Wedgie Tales

By Rhonda Rhea –

My 17 year old is the youngest of five kids. That means that he’s suffered a lot of wedgies through the years. But hey, I figure that’ll give him stories he can tell his kids. Some parents tell their children of the hardships of walking to and from school in the 12-foot snow—uphill both ways. My Daniel? He’ll be able to tell his children that he spent several years suffering through underwear with no waistbands. My friend Janet said he could call his life story, “Wedgie Tales.”

It’s a good reminder that tough situations, like waistbands, will come and go. The real question is, how will we respond? And will we allow those difficulties to defeat us or will we allow them to strengthen us? Will we rest in our Heavenly Father’s presence, seeing life from his eternal perspective? Or will we try to squirm out of those difficulties and make it through them on our own, pouting, whining, sputtering and blaming all along the way?

Stories of grace under pressure are so much more fun to pass on to our children. Those stories will even answer a lot of their questions about life and how we should live it. It will even set a pattern for them to follow. Now there’s a legacy.

In the Amplified version of 2 Corinthians 4:16-17 we read, “Therefore we do not become discouraged, utterly spiritless, exhausted, and wearied out through fear. Though the outer man is progressively decaying and wasting away, yet our inner self is being progressively renewed day after day. For our light, momentary affliction, this slight distress of the passing hour, is ever more and more abundantly preparing and producing and achieving for us an everlasting weight of glory, beyond all measure, excessively surpassing all comparisons and all calculations, a vast and transcendent glory and blessedness never to cease!”

Waistbands? Here today, wedgied away tomorrow. But we’re to be focused on the things that are eternal—the unseen blessedness that never ceases. Verse 18 says, “Since we consider and look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen; for the things that are visible are temporal, brief and fleeting, but the things that are invisible are deathless and everlasting” (2 Corinthians 4:18, AMP).

I’m fighting the urge to mention the fact that it says that the visible things are “brief.” Yeah, I’m totally leaving that one alone. But those invisible things? According to this passage, they’re everlasting! Maybe not ever-elastic. But everlasting and completely deathless, for sure. And ultimately, in our own personal “everlasting,” every question in this life, every why we’ve ever asked, will be answered in the most satisfying, resounding eternal-amen of an answer.

Pondering our everlasting, deathless future gives us an entirely different perspective on the momentary suffering. Even though here in the present there will still be questions left temporarily hanging. Incidentally, among those unanswered questions, there’s still this one:  Would you call a person with no waistbands left a “Wedge-etarian”?

Rhonda Rhea is a radio personality, conference speaker, humor columnist and author of seven books, including High Heels in High Places and her newest book, Whatsoever Things Are Lovely: Must-Have Accessories for God’s Perfect Peace. You can find out more at www.RhondaRhea.org.

Chocolate Treasure

By Rhonda Rhea –

Somebody gave me a big box of chocolates last week. I was so excited. Chocolates, man. It was one of those boxes of chocolates with the map in the lid. To me? That lid diagram was a treasure map. There are times when there’s nothing sweeter than digging for treasure. Read more

Thinking Outside the Cat Box

By Rhonda Rhea –

Have I ever told you about our morbidly obese cat? Whatever it is inside a cat brain that tells the cat belly it’s full, is completely missing from Sammy’s anatomy. So he eats and eats until he barfs. Then he moos for more. And I do mean moos. Sammy got so fat that we never felt altogether comfortable letting him lean on a load-bearing wall. Fat. Cat. Read more

I Never Met a Baby Who Never Needed Changing

By Rhonda Rhea –

It was Daniel’s nine-month mile marker—certainly an occasion for a trip to the photography studio. I headed to the mall with my sweet baby all decked out in his cutest nerd suit, complete with suspenders and bow tie. He was adorable. Read more

Manna Mania

By Rhonda Rhea –

Have you ever wondered if the Israelites ever tried to get clever with their manna? God provided them with all that miraculous food each day to keep them alive. But I do remember reading that they got a little whiny about eating the same thing day in and day out. I can picture them moaning, “Oh, the hu-manna-ty”—even though the manna must’ve been pretty sweet and tasty. Exodus 16:31 says “it tasted like honey wafers” (NLT). Add a drizzle of chocolate and it sounds perfect to me.

Read more

Next Page »