It's Always Darkest Before the Fridge Door Opens: Enjoying the Fruits of Middle Age (19 page)

Heights.
If this is the world’s number two fear, then that means there are plenty of us walking around on the bottom floor of most buildings. But are heights really something to be feared? As tall people, we can tell you that being a little higher than so many others isn’t all that scary. Sure, the air’s a little thinner, and when we trip and fall, we have a little farther to go than the rest of you, but other than that, there’s really nothing to fear. Except, of course, shopping for pants.

And finally, the number one fear—
public speaking.
This is the biggie. But as public speakers, we can tell you unequivocally that this fear
is
justified. It
is
scary going on stage in front of a group of people and talking. You’ll start hyperventilating and breaking out into a cold sweat, and you’ll feel like you’re about to pass out. And that’s just if you’re announcing the main speaker. We both have tried all the tricks. We’ve pictured the audience in their underwear. That gave us nightmares for months. We’ve tried pinching our wrists. That just gave us bruises. We’ve taken deep breaths. That made us dizzy. Public speaking is a real fear to be dealt with, and there’s no getting around it. But now, if you’re speaking in a conference room at the top of the Empire State Building and there’s a spider in the corner and you’re afraid you’re going to get stuck with the luncheon tab, and suddenly the fire sprinklers come on and the room fills up with deep water, and you catch a bad cold and have to be flown to a hospital and kept in isolation where you’re all by yourself (except for the hospital pit bull they let visit you every morning) until you die, well, nothing we say here could even help you then.

Fear only two: God and the man who has no fear of God.
Hasidic saying

Leftovers

If your refrigerator is like ours, it’s probably full of leftovers. There will be containers of leftover Chinese food, a single slice of pizza in a pizza box that someone has laid on top of a plastic container of leftover meatloaf and mashed potatoes that now appear to be glowing, a gallon carton with enough milk left in it for a single cup of coffee, six jars of jelly, one ketchup bottle turned upside down so that the four drops left in it will come out more easily, and cheese that has marbled into some kind of moldy sculpture. Not a very appetizing mix, but then, leftovers seldom are as good as the original.

Have you ever known someone who thought all they deserved is leftovers? They wait until everyone is finished with their meal, and then they proceed to eat off all the plates? Even though there is plenty of food available in the serving dishes, they are more than content to simply finish what others have left behind.

We both strongly believe that God has a plan for each one of our lives, and it is a whole lot better than other people’s leftovers. But too often we settle. Those leftovers are so much easier to reach.

It’s like comparing the cookie dough in the freezer with the half-eaten cookie on the table. The one on the table is easier to grab. And it involves no work on our part. We don’t have to bake it or frost it or do anything else to it. So we take the easy route and never go after God’s perfect plan for our lives. It’s like passing on a filet mignon and settling for Spam.

Out of Control

God doesn’t start your stalled car for you;
but he comes and sits with you in the snowbank.
Robert F. Capon

Have you ever watched a child waiting around for his mother or father to fix something?

‘‘Here, let me do it!’’ the child will say. The parent knows the child can’t fix it, but after a five-minute chant of ‘‘I can do it! Let me do it! Gimme it!’’ the parent will sometimes give in and let the child learn a valuable life lesson the hard way.

What’s the lesson? Despite what we think, sometimes we can’t fix it. We may know exactly what we’re going to do, but when we get the chance to do it, we often will discover that our plans simply don’t work. The item (toy, bicycle, broken heart) is still broken, despite all our good intentions.

When we find ourselves in the middle of a major life crisis and we think we have all the answers, we get tempted to push against God’s hands and plans and say, ‘‘Here, let me fix it!’’ God knows it’s above us, but sometimes (after we’ve continued to insist on doing it our way), he lets us give it a try. And more often than not, we fall flat on our face. And the broken places of our lives remain broken.

When we at long last admit that the circumstances are far beyond our control, that we can’t fix them no matter how much we want to, that we can’t make them better, that we should have left well enough alone, we let God do what he does best—restore us and our problem to wholeness. But that doesn’t happen until we finally reach a place where we’ll give him control.

There is much wisdom in the famous prayer ‘‘God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.’’ Some things even God doesn’t change. At least not back to the way they were. What’s happened has happened. You can’t change the fact that someone’s carelessness (or perhaps even your own) caused the death of a close friend of yours. You can’t change your doctor’s diagnosis or the fact that your teenage daughter has run away . . . again. There are plenty of crises in life that we simply cannot do much about. But we can lean on the one who is faithful 100 percent of the time, loving 100 percent of the time, and good 100 percent of the time to help us get through difficult places like these.

So quit grabbing your brokenness out of God’s hands and insisting on fixing everything yourself. There are some things you just can’t fix. Admit it. As painful as it is, sometimes we just have to accept the fact that it’s happened, learn from it, and move on, knowing that God loves us and hurts when we hurt, too.

