Pillows and sleep...

Who doesn't have a stuffed animal they sleep with? Oh wait, I'm a little old for that...

What a great combination - laying your head down on a pillow and drifting off to sleep is a wonderful thing. 

When you see someone sleeping peacefully on a pillow, it just brings a calm, even to you, while you're awake.  There's just something about rest that gives us a settled feeling. When you don't get enough, you can tend to be more cranky and bothered, but when you do get plenty, you feel great. 

This post has nothing to do with peace...

I had the privilege of going to teen camp with about 70 teens and leaders from our church a few weeks ago and we had a great time. The first night was exciting and we ended up gong to bed around midnight. 

At about 3 AM, it hit me...

A pillow! 

Right in the face. 

My attention was immediately directed towards a plot to eliminate the three teens closet to me with whatever means necessary...no wait, the entire cabin of teen boys. I hatched a plan to wipe them out one by one, with attacks so furious that they would never know what hit them and with such force as their memory of this night would have to be suppressed to keep them from future pain and suffering.

One by one, I would pull them from their bunks and drag them to the pond where an army of bull frogs would start to chew on them...

No, I would start with the oldest and take them to the dining hall, where I would force them to eat a concoction of green beans, guacamole, hot tamale sauce, mayonnaise, salt, spicy peppers, mustard and light maple syrup. It would be a taste that could stun even the toughest...

Or I could take the youngest four or five and tie them up, putting them in paddle boats in the middle of the lake, while throwing seagull food out near them...imagine the mess, on them!

These were just a few of the dastardly deeds that came racing through my mind in the 2 seconds it took me to react, but there was a problem...

It wasn't a pillow fight, or a counsellor/youth worker attack, or a crazy plan to get me...

It was the junior high boy above me. Somehow his pillow slipped off the end of his bed, bounced off the bunk support post and fell directly onto my face. I didn't realize it happened that way, so my immediate reaction was "death to a teen camper!" 

Makes me think how we react to occurrences in our daily lives.

Do we overreact when…

Our drive-thru experience is slow…maybe something broke in the kitchen.

Our doctor visit is long…maybe someone is really sick and needs hep.

Our child accidentally spills something…it was an accident.

Someone says something that came across offensively…they didn’t mean it.

A person cuts us off...maybe to miss a pedestrian that we didn’t see.

We have an easy time overreacting, like I almost did with the pillow, so be careful to take a calm moment and figure out what’s really going on before you overreact and create a worse situation.

Lessons Learned: Pillows are harder than you think. Think before you react - maybe have a plan of how you will respond, rather than reacting.

Thoughts: When was your last pillow fight?

#failalot

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