Musings of An Eclectic Cowboy
June 14, 2008
What If
One of the major news stories this week was the one about the Boy Scout Camp being destroyed by the tornado. In this incident 4 young men died and many were injured by a F3 class tornado. As with most storms of this type there was not a lot of warning and their damage can seem to be very selective. I remember the tornado that hit Friona, TX back in 1995. It came within a 1/2 mile of our house and completely destroyed the office that my dad and I had. After the storm our office was just a slab of concrete with my desk just sitting there on it and my wedding pictures sitting on that desk. Everything else was basically gone and today the memory of that office reminds me that my wife and my kids are the most precious thing that God has ever given me.
Trials and tribulations come into each of our lives. And like a tornado we can't always see them coming and we can't always dodge them when we do see them coming. What matters is how we react to them. At the Boy Scout Camp whether death and injury could have been avoided to me is not as important as the reaction to the death and injuries. Those young men and adults immediately after the tornado hit went about the job of taking care of those in need. They didn't sit around going through a lot of what ifs, they called for help, they did everything that they could for the injured, they took care of those that were left unharmed but emotionally injured.
There are many kinds of trials and tribulations in our lives today. We go through death of friends and family, health problems, financial problems and divorce to name a few. But today divorce is on my heart. Over the past several years I have had several friends that have gone through divorces. Some of them you could see like a freight train coming from miles away and some of them were a complete blind sided surprise. I have friends that have been able to avoid a divorce and patch things up and I have had friends that no matter what they did divorce could not be avoided. But once divorce happens the important thing is how do we react. Do we react with guilt trying to hide our problems. Do we react with anger and try to hurt other people involved. Or do we just go on with our lives and take care of the living and injured.
Those Boy Scouts should give us a clue on how to react to bad situations. Whether it is death, illness, divorce, financial or emotional situations. Don't worry about how it could have been avoided, don't worry about what might happen tomorrow, take care of the problems at hand right now. My daughter Bailey has a new motto that she learned at the State 4-H Rifle Competition down in Rosenberg, TX this week. In an orientation the man in charge of the shoot told the kids that there are 60 targets out there that they were shooting at. So they have 60 chances at making a perfect score. Take every shot one at a time. Don't try and concentrate on all 60 shots because you can't do it. Don't worry about your last shot and don't worry about a shot that you are going to take. Concentrate on the shot that you are taking right now.
With that my advice is don't worry about the What Ifs, whether from the past or the future. Make your decisions based on today. What is the best answer today, What is the best reaction today? For tomorrow the situation is liable to change and if our lives are dictated by the What Ifs then our decisions are more than likely to be wrong. If we make our decisions based on today, based on the knowledge that we have, based on the situation that we are in and based in a relationship with Jesus Christ then we will more than likely make the right decisions. And if not there is always tomorrow.
Below is one of the news clips from the Tornado.
Vaya Con Dios
The Eclectic Cowboy
Winfield Davenport