Seems like my life lately is getting bashed up like crazy....kids have been sick, husband is sick, I've been sick......never mind work and the rental and school and ten thousand other things riding on us.
After another day of feeling the awful nauseous up and down stomach...the sweating... the tiredness...the apathy about what is happening around me, I thought about a friend that I had in high school. She told me one day that she loved to put her cat into the dryer and turn it on, just to bug the cat. She was shockingly delighted to tell me that, and I was shockingly silent when she did so. Her poor cat was a crippled, jumpy, freaked out animal that didn't deserve that treatment, and I was always uncomfortable about that story.
Sometimes the events in my life feel like I am being put into the washing machine by forces beyond my control; life fate, Satan, whatever. I know that there are ups and down, but sometimes when it rains, it freakin pours!! I forget about my choices, my plans, my life....and fall face down into a huge pity party. Sometimes I even think that I deserve this chaos...sometimes I think that god is like a crazy 15 year old who loves to torture helpless beings.....
After all, if it doesn't kill you, it should make you stronger, right?
I'm not sure that I really believe that anymore.
The trials in my life that come from brokenness and failure and weakness....they bring about times for me that make me look very hard at what I have to give, and what I really need to get through. Honestly, I actually have very little to give the world at all. But God has so much more. He is great, a loving God who has great plans for me and my family and my faith...
Often, when problems in my life arise, I find a way to make it better, even if only for a little while. And I do this for friends too.....I clean up, or bake, or get a haircut, or a massage, or have little wine...and for a while, I feel better, I have something to give, I move on.
Many times in the last few years though, I find that I have nothing to give. Not to my spouse, not to my clients, not to my extended family. I had to quit my whole life at one point, when I came to the end of myself. Where does one go from there?
I have found now that if I go right to God, first, there is strength, or comfort, or even grace for a day ahead of me that I previously could never face. Instead of covering up the bumps in my life with cupcakes and coming out of a mess with icing on my face, I look very intently into the Word, the face of my Jesus when things are coming apart, and I ask what He wants me to learn so that when this washing cycle is over, I can come out with another part of me cleaned off instead.
In essence, when i find myself in the washing machine of Life, I make sure and pray that God is leading me, teaching me, and keeping me there until the cycle is completely done. As I get older, I don't really feel like learning the same lesson over and over. Do you? Let's get it done, Lord, I say.
These days, I am learning to be dedicated in my devotions with God, and to trust Him every day with the worries of my heart. He is testing me every day, through my Baby, my illness, my crazy schedule.....but I am determined to stick this out for the prize He has for me....Peace. Peace that He gives, that passes all understand and isn't dependant on a fresh baked brownie or a sympathetic pat from a friend....it is upheld by a deep salvation and an eternal perspective on life...
The washing machine cycle always ends....but do you know who is helping you do the dirty laundry in your life?
Eternity is keeping me going today, what is keeping you going?
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