Seeing that I can't see

How a trip to the mailbox revealed so much

Have you ever noticed a pattern in how you respond when bad news shows up?

I’ve been through a lot of hard news in my life, Army deployments, family challenges, and the slow drip of personal losses over the years.
But I’m only now starting to recognize a pattern in how I respond.
And the strange thing is, this new awareness isn’t about clarity.
It’s about seeing that I can’t see, at least not in those first moments.

It often starts in a place of gratitude. I’ll be aware of the good things in my life, feeling steady and thankful. And then something lands a phone call, a letter, a conversation that shakes it. The gratitude fades, and the work of finding it again begins. The following is what I’ve seen that I couldn’t see just this week.

When Bad News Hits

I walked to the mailbox, and I was feeling grateful. The weather was nice. My knees didn’t hurt. Tammy and I had enjoyed a quiet morning. Max didn’t run after our mailman.

It’s a good thing to notice blessings while you have them.

Then I opened the envelope.

Bad news. Sudden, shocking bad news. At first, I thought it was a scam. It wasn’t.

I’m not going into the details here, but I want to talk about what happens in me when a moment like that hits. This is my pattern. It’s happened enough in six decades of living that I can almost name it as it unfolds.

1. Shock.
The first wave is pure disbelief. My brain says, How can this be?! I read it again, looking for the fine print that will tell me I misunderstood. It isn’t there.

2. The body joins in.
My chest tightens. My heart rate spikes. There’s a hollow, panicky feeling in my gut.

3. Fight or flight kicks in.
Cortisol floods the system. My breathing changes. My brain starts sorting, am I running toward this or away from it?

4. Hyperfocused problem solving.
It’s like a switch flips and every “what if” I can imagine starts falling like dominoes. This is the part where I feel like I’m “doing” something, but most of the time it’s just spinning the problem in different directions.

5. Withdrawal.
I start to pull back from people. I ruminate. I stew. Even boil. And here’s the part I don’t like admitting: I lose gratitude. Just an hour earlier, walking to the mailbox, I was thinking of blessings. Now, it’s like the letter took them. Truth is, I allowed it to.

6. The prayer battle.
At some point, I remember, I should pray. And then the other voice shows up: Maybe this is my fault. Maybe I’m getting what I deserve. I know that’s not how God works, but in the moment, it still comes knocking. Its awful.

7. Others notice.
Those around me can sense I’m off. Yesterday, I went to help my daughter with a household repair and she noticed. She didn’t press, but she could tell. People try to guide me toward calmer waters. I appreciate it, but it rarely works right away. My sweet wife tried her best to ratchet me down, no luck.

8. Breathing.
Eventually, I get deliberate about it. I get alone. Box breathing, four counts in, hold, four counts out, hold. It doesn’t fix the problem, but it starts to loosen the grip it has on my body.

9. Prayer again.
This time it’s quieter. Less about asking for a fix and more about just trying to be with God in the mess. Presence is powerful.

10. The rowing machine.
I put in my earbuds and hit play on Fleetwood Mac. I row in rhythm with the melody. After a few minutes, the letter and all its weight aren’t front and center anymore. I’m rowing like a metronome.

11. Evening.
I share dinner with Tammy. Later, I text my daughter to apologize for my demeanor earlier. She writes back, “In my challenging times, I see them as opportunities to trust God.” She’s wise. I sleep, soundly.

12. A new day.
I wake up with a little more space between me and the news. I read the Book of Common Prayer, some psalms. Morning Prayer always ends with a prayer called The General Thanksgiving and there’s a line there that says “give us that due sense of all thy mercies”. In other words, we are asking for a gratitude that is proportionate to the grace already extended to us. And then later, a thought occurs: I can do at least one thing today to right the ship. And I do it. I’m convinced that gratitude paved the way for that thought.

13. A clearer path.
It’s still tough. Not what I wanted. The mountain is still there and its all jagged and rough and I’m looking up. But I’ve calmed enough to take a step, to grab the rope. I’m beginning to reframe the problem. And I notice something, I’m starting to see things I’m thankful for…again.

This pattern I’ve described is something I’m only now becoming aware of, even after all these years of living, serving, and walking others through their own dark nights.

If you’d asked 40-year-old me, I’m not sure I could have seen it. Back then, life was a constant balancing act between Army service, war with all its trimmings, and trying desperately to be a good husband and dad. There wasn’t much room for self-awareness. The last two decades have brought a steady flow of trauma that didn’t exactly make it easier.

When I talk about “the mountain not moving,” it’s not just the problem’s size, it’s the reality that God hasn’t acted yet, at least in the way I want. My rector, Brad Mullis, said something on Sunday that’s been rolling around in my head ever since. He defined faith, in my paraphrase, as the internal understanding that God is accomplishing His work of redemption in this world, into one where love truly reigns.

I think many of us me included sometimes take a more tactical approach to faith. We look for God to help us win the skirmish in front of us, not remembering He’s already promised to win the whole thing and its good, so so good.

The first sign I’m coming out of the fog is when real gratitude starts to seep back in. Gratitude is a sign of peace. And peace, at least for me, is a sign that God has my attention again. Like, after 13 days it stopped raining today, the mechanic called and my truck only needs coils instead of all the spark plugs, there’s food in the refrigerator and the power to our home is on. The list of things to be thankful for is endless.

This mountain I’m facing hasn’t moved. It’s going to take effort and endurance to climb. But I’m growing to a place where I can see that I can’t see in those early moments and there’s a strange peace in that.

And I’m grateful for it.

Does that make sense to you, dear reader? Is this something you wrestle with too?