I’m sitting
here on a bench in my front yard. It’s a bench I’ve had a while, but it once
sat bare, plain and black, and is now adorned with a sea foam cushion. It also
used to sit on my entry way path and now sits under a tree. It’s very early in
the morning, and I just saw the girl carrying her dog walk by again, though I
haven’t seen her walk by in almost 4 years. Yet she looks the same, as did her
dog. Both a little fuller in spunk, but immediately recognizable. His car is parked
exactly where it was always parked right outside our gate. Situated just so to
be seen from his front window. I also just saw the triplets go by. They live 4
doors down, they’ve always lived 4 doors down. But I haven’t. I moved away from
this very house 3 and a half years ago. But this week I moved back. And
everything has changed, yet absolutely nothing has changed. I wonder if they
see me sitting on my bench and say to themselves, “there’s that woman, a little
thinner than she was, but I haven’t seen her in a while”.
I’m very
thoughtful as I sit on this bench early this morning. If only you could fully
be in my head instead of only seeing these few words that will spill over onto
this screen. There’s a chaotic swirl of thoughts, almost haphazard in their
formation. All a result of several months of navigation of high pace demands
both at work and at home, but more recently my being served up a gumbo of life
all in a few short days. I’ve learned in life through various circumstances
that there is physical exhaustion, there is mental exhaustion, and then there
is emotional exhaustion. I know you, too, have experienced each. And when all 3
come on you all at once, you find yourself not knowing up from down at times.
But unfortunately, life doesn’t seem to give you a “leave of absence” or even a
courtesy nod, and you find yourself trying to figure out exactly how to go
about getting yourself out from underneath the layered tripod above you. Forget
about getting back on top, you’d settle for a simple, half-way there. So I am digging myself back to half-way there.
And you can almost see it. It’s just Right. Over. There.
What I find
so frustrating in this process is it happened so quickly and felt so out of my
control. It truly was the perfect storm where I almost felt “set up” by life.
It’s as if Work called up Home and had a conference call and said if you do this,
and I do this, and then my Social Sphere called in via webex and said “I’m game”,
and they all concocted this perfect strategic brainstorming session while I had
stepped away for 3 minutes to the water cooler. When I arrived back nothing looked
like it had when I left and everything was amuck and suddenly due in 3 hours!
What’s
ridiculous is I actually consider myself quite successful at self-care and
self-protection. I’ve focused the last 2 years on learning to say no to the
things that aren’t service to others or are harmful for myself. (You have to be
careful with the concept of learning to say no. It isn’t an all or none thing,
I think people take often that “mantra” too far left or too far right.
Sometimes we should in fact put others
before ourselves, sometimes work is supposed to be difficult and stressful,
that is why it is called work and not a hobby, so carefully evaluate when it is
right to say no and when it is not). I have successfully learned to institute
boundaries and hold people accountable for actions and remove manipulators from
my life. I plan my calendar carefully to avoid over tasking at home and I work
hard to avoid “the American way of life” pit falls. Yet with all of these self-care
actions in place, the perfect storm still brewed itself the most bitter of
coffees and plopped itself right down into my “Calm” cup. So therefore I ask
myself……this must have been out of my control and therefore what exactly am I
to glean from this moment?
I’m reminded
we are to be still even in the roughest of seas.
Psalm 46:10.
Be still and know that I am God.
When Life
comes at you fast, God has not abandoned you. Often in the midst of chaos,
(particularly if you are a planner and problem solver like me) you immediately
start looking for your way out. You start planning for the solution and trying
to manipulate the situation to your outcome as you see fit. We can’t stand the
uncomfortable. We can’t fathom 10 days of frustration. We are an inpatient
being of disgrace in that way. Heaven forbid we sit in a moment of discontent for
a second longer that we see suitable. We walk to the mailbox and complain the
entire way back about the heat for example. To. The. Mailbox. But imagine an
hour long meeting that cramped our style and made us stay late after work. One
day after work. One day. Are we catching our drift? But now we are pushing a
week of heavy demands. Ok that is getting more uncomfortable. Let’s ask
ourselves. What should we just learn to better tolerate (the mailbox, the hour
long meeting?) and what should we start asking ourselves do we need better
boundaries…(months of working after hours?). Each of those will be different
for each person, but I do think we all have to ask ourselves 1) are we over
complainers and rather high maintenance in any given situation, 2) are we people
who allow life to happen to us because we don’t set suitable boundaries, 3) or
is this given moment a situation where life is happening outside of our control
and we are supposed to be here in this very moment and we need to look for
something to take from it?
