Encouragement

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Weathering Storms
© 2008

by

Stephen A. Peterson


The January 2008 ice storms in Oklahoma caused more than a half million households to be without power for more than a week. As members of the Jacobsen family huddled together in their frigid house, the voice of Gary England, a local weather, came in loud and clear on the battery powered radio. He warned the situation would worsen before it would become better. Reports of homes catching on fire as a result of fallen hot wires stunned an already shaken Oklahoman population.

Maurice Walsh, whom many called “Bubbles” because his positive outlook on life bubbles forth, went to many homes shocked by the devastation of the storm, to determine if families could use his assistance (food, water, warm clothing).

“Don’t worry,” he reassured them. “Everything’s gonna be okay! I’m sure of that.”

“How can you be so sure everything’s going to be okay? It’s freezing cold inside my house and nothing seems to work right when it’s so cold,” cried a bewildered neighbor.

“We’ve done everything we can. We have some food, a structure to cut down the winds and warm blankets,” he simply said. “The rest is up to God. It’s in his hands now. He is with us whether we believe it or not. It is and was his promise.”

The Bubbles told the discouraged family his secret to happiness and why he did not worry about the difficult or challenging situation. He had what he called a “God Business and Problem Solver File” in his file cabinet at home. Whenever anything occurred that he was unable to take care of after giving the task his best effort, he wrote it down on a sheet of gold paper. Afterwards he placed the note in


his file cabinet and put the matter out of his mind. At the end of the year he went back over each event or happenings. In every event, he found the problems had been solved in a satisfactory manner.

“Say, why don’t you make yourself up a God file?” Bubbles suggested. “You have no idea how great and useful such a file is. You’ll come to find you won’t worry about things.”

So she tried it. So far she reports she does not worry so much about situations she is unable to control or do anything about.

What about you?

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