Chapter 2

Then come two tough things. The first is to put everything in God’s hands. You’ll have seen on bumper stickers, “Let go and let God.” We’re so desperate to be in control of our lives, and handing our problems over to an Unseen Power is the hardest thing to do at precisely the moment when we most need to do it. It is the ultimate test of faith for me. It feels as if I’m doing nothing constructive, when actually I am helping my situation by allowing God to work on it for me.

The second tough thing that fourth counsels us to do is pray for people we don’t like or who have mistreated us. As Dr. Peale writes, “Resentment is blockade number one of spiritual power.”

And so, while I was reading, I was also praying in the manner the book outlined. Getting the last shuttle back to the hotel that night was not the most important thing I’ve ever asked God for, but it was the most immediate need we had as a family and a test of how firmly I was willing to believe in the power of right-minded prayer.

Finally we boarded our plane, and it took off. By now it was clear that even with the captain going full throttle, we were going to land after midnight and miss the shuttle.

However, I refused to be so pessimistic. The further along I got with reading my book, the more convinced I was the shuttle would wait for us. My husband was thoroughly exasperated with me and my determination that all would be well.

“If it makes you happy, believe what you like,” he said. “But I’m telling you, we’re going to have to spend the night at the airport!”

The plane landed. We picked up our luggage and made for the shuttle bus stop. It was now 12:30 A.M. and the shuttle should have left half an hour ago.

Irritated beyond endurance by my constant chirping about how the shuttle would still be waiting for us, my husband ran on ahead so he could turn round and tell me, “I told you so!” when the shuttle was nowhere to be seen.

Instead, he ran outside to find the shuttle bus waiting by the bus stop, with the driver leaning against the cab.

“Why are you still here?” my incredulous husband asked.

“I don’t know,” came the reply.

My spouse admitted to being covered in goose bumps when the rest of us showed up and boarded the bus. I just smiled happily and said, “I told you it would be okay.”

That experience was my first introduction to how optimism really pays off. How wonderful I could put it into practice before I’d even finished the book!

There will be many of you reading this who’ll say I just got lucky—it was pure coincidence the shuttle driver was still waiting for us. I completely understand your reaction.

But if you were right, why have my prayers and optimism resolved the following, much more difficult, situations for me? 3: The Greedy Farmer

This is the story of someone trying to extort money unjustly from me. The sum involved was not small, and I was astounded when I first got the request to pay it.

In the mid 1990’s we bought and lived in a lovely property in the West Country of England. It had twenty-six acres of land, and we were able to set aside eleven of them every spring to grow hay for our horses, leaving the other grass paddocks for them to graze on.

The summer before we moved to the States, I asked the farmer I usually employed to come and cut the hay. By then we were about to sell the house and move out of the country, so I told the farmer he could keep the hay.

Stupidly I didn’t discuss this with him, but I assumed the laws of fairness dictated that, if I was giving him an eleven hundred bales of hay crop, he would waive the cost of cutting it. The value of the crop far outweighed the cost to the farmer of turning my long grass into bales, which he could sell for a profit. It never occurred to me he would take the hay, for free, then charge me for making it!

I had been in the States for about a year when I received a bill from the farmer for cutting and baling the hay he had taken and sold. This is a mistake, I thought. I wrote back saying surely he wasn’t charging me for preparing hay which I had given to him for nothing?

The reply came that he’d had the cost of storing the hay before selling it and had sold it at cost. My response was what he did with the hay was surely not my responsibility and I could not see how I owed him any money.

He had received goods of far greater value in return for work of lesser value. How was it fair that I pay him for something he received? To my mind that put an end to the whole discussion. No reasonable person could possibly think I owed the farmer any money!

But it seemed I wasn’t dealing with a reasonable person.