So Tom and I bought this chair at a barn sale for one dollar, though it didn't look like this when we got it. No, it was chipped and worn, so my mother painted it this week then upholstered it this morning with fabric I've had for eons.

Visiting mothers are useful creatures to have around. Mine washes nearly all our dishes and helps with dinner, too, and has volunteered to build new outside stairs for us as well as other carpentry jobs. Seems I'm always trying to (figuratively) wrestle a hammer from her hand.

I look at this chair and I hope something. I hope that the people in our World who are glued to the disastrous economic news are not becoming so depressed that they cannot think creatively. I mean, probably most people have enough stuff around their homes that they can 1.) sell some of it to increase their funds or 2.) re-purpose it to create what they need or desire (as we did with this chair), or 3.) give some of it away to brighten the day of some other bad-news-junkie out there who's also glued to their tv and floating in despondency.

Always we can let bad times make us or break us. It's not a given that we are doomed to depression when things go wrong.

And lest you think I'm out-of-touch with reality and the stock market woes won't touch Tom and myself, well, you are wrong. We are exactly the type of people who stand to lose the most. Truthfully? Tom should retire right about now. His back (all those 8 or so herniated discs) bothers him more than I tell you here. And now he and his co-workers will be helping a neighboring power plant which--he heard from some of the guys--is a nightmare situation of ladder-climbing and crawling beneath pipes, etc.

I could moan for three or four posts and tell you how complicated his situation is, but I won't. Just trust me,this stock market thing is coming around at the worst possible time for Tom and myself.

But are we sitting here in our farmhouse all in a panic? Stressed-to-our-bleary-eyeballs? Worried sick? Making wild plans out of frantic minds?

Uh, no.

Instead, we're trying to stay quiet so we can listen better to the One who knows best where we should step next. We're remaining calm, peaceful--and trusting God more than ever before because really, the alternatives are too dark and scary. Especially now at this point in history.

Besides, the last people who should get all in a stressed-out, worried dither are those of us who have a great big God inside us. There should be something different about the way we respond to hard times. Always.



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