COSTLY SAVE
I am more productive just staying in bed than trying to multitask. When I try juggling tasks, I drop all of them, and one of them inevitably knocks over a vase. Unfortunately, I can’t even multi-think. I can’t keep two disparate ideas together in my head, however simple they are. The new thought drives out the old. I try to compensate with lists (which I forget to bring), notes scribbled on the back of used envelopes (which I inadvertently throw out), and pleas for Kimberly to remind me (a job she rarely accepts). I had a thumb drive with a to-do list that I cleverly kept on my key ring–can’t leave without it. But several times I almost left work with the drive (and my keys) still in the office computer, locking me out of both my building and my car at 2 a.m., so I took the USB drive off the key ring, and within a week I lost it.
Today I was working around the house and actually thought to keep a pair of reading glasses with me for small-print labels and dimly lit spaces. Hanging loosely around my neck they could easily get damaged, so I slid them to the top of my head (see, I’m planning!). As I was mowing, a tree branch knocked them off. I almost got down to retrieve them, but decided to grab them on my next pass. As I swung back by, I saw they lay in the cut grass, so I could just keep mowing and get them later. After three more passes I forgot and ran right over them. I found only a part of the mangled frame. I now know not to mow with glasses on my head… but next time I will forget I have them on my head or I’ll take them off for safe keeping and plop a book on them. This is why I buy $2 Walmart glasses. I have back-up plans for back-up plans… three or four levels of compensatory strategies.
It is a real disability–I’ve completely missed a couple days of irregularly scheduled work, wrecked our cars, and almost burned the house down. No amount of scolding or shaming on the part of others or planning and compensating on my part is going to fix it. When I clamp down on one thing, something else shakes loose. I’m grateful for a patient, understanding wife and a God who keeps an eye out for me. I still have my job and cars and house… and a supportive wife and caring God too!
My real back-up plan is God. I have to depend so much more on Him than many others do. His grace has such a bigger field of play in my life than in those whose lives are well-ordered. The penalty for not being able to take care of myself is that God takes care of me. Who could imagine a better arrangement? Happy frailties! (2 Cor. 12:9)
Janathan Grace Reflections 
Super Like! – BK
YES I SO identify! I wonder if it is genetic? When I started needing reading glasses I told the optometrist that I needed trifocals. That way I put them on in the morning when I get up and I leave them on my face until I go to bed and put them on the table next to the bed. And I don’t buy prescription sunglasses – disaster waiting to happen, I just get the clip-on kind that clip to my glasses. Of course they cost $12 and I lose at least 2 per summer.A few years ago I lost 3 flashdrives at once – one for images, one for text files, one for transferring stuff. I mourned them for a while and then got one larger capacity and started over. Then a year or more later I found a little bag somewhere… with my lost flashdrives! But if this is genetic or part of our family environmental dynamics, then it means that this is actually something God gave us, that he wants us to have, that is in some way a gift, or the by-product of a gift he wants to give to others through us….. of course I’m 62 which makes you 42? and I’ve not really found the “gift” part of this yet!! Let’s just hope God is able to use it since I certainly don’t see how I am!!
Whether nature or nurture, we obviously got it from mom. One upside is that we are very good at problem solving because we have created for ourselves 5 times as many problems as most folks have. We can finagle, jerry-rig, and basically find our way home in the dark using just a toothpick and pocket lint. Our lives look like a Rube Goldberg contraption. But the real upside is simply our deficiency, because deficiencies create deep bonds with others.
ok so my math skills are really really bad! you are 52 – give or take a year.
Such an imrsispeve answer! You’ve beaten us all with that!
I think you are considering some ionprtamt questions. How feasible is it for pastors to shepherd communities of people that learn to care for and be present to one another. Could this help relieve the pastor from feeling he or she needs to be the one to hang out with every person in crisis?