Last week as Thanksgiving Day approached I remember thinking how blessed I am, how blessed we are, as a family. We are in good health. Our daughter is a beautiful and charming, intelligent, level-headed young lady who doesn't do drugs, isn't a Goth, and thinks boys are still an annoyance. My husband is gainfully employed. After 22 years of marriage (tomorrow!) he is still the one person with whom I want to spend all my time. We are weathering the economic recession, maybe worse than some, but certainly better than others.
Just as I was feeling pretty good about my life, that's when the shittim hit the fan.
My work computer caught a virus and it looked like everything was lost. My credit card was hacked and had to be blocked. In the meantime my other credit card expired. My car started making that "I'm going to start flinging metal objects soon" sound and the same day my husband had to limp home in his truck, fearing a valve was on its way through the engine block. We are being financially eaten alive by a high mortgage rate; our refinance application came back with a low appraisal, and we don't have the balance to throw at the loan. (Yoo who! Mr. Banker Man! That's why we're refinancing!)
And that was just Wednesday.
Come to think of it, isn't that when bad things always happen? Not on Wednesdays. I don't mean that. I mean that one day we're rocking right along, thinking we're impervious to the minor annoyances other people have to deal with, riding high in April, so to speak, only to be shot down in May. Why is that? Did I do something to cause these problems? Did I get too cocky? Did I say something unkind to another human being? Did I forget to pray? Was I not grateful enough? Is this my karma comeuppance? What did I do to make all this "bad" happen?
The truth is, sometimes I do contribute to my own difficulties when I make bad decisions, and maybe some of this can be attributed to bad decisions. But I'm inclined to believe most of this was not our fault, since we're really just doing the best we can with what we've got, trying to be frugal, smart, and faithful. And the truth is, sometimes shittim just happens.
I'm not referring to the pejorative potty-mouth slang expression that has come to be commonplace in our English language. I'm referring to the Hebrew word, which has a very different meaning.
Shittim, from the shittah, if you will, isn't what you think it is. Shittim IS yellowish-brown, and it does take a shittah to make it. So far, so the same. But shittim is really a type of wood, from the shittah tree, an acacia species, and was used to construct the tables, altars, boards and ark of the Jewish tabernacle.
Pretty cool.
So maybe when shittim happens, maybe it is a blessing in the shape of a turd. Allow me to elaborate.
Maybe shittim is God's way of getting our attention, of reminding us that He is the tree, and we are the branches, and apart from Him we can do nothing. Sometimes I have been lulled into believing that I can do all things through my own power, not through Christ, who gives me strength. Sometimes I need a gentle whack, broadside, like from a two-by-four, to remind me. Might as well be shittim wood.
Maybe shittim is God's way of giving us perspective. Carl Sagan noted in "Cosmos" that our universe is billions of years old--hard to grasp until you factor it down and put it in the relative terms of a calendar year. Using the calendar analogy, the universe was born on January 1st, at 12:01am but we homosapiens didn't show up, relatively speaking, until December 31st, at about 11:58 pm. We're newbies. The universe and its creator have been around a shittah-load longer than we, and the fly in our ointment today is hardly worth a passing glance in the cosmic scheme of things. There is a much larger picture here than my computer coughing up nonsense and refusing to let me do a web search. I take much comfort in that.
Perhaps shittah helps me remember to count my blessings, rather than focus on what seem to be curses. Sure, my computer problems are a pain, and our credit card, automotive, and financial woes are an unwelcome, unbudgeted bunch of inconveniences. But we are in good health. Our daughter is a beautiful and charming, intelligent, level-headed young lady who doesn't do drugs, isn't a Goth, and thinks boys are still an annoyance. My husband is gainfully employed. After 22 years of marriage (tomorrow!) he is still the one person with whom I want to spend all my time. We are weathering the economic recession, maybe worse than some, but certainly better than others.
Sometimes I can't see the forest for the trees. Sometimes those trees are a collection of shittah, and sometimes it's useful to step in it so I'll remember to step back occasionally, and take a good long look at the forest of blessings I'm right smack in the middle of. And be thankful that shittah happens.
