Honestly, right now I just don't know what to write. I keep trying to think of something deep and moving; some little bit of insight; something that I just can't keep inside of me and want to share with the world. . . . . . but there's nothing. I don't understand. I usually have no problem writing.
I wrote something back in December that seems to fit for today. Here it is. Yes, it's slightly outdated, but the lessons in it are as applicable as they were then.
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Ok, wow. So, life throws curve balls. This past month has been killer. I honestly wonder sometimes how I survived it--how I am not dead from exhaustion and stress. But yet, here I am. And I have learned. So. Much.
When a friend asks you to tell him the good things that have happened to you that day, or the blessings that you have, and you can only list two--and that with difficulty--you can be assured that something isn't right. A few weeks ago that was where I was.
Since then, I've learned that when life is dark, there is still sunshine. Just because you can't see it doesn't mean it isn't there. Maybe there are clouds. It's just covered up for a while. My newest dear friend, Jennifer, asked me the other day what was good about gray skies. She was trying to get me to think positively, I think. Living in Michigan and seeing gray skies 323 days a year doesn't make one very optimistic about them. So, when she asked me, I couldn't tell her what was good about them. There was nothing, as far as I could tell.
I thought about it for a while. When people ask me a question I tend to think about it until I find an answer. I finally got it more than 12 hours later. Yeah, sometimes these things take me a while. But I got it. If there were only sunny days, would we appreciate them? That was my answer. Gray skies are good because they make us thankful for the sun.
That thought reminded me of something I read one time. It was in the book Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis. One of the characters made a profound statement when things weren't going well and it has stuck through many years. "And I say also this. I do not think the forest would be so bright, nor the water so warm, nor love so sweet, if there were no danger in the lakes." And he was right.
I've learned other things as well: Sometimes you have to lose things to appreciate them. Sometimes we have to make a painful choice, knowing that it is for the best. Sometimes things end, and though it is hard, we have to remember them anyway. We can't go through life remembering only the good things and forgetting the bad. If we did that, the good things would stop looking good and we would have nothing in the end at all.
Something else... We need to wait. We need to trust God and have faith that He knows what is best. That He has His perfect plan for our life in His sight. If we go through life ready and waiting until we hear Him calling us, or sense Him saying, "Now is the time to go," then we will see that His plans are perfect.
But then, in juxtaposition, there are times when we don't hear or feel anything that we know is Him telling us to do something. Those times can be hard. He feels distant at times. But He isn't. He s always right there beside you. However, if you look the other way, you aren't going to see Him.
A book I just read said that we aren't always going to know when God speaks to us. I know that is true. We go through life making excuses, saying, no...that wasn't God speaking. That was the devil putting ideas in my head--why would God have me do something dangerous? Something that hurts? Or no, God didn't tell me to do that. It was just some random idea I thought up. Those excuses, and I will be the first to admit that I make them all the time, are a big part of what distances us from God and His plans for our lives. Maybe we should consider just doing the things we are reasonably sure we should do--without making the excuse that "maybe God didn't tell me to."
It's funny how He works when you do. For more than a year I have been refusing to lead a Bible study. I made so many excuses: I don't have time, no one will be interested, I don't know what I would teach, and my main one . . . . I am not fit to teach anyone anything. Why on earth would you want me to be the one?
I think God chuckled the other day when I finally gave in. He laughed to himself saying, "Silly child. She has no idea. I can wait forever for her . . . but if she would only do what I am calling her to do she would see so much more of my fullness and my love and my wonder . . . Oh dear, silly child."
I'm sure that's what He was thinking. Amazed at how stubborn I was, not wanting to do what I knew I should do. Laughing at my excuses in much the same way He likely laughed at Moses when he claimed he couldn't speak, or David who was too small to be of any use, or Samuel who became the first to hear God speak in a long, long time, or Esther who was made queen though she was of the same people who were being persecuted, or Ruth--an outsider made into part of the lineage of Jesus. . . And so many others. Everyone God used was someone who the world looked at and said, "No, they will never ________________."
Why would God use broken people? Honestly? He uses broken people because it is through the broken people that His light can shine into the world. Hey, I like that analogy. . . He is like a light, and we are like a clay jar. When we have it all together, the world can't see Him--it can only see us. But when we are broken, and we stop trying to hold together the pieces to make the world think that we can do it on our own, then, and only then, can the world see that we have a light in us--and oh, what a marvelous light!
My excuses are worthless when compared to this.
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