When You're Holding On
In a week full of doctor's appointments, house painting, homeschooling, soccer games, dance practice, and crazy mess, it's easy to lose your peace and joy. Holding on to it is the hard part.
As the week wore on amid the mess of ripping apart rooms to paint them, the interruption of doctor's appointments, schoolwork uncompleted, and still holding on to peace until...
There was this uninvited house guest.
As I was going up to bed late Thursday night, bleary-eyed, and exhausted, I went down to the basement laundry room to get pajamas. I stopped by the adjacent game shelf and that's when I saw the evidence, we were hosting a house guest. A small, furry, long tailed guest that incessantly chews with his mouth open and leaves behind crumbs of drywall and wood.
As I stood there gaping at this small guest's dinner leftovers, I could feel the peace begin running right out through my toes. And this anxious knot in my stomach, churning, and tentacles grasping at my throat, strangling.
In my mind's eye I could see this house guest prancing gaily through my 10 loads of clean laundry that had been dumped out on the laundry room floor by children. Children looking for soccer socks, and dance skirts, and clean underwear. And this house guest, I could see him dancing, and dropping little mousy presents over it all.
I think I might scream.
I want to scream, "Peace, don't leave me now! This is when I most need you!"
But the peace, it's running out of me like water from a leaky balloon , and all I can see in this moment is this overwhelming mess, and the exhaustion, and all the work I have to do, and I am Martha standing there with the Lord howling, "Won't you do something?"
And so I work, cleaning, scrubbing late into the night, only to fall into bed exhausted and awake to more of the same.
The next day dawns with the same anxious knot of frustration, and all I want is my peace back, and I don't care about this cleaning and mess, but where is the way back to the path of peace, and how did I get lost in the woods so quickly?
Schooling kids and baby crying and endless messes and this frustration builds.
As the day wears on, I'm wearing thin, and trying hard to remember all that I've been learning, and grace where is it?
And then Peace, He speaks.
"I'm right here. I never left. Peace isn't a thing to hold on to, it's a Person that can never let go. Trust me. All this working, this struggling in your own strength, it's striving, it's faithless. Believe. Believe that I am strong enough, that I have got this well in hand. That all things work together for the good of those who love me, even this. And all this working, it's idolatry. It's trusting in yourself to get this job done. Yes, this job needs done, but let me do it through you in Faith. My grace is sufficient for you. It is enough."
This Prince of Peace, come to rescue me once again, from my faithless self and life of striving.
"Lord, forgive me of this idolatry, of striving, and trusting in other things besides you. I trust you."
Light breaks, I find the path in this dark woods, and feet find gravel and I'm finding my way back.
He is the Light, He is the Peace, and He can never be lost, I must only believe.
This grace is helping me to see that it's not about me keeping everything held together, but that He can never let go.
As the week wore on amid the mess of ripping apart rooms to paint them, the interruption of doctor's appointments, schoolwork uncompleted, and still holding on to peace until...
There was this uninvited house guest.
As I was going up to bed late Thursday night, bleary-eyed, and exhausted, I went down to the basement laundry room to get pajamas. I stopped by the adjacent game shelf and that's when I saw the evidence, we were hosting a house guest. A small, furry, long tailed guest that incessantly chews with his mouth open and leaves behind crumbs of drywall and wood.
As I stood there gaping at this small guest's dinner leftovers, I could feel the peace begin running right out through my toes. And this anxious knot in my stomach, churning, and tentacles grasping at my throat, strangling.
In my mind's eye I could see this house guest prancing gaily through my 10 loads of clean laundry that had been dumped out on the laundry room floor by children. Children looking for soccer socks, and dance skirts, and clean underwear. And this house guest, I could see him dancing, and dropping little mousy presents over it all.
I think I might scream.
I want to scream, "Peace, don't leave me now! This is when I most need you!"
But the peace, it's running out of me like water from a leaky balloon , and all I can see in this moment is this overwhelming mess, and the exhaustion, and all the work I have to do, and I am Martha standing there with the Lord howling, "Won't you do something?"
And so I work, cleaning, scrubbing late into the night, only to fall into bed exhausted and awake to more of the same.
The next day dawns with the same anxious knot of frustration, and all I want is my peace back, and I don't care about this cleaning and mess, but where is the way back to the path of peace, and how did I get lost in the woods so quickly?
Schooling kids and baby crying and endless messes and this frustration builds.
As the day wears on, I'm wearing thin, and trying hard to remember all that I've been learning, and grace where is it?
And then Peace, He speaks.
"I'm right here. I never left. Peace isn't a thing to hold on to, it's a Person that can never let go. Trust me. All this working, this struggling in your own strength, it's striving, it's faithless. Believe. Believe that I am strong enough, that I have got this well in hand. That all things work together for the good of those who love me, even this. And all this working, it's idolatry. It's trusting in yourself to get this job done. Yes, this job needs done, but let me do it through you in Faith. My grace is sufficient for you. It is enough."
This Prince of Peace, come to rescue me once again, from my faithless self and life of striving.
"Lord, forgive me of this idolatry, of striving, and trusting in other things besides you. I trust you."
Light breaks, I find the path in this dark woods, and feet find gravel and I'm finding my way back.
He is the Light, He is the Peace, and He can never be lost, I must only believe.
This grace is helping me to see that it's not about me keeping everything held together, but that He can never let go.
Comments
Post a Comment