Ever feel that way? Like that sometimes we simply cannot handle the truth. Maybe it’s the truth that a loved one just received a bad report from the doctor. Or the truth that it’s Sunday night and tomorrow is Monday and your are simply not ready to adult again. Or the truth that all parts of your life *feel* messy and it’s just making you “sick and tired”.
Well that’s where I was at the end of last week.
And while I know better, I even decided to camp out there. I decided that it was “OK” to let these emotions and these thoughts flood me and that while I was camped out, I might as well through my “Debbie-Downer” self a nice “pity-party.” To which I sucked my husband into as well.
THANKFULLY, he stayed strong and tried his darndest to keep redirecting my thoughts and encouraging me. Of course in ever-so slightly subtle ways, as he knows if he pushes too hard in doing good and encouraging, I will push him away, declaring that he’s not giving me adequate time to, as the old country song says, “I just wanna be mad for a while”
Now mind you. My week started out pretty normal and on Tuesday, as we entered the 2nd New Month of the New Year, I wanted to encourage everyone with a FB post essentially noting to evaluate your 2017 goals for the month of January, start fresh in February, and Be Intentional. (Very motivating if you ask me)
So why, you might ask, did my week end so sour? Well. After that post…
All. Hell. Broke. Loose. (Sorry to any offended by my use of *hell* but shew golly, sometimes you just gotta be real!)
Work=draining. Draining emails. Draining situations. People were draining. Now I love my job, but last week seemed to either bring negativity about loosing so many battles where we were trying to “bridge the gap” or “manager guilt” about my team. I left Friday with the deadlift of defeat.
Children. They are 4, 2, and 8 months. Enough said.
Marriage. It’s just hard people! We had a conversation this weekend about how 7 years is a solid time and my husband was under the impression we’d really overcome the main obstacles. I told him…it’s only just begun. But really, when you cut through the messes of our marriage (because come on, we all have messes–unless perhaps there is a 0.1% who truly have no messes while the other 99.9% of us do or are simply being real about it…) it circles around communication.
Small Group. It was starting in less than a week and I felt unprepared to handle my own life, much less help others’ lives to be impacted by Jesus. And if anything, I was running the opposite direction of Jesus.
But in the midst of trying to run the other direction, even when He knows we want to run and hide, He still comes looking for us (He did it for Adam and Eve and still does it). And isn’t it funny how God can then enable us to “handle the truth.”
Because you see, then there was Sunday. After my Friday and Saturday of settling into Defeat Dungeon, there was Sunday. The day my family chooses to congregate together, with fellow believers, and worship Jesus. And in that worship. In the melody of soft music playing. An atmosphere of divinity. There were tears. Tears that streamed down my face. And when the opportunity was given for prayer with a counselor, I moved. And in that moment, with a dear friend, I stopped running. I fell into His arms. The one who ultimately holds my future. Who wants what’s best for me, but it comes with a price. Because to grow in Him, I must grow WITH Him. And sometimes the truth of that growth…that stretching and pulling and tugging from the ugly and yucky and “messy” parts of life…seems like a truth we can’t handle.
And we can’t- Not on our own anyway.
Why do you think there is so much “junk” in our world? (I should let that sink in a while longer, but I’ll keep moving on…)
When we do it on our own, we aren’t “doing” life as God intended. But if we cling to him, and resist the enemy, he (the enemy) will flee.
And that’s what I did Sunday.
Clung.
Resisted.
And then rested, in Him.
Jennifer R Salveson 