0 That last perilous slope was littered with cracks in the sidewalk that I had to avoid to keep my mother\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s back intact.\u00c2\u00a0 Where […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[585,134,586,6],"tags":[787,786,788],"class_list":["post-405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-courage","category-faith","category-fear","category-gods-purpose","tag-cracks-in-the-sidewalk","tag-jenny-lou-jones","tag-leukmia"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gotpotential.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gotpotential.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gotpotential.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gotpotential.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gotpotential.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gotpotential.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gotpotential.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gotpotential.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gotpotential.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}