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The New Year started rather nicely for us. After all the exciting holiday activities, it was nice to settle into a more relaxed frame of mind. We had a whole week before us with nothing really to do and no place to go. What could be better?
Halfway through the first week of the New Year, The Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage came down with flu-like symptoms.
She was sitting on the couch with her eyes closed, and as lunchtime approached, I said, “Would you like me to make lunch today?”
She always makes lunch, and I thought this was an opportunity to help her out with the lunch plan.
She opened her eyes, looked at me very strangely, and then said, “Heavens no. I’m sick enough as it is, I don’t need any more.” She then got up, went to the kitchen, and began making lunch. At least I tried to help.
It wasn’t long before both of us were sick, and I couldn’t help but laugh at how our ‘Flu’ had turned us into a couple of couch potatoes.
This went on for at least a week. For six days, I never got out of my pajamas. It was like I never got out of bed in the morning. I didn’t have the energy to put on my work clothes, so I just stayed in my pajamas.
We couldn’t handle much activity, but then The Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage invented some game for us to play. She called it the “Cough and Sneeze Challenge.” I never heard of that before, but I was in for it. I had nothing else to do, and there was no way I could stop from coughing or sneezing.
At the beginning, The Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage was far ahead of me in her coughing and sneezing. After all, she got this flulike thing way before I did. But it did not take long for me to catch up with her.
We were sitting together in the living room, coughing and sneezing in turn. I would let her go first, and then I would follow not long after. I tried to be a gentleman about it, but pretty soon I was no longer in control of my coughing and sneezing.
She had a couple of hours ahead of me, but it wasn’t long before I caught up.
After my last coughing and sneezing fit, I looked at The Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage and said, “When will this game be over?”
She coughed and sneezed and then cleared her throat and said, “It will be over when one of us wins the contest.”
“I have an idea,” I said to her, “if I surrender and let you win can we then call it quits?”
As soon as I said that, I went into the worst coughing and sneezing fit I had all week.
Laughing between coughing and sneezing fits, she said, “Are you really willing to lose this game?”
For the next half hour, we coughed and sneezed together as partners. Sometimes quitting is not an option.
In the middle of a sneeze, a Bible verse came to mind. “Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing,” (James 1:3-4).
Patience has a way of getting through difficult times.
Dr. James L. Snyder lives in Ocala, FL with the Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage. Telephone 1-352-2163025, e-mail jamessnyder51@gmail. com, website www.jamessnyderministries. com.
