Do Not be Anxious

I arrived before my sister Wendy. She had arranged a "wonderful" "private" bed and breakfast for us to stay at right near the Baltimore airport. I would pick her up when she flew in, we would spend the night, and go on to my folks this morning.

I don't like bed and breakfast places. They are too intimate for me with strangers, and I am an introvert. Making small talk when I just want to be left alone to recharge is not my idea of a vacation. Anyway, I checked in to the B and B since Wendy wasn't due in for a couple of hours.

The lovely and kind owner showed me an expansive basement apartment, all to ourselves. As she showed me the bathroom, she said, "I just finished cleaning this. I like to clean the bathroom between guests. I'm funny that way."

Funny that way? I wondered if cleaning bathrooms between guests was unusual for bed and breakfasts. And then she mentioned the closed door in this basement apartment was for a man who would be back later.

A strange man? In our "wonderful" "private" B and B?

"Will he be sharing the bathroom?" I asked politely, images of slitting Wendy's throat rising in my normally pacifist mind.
"Yes, but he is out really early in the morning."

Needless to say, I cowered all night in my "wonderful" "private" bed and breakfast...having to go to the bathroom desperately but NO WAY was I going to come across a totally strange man in the middle of the night to fight over the commode.

The saving grace was that this B and B has chickens. The lovely and kind owner let us hold them. Wendy was freaking out a bit, but I enjoyed it. And forgive me. Lord for wanting them to peck her eyes out over that "wonderful" and "private" bit of propaganda.

So God is setting the stage. Sometimes the paths we are asked (forced) to travel are not familiar or in our comfort zone. They may not be to our liking and may require faith that in the end, all will be well...or at least, there will be soft chickens to cuddle.

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Matthew 6:25-34 

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. ...

Jeremiah 29:11 

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.

Hebrews 10:35 

Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward.