Caught-On-Your-Blindside

patgarcia ♦ June 24, 2013 ♦ 5 Comments

There are times when you wake up and wish you had not.  Nothing hurts; no pain in your body; family, friends, and neighbors are all excelling, and you are looking forward to the day ahead. Even though your day is scheduled so tight that you can hardly breathe, all is well with your world.  Yet, your early morning wake up disturbs you. You feel strange, restless, exposed, but to what you cannot say.

Like Job, you get up and while drinking your first cup of coffee:

• You receive news about a death,
• You feel a pain in a part of your body that is unfamiliar to you,
• You read an email ending a treasured friendship,
• Your boss informs you by phone, you have been put on the redundant list,
• Your husband gets ill,
• Your child is expelled from school,
• Your bank check is not honored due to lack of funds,
• Your old and faithful car needs some serious repairs that you were no aware of,
• You’ve misplaced some important documents that you cannot find.

When events like this start taking place that take control of your life out of your hands, hold on, you’re caught-on-your-blindside.

Caught-on-your-blindside takes place without your being forewarned.  The night before you were dancing to the beat of boogie down baby, or half-heartedly listening to the woes of a friend as you planned your week, or trying to choose which securities you would buy with your bonus for signing on a desired customer for your company.

Suddenly occurrences take place that shake up your entire small world, and as you sit there wondering what will happen next, you yearn to hide yourself because the view in your life has been blocked––you’re caught-on-your-blindside.

That is what happened to the woman who had been given a son.  Married to an older man, she didn’t expect to have a child. She befriended the Prophet out of the kindness of her heart:

Her hospitality towards him,

Her consideration,

Her unselfishness,

Gave her the desire of her heart–a son.

Her son became ill while visiting the father in the fields, and he sent him home to his mother. She did all she knew to comfort him, but the child died as he sat in her lap.  Bang!  She was caught-on-her-blindside.

There is no way to escape being caught-on-your-blindside; No one is exempt:  Like David, before he became king, you run away from crazed people and sour incidences that test your commitment and your reason to live.  That you can’t see what is on the side of you, whether left or right, or even see through your rear window is natural:  And your front windshield is clouded over by foggy incidences that come at you, one after the other:  They block your view.

You can’t avoid the blindside either: many have tried, but all have failed.

Caught-on-your-blindside is not

A cultural thing,

A medical disease or sickness,

A mental illness,

A race problem,

A lack of intelligence,

A behavioral issue of whether you are good or bad,

Or something you did wrongly.

It does not stem from our bad choices.

It is a shy phenomena that pops up unexpectedly, tests our character, our integrity, our beliefs, and then it leaves just as stealthily as it came––in its own time.

It never wears out its welcome.

The year 2013 came in with a bang, and I welcomed in the year with gratitude in my heart. Yet, that did not exempt me from waking up at 2 AM on the very first day of the year, with a strange feeling. I felt as if I were losing ground under my feet, although I was lying in bed. When the first unexpected incident took place, I was speechless: It hit me in my gut:  I was caught-on-my-blindside.

Like Esther, I sat back and learned to hold on until my time had passed: There was no other option.

Family and friends cannot help you when you are caught-on-your-blindside.  They may give you advice, but usually, it doesn’t work. It may, however, ease your pain, make you laugh, or comfort you for a couple of minutes, but it doesn’t stop the occurrences from happening. You are caught-on-your-blindside.

What do you do when you are caught-on-your-blindside?

Being caught-on-my-blindside forced me to run to the source of my existence.

If anyone knew what was happening,

If anyone had the control,

If anyone had solutions,

It was the Creator whom I have given my complete trust.  Sure, there were days when I thought this will never end, but again, like Abraham, the father of the faith, I hoped against hope because God is faithful: He keeps his promises, one hundred percent.

So, if you wake up and find yourself caught-on-your-blindside, run to the source of your existence and ride it through until you have been given the ability to see clearly again.

Job did:

The woman with the son did:

Esther did:

David did.

Afterward they smiled: They were no longer caught-on-their-blindsides.  

Ciao,

Pat Garcia