Out of my Shell
As parts of the country are beginning the recovery process from Harvey and others are enduring the wrath of Irma, I find myself in my own personal storm. Normally when I go through storms, I go into turtle mode and keep to myself. I go into my shell because I have conflicting thoughts and I need the quiet to work through my thoughts and let God speak to me rather than get influenced by outside opinions. I also don’t like people to see my flaws, tears, and insecurities. Last night I took a long walk and I feel like I heard God tell me to share my thoughts, so here it goes.
I’ve been in the church my whole life. I’ve been in storms and have a frame of reference for what God can do. I remember getting a fairly substantial check in the mail from a class action settlement I knew nothing about when I was in need of a financial miracle. I remember God sending an angel to step in and offer to let me use an extra car when I didn’t have one and another to help me through the loss of my mother.
I listened and embraced sermons that explained each test of faith would be a little more difficult as faith is a muscle, and like a bicep, you can’t build your faith lifting the same amount of weight. I have a fairly decent knowledge of the bible. I spend some time in the Word nearly every day. I know that His ways are not my ways and His time is not my time. I have songs of encouragement that I can reference. Despite all of this, I’m still human and get anxious and worried and sometimes I find myself at a pity party. I find myself remembering the prayers that weren’t answered the way I would have liked them to be answered like my prayer for my mom’s healing ended up with her recovery being on the other side of glory and not here with me. I find myself wondering why my best just never seems to be good enough and why others who don’t know God as well seem to be doing so much better than I.
Not that I want a new storm, but I wonder why I’m getting a repeat test. Did I fail the first time? Or maybe like my daughter’s spelling last year if she spelled all the words correctly on the pretest, she earned the challenge list of words for the final test. So many thoughts. So many questions I won’ know the answers to until I get to heaven and though sometimes I get in a place where I don’t feel I can take anymore, I remember what it felt like to have my father pass when I was thirteen and I don’t want my kids to go through the same, so I’m going to have to wait for the answers. For now I’ll have to continue to trust in God’s promises and continue to press on.