My friend, the late Alice Patrick, said some things that still help me—and maybe they’ll help you. She had been through some serious health issues, and I was worried about her. “How are you, Alice?” She smiled easily and answered, “The REAL me is fine!” Alice didn’t have an Eastern idea that her body wasn’t real. She just meant that as long as she was good with the Lord, that was the main thing and physical problems were secondary.
Another time, Alice was in a car accident. When I expressed amazement that she’d come out relatively unscathed, she reported, “Oh, I’m hard to kill.” I laughed out loud. People say that cockroaches are hard to kill, but I’d never heard a person say that about herself. When I come through a financial crisis, an illness, a period of emotional strain or overwork, or something similar and think “Whew! I’m glad that’s behind me,” I sometimes have the follow-up thought (in Alice’s voice): I guess “I’m hard to kill.”
And when right in the middle of those kinds of scenarios, I remind myself to just stick to the Lord—know that he’s in control, obey what he says, try not to be afraid . . . Then no matter what happens, “the REAL me is fine!”
