Sand in my shoes ...

I read a story a few years ago about a man who walked across the country. In an interview it came out that he had been hit by a car, had many other close calls of being hit, gotten ill, suffered through many blisters, went through a few pairs of shoes and some terrible weather. The interviewer asked if he had ever considered giving up before he reached his goal. He answered yes, he had considered giving up several times. He added that it probably wasn't for the reasons we might think, he said what nearly caused him to quit was the sand in his shoes. Those tiny grains of sand that just kept getting in his shoes and were a constant, though small, irritation nearly caused him to quit.

I believe that is an issue most of us face regularly. The small irritations are the ones that give us the highest level of frustration. We don't like the big stuff, but you see the big stuff, tackle it and go on. It is the "sand in my shoes" that gets to me, those small irritations that just keep rubbing at me.

The times that people say they will do something and just don't do it. Often I have to pick up the slack for them. The times that someone misquotes me to others and it spreads to become a problem that never should have happened. People being late to meetings expecting the reat of us to wait on them. Parents who refuse to be the parent and allow their child to control things, and then blame the church for the outcome. People saying they support you while doing nothing to help. Cable TV that goes out when it rains hard. Forgetting to close the windows when it rains. Sales people in stores who do nothing. Telemarketers!!!! Sound system problems during a worship service. The fact that so many good foods are now deemed unhealthy for you. Gas prices dropping ten cents an hour after I fill up. Barking dogs in the middle of the night. The fact that some of pants have shrunk while hanging in my closet.

Enough of my irritations. What are yours. Just remember that we will always have some irritants in our lives, but we have so much more for which to be thankful. But isn't it fun to just rant about our irritants once in a while?