The Promised Land always lies on the other side of a wilderness.
Havelock Ellis

The Last Laugh

Always laugh when you get the chance.
It’s the cheapest medication we know.
Martha and Phil

What makes you laugh? We hope this book has (but not our pictures on the back cover). We hope it has helped you find something to smile about, no matter how ‘‘cold’’ this place of life is that you’re in.

We have both spent our careers trying to help others focus on the funny, not because we wake up each day with a snort and a chuckle (our spouses might have something to say about that and might wonder what we just dreamed about), but because we’ve discovered that a good laugh is better than any amount of bran. But you may be wondering, what makes a humorist laugh?

I (Martha) love witty sayings. I love funny words embroidered on pillows, inscripted on plaques, written on billboards, or printed on greeting cards. I love funny words. I love funny emails from friends. I also love cartoons. I love watching talented comedians. Ray Romano, Steve Martin, Jerry Seinfeld . . . far too many comedians to list here; they all make me laugh. I love funny movies where the humor takes me by surprise. And I especially love funny moments with friends. Those moments when someone does or says something unexpected that you laugh about at the moment and for years to come.

Cartoons make me (Phil) laugh. John McPherson’s ‘‘Close to Home’’ is a favorite. John has illustrated a few of my books, and I love his warped sense of humor. Last Christmas he drew a classic of a lady hanging a banner on the wall by the Christmas tree. Her husband was reading on the couch nearby and, frustrated at his inactivity, she hurled a hammer at him and yelled, ‘‘Why can’t you help out a little!’’ The banner she was hanging? ‘‘Peace on Earth.’’

I showed it to my wife while she was hanging wall decorations. I’m not sure why, but she didn’t think it was all that funny.

My dog makes me laugh. Her idea of play always ends with the word
treat
. She cleverly lures me into the kitchen, wagging her tail and hopping around as if I’m completely clueless as to her motives. She brings me her dog dish when it’s empty and looks at me crooked as if to say, ‘‘And you call yourself a Christian! How could you? Must I report you to the animal rights people?’’ She’s like my children were when they were small and all tucked in bed. They kept asking for a drink, thinking I was not wise to their ways. I had them figured out. But for some reason I kept bringing drinks.

Some of the funniest things have happened to me while I’ve been speaking, and they are far funnier when they are unplanned. One night I was telling people how old my parents were when I was born. I said my mother gave birth to me in an old-folks’ home. That my loving parents bought my diapers with their pension checks. That my father used to play peek-a-boo with me. That’s how he had his first stroke. Yes, I told them, ‘‘My dad was forty!’’ Most people found this funny. Except for a lady in the front row. She stood to her feet and yelled, ‘‘Hey, wait a minute!’’ She was quite obviously pregnant. Guess how old she was? Yep. Forty. And she was quite proud of her youth.

One night while I spoke to about three hundred souls at a banquet, a lady began laughing and couldn’t find the Stop button. Everyone in the room was turning to look at her, so I stopped talking and asked if she was okay and would she like some oxygen? She laughed all the harder. It was contagious. Turning to a waitress, I said, ‘‘The rest of us would like whatever she’s having.’’ That didn’t help her stop, either. Afterward I had to meet her. She was about my mother’s age, and I gave her a warm hug. She said, ‘‘I lost my husband to cancer six weeks ago. My son has cancer, too. I haven’t laughed like this in years. How I thank God for the joy he gives.’’

That kind of drives the sourpuss right off our faces, doesn’t it?

Her words remind us of the reason we can laugh despite all that’s going on around us.

And what is the greatest reason in all the world to rejoice?

It’s the fact that a holy God loves the likes of us so much that he would rather die than live without us.

I (Martha) have taken a gift of a beautiful smoked turkey and incinerated it.
1
I’ve nursed my own wounds longer than they needed to be nursed, and I have on occasion wished for different circumstances rather than ‘‘accepting the things I cannot change.’’ I’ve faithfully promised myself to get more exercise, get more rest, organize my life, and umpteen other promises, only to sit at my computer working late night after night, not getting either the rest, the exercise, or even the order that I needed.

I (Phil) am the guy who smoked every cigarette butt I could find when I was twelve—even ones in hospital ashtrays! I slid hamsters down banisters and put peanut butter on a cat’s whiskers. I’m the guy who has harbored bitterness in his heart, and anger and fear. I’ve lied. I’ve coveted. And that’s before breakfast.

And yet, the one who spoke the stars into space loves us. The one who knows us at our worst has offered us forgiveness and grace through his Son Jesus Christ. There will never be a greater closing line than that, so we think we’ll end here.

Life, like the refrigerator, offers us a lot of good. It can also offer us some smelly circumstances, too, especially if certain things are left unattended for too long. But the good news is this: the light is still there, whether we’ve opened the door or not. It hasn’t moved. It’s ready to shine into our pain and cast new light on all our frustrations. So the next time you reach for the fridge door, remember the light that will never go out. (And while you’re at it, a little chocolate won’t hurt, either.) Even when we shut the door, it’s still there, waiting for us to reach for the door and see it shining through once again.