Good-Bye to the Evening News

I said good-bye to the evening news. I didn’t tell anybody that turning off the news was my New Year’s resolution. I wasn’t sure I could be resolute with not seeing what was going on all over the world.

I had some things going for me like a busy January preparing for my Bible Study class and getting my lesson plans and my bags packed for a mission trip to the Ukraine.

I made it through January.

February came and I spent seventeen days in travel or ministry away from it all. Then came the jet lag and the nights wandering the house when all was quiet, hushed, and dark.

I made it through February.

It wasn’t long until March heralded an early spring.

One evening the doors were pulled back and the screens pulled together to let in the fresh night air. I laid back on the red down couch, book in hand, when my man turns on the news.

For fifteen minutes I listened and I realized again why I needed to leave the news for others to gorge on. It makes me sick. It makes me worry. It takes my mind off the Good News----the reality, that God is in control. I really don’t need to know the selected things that happen in the world on any given day.

I hear things that I need to hear but they come up in conversations with people who didn’t make my resolution---or the headlines are announced on facebook.

This wasn’t a super spiritual decision I made. I do know it has kept me from falling asleep just after the “talking heads” tell me the world is falling apart.

I can lie down and know that in Christ all things hold together. Wouldn’t that be a good way to end the evening news?

“Good evening and know this: Christ holds all things together.”

Writing on Lisa Jo's prompt: good-bye