My circumstances reveal where my heart is. What I am trusting in. In Gods mercy He has allowed difficult circumstances in my life to keep my heart turned toward Him. He has allowed the things I have trusted in, hoped for, placed my joy and peace in to fail me. I am so thankful he has rescued me from the spinning wheel I life.
There use to be a man on a talent show on television years ago. He had long sticks, held upright, in his hands, mouth and head. He was balancing these sticks as they were spinning. On the end of the sticks, there were plates also spinning. He kept them going and balanced. This represented, to me, what I was trying to do in my life.
The plates represented things like my children, my marriage, ministry, reputation, duties to the community and to family, time spent with God. The plates would fall from time to time and I would bend down, pick the plate up, place it back on the stick, while balancing the others and set it spinning again. Then I got tired, holding my arms up, my head back and keeping my life spinning. One by one the plates began to fall, all of them, to the ground, breaking into hundreds of pieces. I fell also, flat of my back, but the grace of it all, I was looking up! Until then my eyes were focused on me balancing everything and all these plates represented.
Apart from this breakage, I would not have been able to see that I was at the center of my life. Also I was teaching my children and husband to have me there. I was trying to be the savior of the world. Like Eve in the garden, I wanted to be God.
Through these years of the struggle with mental illness God has taught me how to begin to trust in Him, not me and not my circumstances. I thought because I wanted good things, I wanted what God wanted. Gods ways are not our ways. He is extremely jealous of our affections and His glory. He is jealous for our complete hearts and to be the center of our lives. He does not rest nor slumber. He is relentless.
I still have down times but He does not leave me there. I think I have almost come to the point in my life of saying thank you Lord for it all. Thank you for giving me what you knew I needed and not the perfect life I was working so hard for. You are my life. You meet my every need. You are the Son that shines at the center of my universe, amongst the stars in my life. Before I experienced the rays from your light. Now I experience the Son.
There use to be a man on a talent show on television years ago. He had long sticks, held upright, in his hands, mouth and head. He was balancing these sticks as they were spinning. On the end of the sticks, there were plates also spinning. He kept them going and balanced. This represented, to me, what I was trying to do in my life.
The plates represented things like my children, my marriage, ministry, reputation, duties to the community and to family, time spent with God. The plates would fall from time to time and I would bend down, pick the plate up, place it back on the stick, while balancing the others and set it spinning again. Then I got tired, holding my arms up, my head back and keeping my life spinning. One by one the plates began to fall, all of them, to the ground, breaking into hundreds of pieces. I fell also, flat of my back, but the grace of it all, I was looking up! Until then my eyes were focused on me balancing everything and all these plates represented.
Apart from this breakage, I would not have been able to see that I was at the center of my life. Also I was teaching my children and husband to have me there. I was trying to be the savior of the world. Like Eve in the garden, I wanted to be God.
Through these years of the struggle with mental illness God has taught me how to begin to trust in Him, not me and not my circumstances. I thought because I wanted good things, I wanted what God wanted. Gods ways are not our ways. He is extremely jealous of our affections and His glory. He is jealous for our complete hearts and to be the center of our lives. He does not rest nor slumber. He is relentless.
I still have down times but He does not leave me there. I think I have almost come to the point in my life of saying thank you Lord for it all. Thank you for giving me what you knew I needed and not the perfect life I was working so hard for. You are my life. You meet my every need. You are the Son that shines at the center of my universe, amongst the stars in my life. Before I experienced the rays from your light. Now I experience the Son.
No comments:
Post a Comment