Life is messy. Life is cyclical. Sometimes there is chaos and a lot of it all at once. Sometimes there is calm and ease. Truth be told. We need both. I hate to say it, but it's true.
We had a day like this last week. It was crazy. Our dog was injured in a dog fight rending her in need of much care, staples, and medicine. We found out we lost the contract on what we hoped to be our new home due to our current house closing late adding much stress to an already stressful move (moving is stressful no matter what way you look at it!). I got a ticket on the way to find out the likelyhood of us receiving help in an insurance claim for one of our children was slim to none unless I pleaded, begged, and figured out a way to communicate more clearly the need of this request. All to say, I related to the book Alexander and the Terible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst.
It was one of those days where I received the smiles, listening ear, and care from my family and many strangers as I just could not hold back the tears. Those tears flowed at every stop: the vet, the well visit, and to the policeman. I learned a very important lesson that day. A smile, a listening ear, an email or text with encouraging words is such a great gift. It is the simple things...it truly is. It can change dispair into hope.
And then later in the day when all my tears were cried, perspective came. I read of a family burying a baby that should still be in the womb. I read of another mother who is pregnant moving to the Congo to love on others and share the hope of Christ in an area we would hardly deem safe.
I reflected on the ways God is providing and taking care of us and asked him to give me faith and to forgive me for not trusting him when the waves comes. I realized again how I am just like Peter in the situation where he walked on water. When Peter saw the wind and waves, he panicked and began to sink. Jesus rebuked him saying 'you of little faith, why do you doubt?' And then I thought about the gospel. Life is repentance and faith, repentance and faith NOT perfection and arrival, perfection and arrival. So I repented and asked God to help me believe He will work all these things out in the way He sees best.
Am I struggling? Yes. It comes and goes, but thankfully as a Christian I am free to struggle...praise be to God I don't have to be perfect or get it right! I keep asking God to help me live well in the uncertainty and mess of life and to trust not in what I see or the outcome but in Him... for life truly is about the about the process not the arrival.
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