I’ve had a lot of health issues during this past year, and now I seem to be over them, something else has taken their place.
I’ve had a sneezing fit for the past two weeks that I’ve never experienced before. Every time I sneeze, it is in triplets.
I don’t know why I have to sneeze three times, and I’ve tried to keep myself from sneezing the third time, but so far, I’ve lost that battle.
I’ve been trying to figure out how to make something good out of these sneezing fits, but so far, I’ve failed. When I get close to a solution, I have one of my sneezing fits and forget what I was thinking about.
Not only do I sneeze, but with the sneeze comes some disgusting phlegm. Several times, the whole front of my shirt was soaked.
This past week, we were at a restaurant to celebrate something. We ordered our meal, and were in the middle of eating, and it was a wonderful time together.
Right in the middle of eating my meal, I had a sneezing fit. I’ve had some practice with these sneezing fits, and I knew I needed to be careful which direction I was looking.
Because I was seated across the table from The Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage, wife Martha, when I started sneezing, it would’ve been in her direction.
Knowing that wouldn’t be a very good thing to do, I immediately turned my head to the right and sneezed — on cue — three times. At the time, my mouth was full, and unfortunately, it all came spewing out.
The worst thing about that fit was I was facing our waitress and she suffered the consequences. Oh boy! Was I in trouble.
At least I didn’t sneeze in my wife’s direction or that might’ve been the end of my sneezing fits for the rest of my life.
I apologized and asked her if there was anything I could do to help. She looked at me and said, “No, you’ve done enough already.”
Then she walked away to the back of the restaurant.
I don’t know when I was more humiliated. But when I sat back and regained some control of myself, I realized there were customers all around, and all of them saw exactly what I did. I just felt like everybody in that restaurant was staring at me.
It’s not that I don’t like attention. I’m just not too fond of this kind of attention.
I leaned across the table and asked Martha, “Do you know how I can take back that sneeze?”
She just looked at me and then looked down at her plate. That’s the first time I remember she had no solution to a problem. I then thought about a Bible verse in Romans.
“And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”
— Romans 8:28
No matter my problem, if I trust God I can get through it.
Dr. Snyder is a former pastor who lives with the Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage, wife Martha, in Ocala, Fla. His email is [email protected]
