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Sunday, December 23, 2012

To trust or not to trust?

I have been reading "1000 Gifts" by Ann Voskamp over this past week.(Her blog is www.aholyexperience.com and is a wonderful place to go to see God at work.)

 I have been learning a great deal about myself, and I have serious trust (or should I say, lack of trust) issues. I want- really, expect things to be good. To turn out all nicey nicey. And if it doesnt, I have to find someone to blame. I know I don't deserve to have my way, but I want it. Really, really badly. and I often sacrifice much on the altar of self to get it. 

So today, I am taking a little side step from Colossians to share my journal entry from a few days ago. 

This joy-journey has me undone. I am not a natural. Not a "truster". Not one who has yet learned to "see". To embrace the impossible- the "Him-possible" and look with the wonder of a child. I lost that somewhere along the rocky road of life.

Sure, I can look and see through the good times; I can remember. But for the future? A choke hold comes upon my anxious heart and the "what if's" fly in the face of my ever increasing thankfulness, saying, "you don't know if He will be good in the future. You don't know what will happen." 

And I reel, and I thrash and still a Hope-beam shines piercing the fear like a hot knife into a block of ice. 

A whisper of quietness tries to touch my soul. "But Remember" it says. 

And I breathe. And exhale. Breathe and exhale.

Ps. 1:2
But his delight (joy) is in the law of the LORD and on His law does he meditate day and night.
He is like a tree, planted by streams of water which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers. (emphasis mine)
 Meditate. Remember.

What law? 

Thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul and with all thy strength. And thou shalt have no other gods before me. 

OUCH.

When I elevate my heart as to think that I deserve anything, then I am ungrateful, prideful and putting myself on the throne. But when I, in gratitude, bend the knee saying come what may, not my will but thine be done...

Is it really that simple? and that difficult?

Every good thing, and every perfect gift comes down from the Father of lights in whom there is not shadow - no darkness - and who does not change like the shifting sands (of my life). He is the steady one, not I.

I wish I could just nail the lid on this- be done with it and never have to think about it again. Never worry about the future. About my kids and what would happen to them if something happened to me. What may come. Be done with it. Learn it once for all. But now that I have opened it, scratched the scab off, I see there is a gaping hole and all my fears come tumbling out. Spilling, dripping bleeding. 

And I am undone. 

I am like a bird with the cage door open and I don't know- don't remember how to fly. Or perhaps I am just petrified. 

Remember. That is the key that unlocks this trap. Recount. Thanksgiving. Gratitude.

I have lived so long in the state of trying to balance everything, to do enough good that it evens out and that God will recognize it, so he won't send bad stuff my way.....That is not my motive. My motive is love for Jesus, and love for others. But if I really think about it, deep down under the layers, all the way to the marrow, I am afraid. 

Of dying. 

Of my kids getting hurt or sick or killed.

Of pain.

Of how am I going to see Her? And that somehow, I might really stop loving Her. She who traded the beauty inside and out for a lie? She who has cut me so deep that I bleed joy and pain intermingled? She- who wants so desperately to become he- all the while hoping that is the answer to her own pain? 

Remember.

Recount.

Thousands upon Thousands.

Heaped up and spilling over. Blessings. Gifts. 

And He who gives good gifts- the ones we see- can He not disguise those good gifts in earthly pains?

He was.
He is. 

Did not His ultimate earthly pain bring us the most joy?

He, who for the joy set before Him suffered death (and separation from God) even death on a cross. 

Joy.

And I identify with Him, and He with me in my painful quest for joy. 
I crucify my desires- even my fears upon the cross with Him. I can let go. I can be free to accept whatever comes from His hand. Because it comes from the hand with hole in it. The Whole in it.

Ps. 1:6
For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous- but the wicked will perish.

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