annoyances can lead to peace

Good morning!

My dear friend had replied to one of my messages relating to me as so often we do!

Here is a wonderful real-life testimony about how "annoyances can lead to peace!"

Please enjoy my friend Sharine's wonderful way of expressing what we all can relate to!

"I had a profound realization just now.  “Annoyances” CAN lead to “Peace”!  Here's what happened.  Because as a teacher I work the noon recess duty, I always end up with a nice tan on my legs, but my feet don't see the light of day, so they are pale as the moon.  It is an embarrassing problem.  I look like I stepped in a puddle of white paint.  Every year at the end of the school year, I promise myself I will work on tanning my feet so they catch up to my legs. But I am one of those people that prides myself in being efficient and always having some project or work-related task in my hands. I am not good at sitting and doing nothing, and sitting in the sun tanning my feet requires stopping to sit and do nothing.  I was irritated at the thought of this.  But every day I told myself I would "waste" 20 minutes sitting in the sun, as long as I made good use of my time.  I would preview my math curriculum for next year, take care of dangling emails on my phone, catch up with texts I hadn't attended to, read that book I hadn't finished, etc.  But over time, sitting there in the bright central valley sun looking at blinding white pieces of paper or a bleary phone (or embarrassingly pale feet) took a toll on my eyes.  Between tired eyes and sore shoulders, this morning I annoyingly decided I would have to "just sit there" and waste time!!!  At first I was annoyed and all I could think of was all the things I could be getting done right now.  But then I noticed something.  The wind blowing through the leaves of my husband's avocado tree that he had planted for me sounded like wind chimes.  The songbirds that perched on the roof had a very different song from the mourning doves that picked seeds off the ground.  Focusing on the white fluffy clouds no longer hurt my tired eyes.  And then I began to pray through my list of prayer requests from friends and family.  But this time it wasn't a "I'm doing my routine prayertime" type of prayer.  Or a "I got out my Bible like I committed to doing every night" type of moment.  It was a wide-open, "empty space" type of prayer time.  It was a "just Me and God" moment, instead of Me, God, and "all the things I have to do in the back of my mind" time.  I was no longer irritated.  In fact, I was breathing, and breathing in deep!  Breathing in the slow, content, serene life that God intended for us.  What started out as such an annoyance wound up leading to peace.