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By Dr. James L. Snyder

I’ve had a lot of health issues during this past year, and now that I seem to be over them, something else has taken their place.

I have had a sneezing fit for the past two weeks that I’ve never experienced before. Every time I sneeze, it is in triplets. I don’t know why I have to sneeze three times, and I have tried to keep myself from sneezing three times, but so far, I lost that battle.

I’ve been trying to figure out how to make something good out of these sneezing fits, and so far, I have failed. When I get close to a solution, I have one of my sneezing fits and forget what I was thinking about.

Not only do I sneeze, but with the sneeze comes some disgusting phlegm. Several times, the whole front of my shirt was soaked in that disgusting phlegm.

This past week, we were at a restaurant to celebrate something. We were at a restaurant, ordered our meal, and were in the middle of eating our meal, and it was a wonderful time together. I forget what I ordered, but whatever it was, it was delicious, and I enjoyed it.

Right in the middle of eating my meal, I had a sneezing fit. I’ve had some practice with these sneezing fits, and I knew I needed to be careful which direction I was looking. Because I was seated across the table from The Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage, when I started sneezing, it would’ve been in her direction.

Knowing that would not be a very good thing to do, I immediately turned my head to the right and sneezed three times. At the time, my mouth was full of what I was eating, and it all came spewing out.

The worst thing about that sneezing fit was I was facing our waitress and I got my sneezing fit all over the front of her. Oh boy! Was I in trouble. At least I didn’t sneeze it in my wife’s direction or that might’ve been the end of my sneezing fits for the rest of my life.

I apologized and asked her if there was anything I could do to help. She looked at me and said, “No, you’ve done enough already.” Then she walked away to the back of the restaurant.

I don’t know when I was more humiliated than at that time. But when I sat back and regained some control of myself, I realized that there were customers all around, and all of them saw exactly what I did. I just felt like everybody in that restaurant was staring at me.

It’s not that I don’t like attention; I’m just not too fond of this kind of attention.

I leaned across the table and asked The Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage, “Do you know how I can take back that sneeze?” She just looked at me and then looked down at her plate. That’s the first time I remember that she couldn’t figure out a solution to a problem.

I then thought about a Bible verse, Romans 8:28. “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”

No matter my problem, if I trust God I can get through it.

Dr. James L. Snyder lives in Ocala, FL with the Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage. Telephone 1-352-216-3025, e-mail jamessnyder51@gmail.com, website www.jamessnyderministries.com