A Second Opinion

A Devotional by Margot Cioccio

When I said, “My foot is slipping,” your unfailing love, Lord, supported me. When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought me joy. Psalm 94:18-19 NIV

There are times when we feel like life has spun out of control. We feel like we are slipping. Our verse today reminds us that God's love is unfailing. He will be your support.  I think it is interesting that the verse acknowledges that we sometimes feel great anxiety but if we look to the Lord He will console and comfort us. 

Earlier this week I felt like my life was in a bit of a slippery spin. My husbands car was in the shop and we got the call that it would be a major repair job in the several thousand dollar range. Which set me and everyone else here into a brainstorming spin of all the possible ways we might solve this problem. Yesterday I had students and as I prayed in the morning I felt the Lord saying stick to the plan of getting ready for school and don't be thrown off by the distractions. I felt His instruction was to keep moving forward. So I shared that with some of my family members we stopped all the spinning of ideas and yesterday everyone kind of chilled out a bit. 

Today I felt like we needed to go get a second opinion on the car and a friend had given me a place that they recommended. So today I called the shop where the car was and I asked him if the car would even start at this point. He had cleaned and tried to charge the battery but it was just dead. I asked if I could just pick up a battery someplace and have him drop it in for me.  Which he did for no charge. Because I did not want to be having to jump the car if I had to stop it because it was over heating on the way to the other shop. I did stop once to allow the engine to cool down a bit while checking on directions. 

We made it to the shop and the mechanics looked like those guys in the Duck Dynasty reality show. They were super helpful. When I explained what was going on. They came out and looked at the car and recommended that we start by replacing the radiator that was leaking. He said he could do the job in an hour and I could get a radiator for him to use. I started to ask who I should call and what I needed to buy. He said here let me look it up on my computer. He found one for  $85 dollars and the labor he said would be $65 dollars. He seemed to think that the loss of pressure in the radiator could be causing all the issues we had discussed. So I am hopeful at this point and should know more perhaps even tomorrow, if not early next week.

This evening I got some essential oils to get ready for my Message Training. I got two carrier oils that they can be mixed into for use in Massage. All of them have various healing properties.

I previously had two essential oils in my collection. Peppermint and Tea Tree. I added Clary Sage, Cypress, Frankincense, Geranium, Lemon, Lemongrass, Lavender, and Rosemary. All of these are great choices for your home remedy first aid kit.
Yesterday I came home from my morning lessons with a pretty bad ear ache. So I took a little time to find out what essential oils might help. Turns out olive oil and peppermint were recommended.
So I tried them out and by the time I needed to leave for my afternoon lessons it had pretty much subsided. My mom got up this morning with an ear ache and we did the same thing and it worked again. I've used peppermint for headaches and upset tummies. I have a lot to learn on the topic of aroma therapy and the healing properties of various essential oils and how it all relates and compliments Massage Therapy.

So today felt like I got beyond the crazy spin of some earlier days this week and was back into moving forward towards my set purpose and goals. As I moved through my day those previous distractions seemed to have begun to part and move out of my way to find reasonable solutions. 

Prayer: I pray that the Lord will help you to realize his great love and if you are anxious that He would comfort and console you and you would know His joy.