FRUSTRATIONS

By Muriel Larson

Have you ever been running late on Sunday morning--and your clothing turns demonical? If you’re a man, your socks don’t match. If a woman, your zipper gets stuck?

And the kids—shriek! Michelle has shot up three inches, and there she is wearing a dress that hasn't lengthened accordingly during the winter. "Too short, honey," you exclaim. For a change Chad got dressed in his Sunday best with no nagging. He goes outside for two minutes--and returns looking like a refugee from an earthquake disaster.

You all finally pile out of the house, locking the door securely--then Dad discovers he left his keys on the dresser. And Mom left her keys in her other purse.

Frustrations! Life is full of them, isn't it! You go on a picnic--and rain comes pouring out of nowhere, along with heavenly fireworks and appropriate booms. You look forward all week to a very special meeting--and you come down with bronchial morbititus. You're awaiting an important phone call--and you've left the phone partly off the hook!

Frustrations may be caused by people, inanimate objects, and circumstances. We can become hyper, but where does it get us? Becoming a raving maniac doesn't solve problems; it just adds to them!

It must have been frustrating to the Apostle Paul to keep getting almost rocked to death, beaten, jeered at, thrown into chains in rat-infested prisons, when all he wanted to do was tell people the good news of Christ. But in the Philippian prison, he and Silas sang praise songs to God at midnight. God

delivered them.

Singing praise songs has often lifted me out of the darkest dungeon of despair and frustration. So let’s follow Paul’s advice to the Philippians: "Rejoice in the Lord always...and again I say, Rejoice!"

Dr. Muriel Larson writes from Greenville, South Carolina. MKLJOY@aol.com