Have we ever
thought that maybe there is intent in our discomfort? Purpose in our
frustration? How many new problems do we end up creating simply by trying to
solve just one? We don’t have to solve every single issue that lands on our
doorstep. Have you ever considered that
the uncomfortable person in that staff meeting just may be the person that
changes your life a few months down the road? Have you ever thought there is
maybe a little reforming intended in our heartbreak? Are you out there trying
to solve every single issue that lands on your child’s plate? Maybe God needs
your child to squirm a little to draw her closer to him. Maybe God needs your
child to squirm a little to draw YOU closer to him. Maybe, just maybe God needs
you to just sit still for a moment.
Be still
and know that he is God.
Today as I am
navigating some muck that somehow landed on my doorstep this past month. Some
muck that I think was outside of my control. I am being so very careful to pull
back and see what is Sally’s to solve, and where does Sally need to squirm a
little bit and trust for God to do what God promises to do. His promises are
just as true in the muck as they are in clearest of day. And I’m claiming his
promises as a reminder that God will do just as he said he will do. I’m sitting
in the uncomfortable for a bit. I am even in the most recent of days, sitting
in the trauma for a little bit. Trust me, I am figuring it out as I go, so I do
not by any means have this all figured out, but I do know his promises and know
that those I can trust.
Mathew 11:28 Then Jesus said, “Come to me,
all of you who are weary and
carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.
We don’t have to
wait for God to do what he says he will do. He’s already done it. His promises
are there to be claimed and grabbed hold of and incorporated into our lives. “I
will give you rest”.
I wonder how
often we sit around waiting for something that God has already done. I often
think we as a human race are too busy, too disconnected, too self-focused, that
we don’t even see what God has already done for us. Mainly I think we spend
most of our lives not walking with God, with him not as a center focus, and
therefore how in the world can we see his promises and what is has already laid
down for us? His promise is already laid out for us there in Matthew. If we
would connect ourselves to him as the center of life, he doesn’t say we won’t
have burdens, he actually implies in that verse that burdens will exist, but he
promises rest will come. Even as I type these words out on this screen, my
heart is rolling around in a moment of rest. Let’s read that again.
Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and
carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.
Are you, like me
this week, spending your day so task driven and up to your eyeballs in moving
boxes and work tasks, and dragging your children from here to there, and
grocery shopping, and finding a spot for your socks that used to go in this
drawer, but that drawer doesn’t exist anymore…..and instead not taking 10
minutes to connect with God? In 10 minutes of finding that verse, my heart
started to unclench in its panic and soften in its rest. We are too busy NOT to
claim his promises in our day.
Or do you have
something deeper? Are you sinking in a diagnosis that seems impossible? Are you
facing something that feels like there is no way out? Have you just lost your
everything and you don’t know if there will ever be an up again? Do you have a prodigal son who has lost his
way? Do you have a lost trust? Do you feel abandoned? There is a promise for
that too.
Life is going to
come at us fast. Often outside of our control. And it’s at those moments that
we need his word hidden in our hearts to pull out at a moment’s notice. Just 2
days ago, a dear friend lost her husband in a tragic suicidal moment. Then another
friend lost her son, daughter, and unborn child in a car accident on the way to
delivery their baby, another lost a brother unexpectedly, after soon another tragically
lost a new husband to cancer. This week has been a week of loss. And this week
has thrown me back into my own loss as I have attempted to loved on those
around me while navigating chaos in exhaustion. It only takes a split second
for your world to be upside down with tasks, or for your world to be upside
down in a way you will never imagine. Surround yourself with people who
encourage you to equip yourself. And surround yourself with God’s word well
before you find yourself needing it in a way you never thought imaginable. I
hope you flood my inbox with verses you know and love. You never know who else
just may need exactly what you write.
Maybe you will
find your hope in one of these promises as I came across them this morning out on
my lopsided bench. This bench is restoring me in more ways than one, providing a familiar place
to bring me and my soul back home.
Isaiah 40:31 - But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew
their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and
not be weary.
Romans 8:28 - And we know that in all
things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called
according to his purpose.
Psalm 16:8 - I have set the LORD always before me;
because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.
Romans 8:25 - But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for
it patiently.
Psalm 119:50 - This is my comfort in my affliction, that your
promise gives me life.
Psalm 130:5 - I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits, and in his word I put my hope.
Mark 10:27 - Jesus looked at them and said, with man it is
impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God.
Psalm 27:14 - Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for
the LORD.
1 Peter 5:7 - Casting all your anxieties on him, because he
cares for you.
Romans 15:13 - May the God of hope fill
you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with
hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Romans 5:3-4 - Not only so, but we also glory in our
sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance,
character; and character, hope.
You can access previous posts HERE.
You can access previous posts HERE.
