It's been a rough couple of months.
Do you ever have those times when you look at your life and say, "Seriously! This too???" I consider myself to be a pretty strong person, I rarely get rattled by life, I generally am able to keep a clear head through most situations and circumstances of life; but every once in a while I hear myself breathe that one word, "Seriously?"
It's been a rough couple of months and I have been trying to be strong for others around me.
It started with an unforseen and unexpected confrontation with some friends whom we loved (love) deeply, and suddenly the friendships were over. My mind is still trying to wrap itself around what exactly happened.
A close friend of ours went suddenly missing and after much searching her body was found in the river.
Some individuals in our community have taken it upon themselves to expose me and our church as the preachers of a false gospel and purveyors of heresy that we are. They do this in conversations, blogs, public withdrawals of community events and so on.
We are involved in a major project in our community for the youth that we believe God has been leading us in which suddenly has been hitting brick wall after brick wall...and God has been largely silent on the matter.
An incident which I assumed would just be a matter of clarification exploded in my face with another church in the area which we have a close working relationship with (...well, close relationships with period), that threatened to end the relationship. Again, still trying to wrap my mind around that one...
We almost lost my mom in a particularly scary and gory reaction to a failing liver (genetic condition, not do to bad lifestyle choices on her part). Through this we became aware of just how seriously her health is at risk right now.
We went for a family camping trip to just try and relax and regroup...and our dogs ran away. I know, I know, they're dogs, but tell that to my sobbing daughter. Another one of those "Seriously!?" moments. (We did find them a few days later, thank you Skip!)
Ok, I can hear some saying "Really? That's it?" I know, many people go through much worse things all of the time. The death of loved ones, children; debillitating and costly illness; personal betrayals of infidelity in marriage; persecutions that could actually cost lives; physical and brutal attack in rapes, murders and assaults of many kinds. Comparatively the last couple of months pale in comparison.
I think that has been my problem, comparing.
Over the last couple of months I have been evaluating every one of these circumstances as they come and saying to myself, "Well, it could be a lot worse, in fact a lot of people do have it a lot worse!" Then I would buck myself up, dust myself off, and tell those around me, "God is good, He knows what is going on and He will turn all this for good. I trust Him." I have said that many times over the last couple of months. I have meant it every time. I believe it. It is true. I have also been using all of those sentences as weapons to beat back the sadness of the situations; weapons to beat back the frustrations of being misunderstood, misrepresented, and things not working out the ways in which I really thought they would; weapons to not allow myself to truly grieve and hurt over losses and wounds.
My wife calls it "internalizing". I have been internalizing, stuffing things down deep that would like to rise up. I have been refusing to acknowledge the reality of the last couple of months; choosing instead to claim a reality in which things are really not that bad; where things could be much, much worse and so do not deserve to be given place; choosing a reality where my emotions are my enemy.
In reality, to call it as it is, I have been running my own life. I have been dealing with myself in the only way I know how, because God has bigger things to deal with. I have not been trusting Him. I have not been trusting my relationship with Him, that He just might not care about my comparisons to others "worse" problems. This is sin. Not the heavy guilt, condemnation, soul wrenching sense of worthlessness kind of sin; just sin at the core of what sin really is kind of sin, I have not been trusting God with my relatively (comparably) insignificant problems.
I think this is a pendulum swing that happens; I go from a place of desiring all that the world can offer (wealth, power, fame, success, sex, immediate and wanton gratification) to desiring all that is available in the Kingdom of God (knowing God, intimate relationship, love, forgiveness of sin, no guilt or condemnation, and so much more), that I become overwhelmed with the big picture of God and His interaction with the entire world and I lose perspective that I have been adopted as His son, and as such, I am intimately and specially known by God (I Cor. 8:3).
Peter sums it up this way in I Peter 5:6-7, "Be humble then, under God's mighty hand, that He may be the one to lift you up in due time, and give to Him all of your anxieties because He cares about You."
It's time to trade in my old thought for a new, it's time to repent, it's time to trust again.
