Weights

Though the waves may rise….

Life seems to happen in waves. Sometimes the wave is gentle, like floating in an inner tube around a lazy river. Other times life is overwhelming, and you feel as though you are sucked under a wave unexpectedly and have to fight to the surface and get air.  That second example is my life right now. There is a part of me that is still adjusting to being here. Most mornings I wake up and I have to remind myself that this is my actual life. I am not moving to Nepal, or anywhere else overseas. Instead I am living in northern Virginia, and am working in an office again, at a desk with fluorescent lights that give me headaches. (As a side note, someone really needs to develop a better way to light office spaces. Seriously. Fluorescent lights are horrid and should be banned everywhere.)

There is so much good in being here, and I know that I am exactly where I am supposed to be. But when people ask me if I am so excited about my new job, I cannot honestly say yes. I am thankful for it, and I hope that excitement, or at least enjoyment, will come with time, but the shock of the 180 degree turn in the direction my life was going has not completely worn off yet. I am still processing, still bringing it before the Lord, still taking it one day at a time.

In the midst of so much transition – new job, new home, new people, crazy schedule, new church, new commute, new everything – there also seems to be an increase in the pain and sorrows of the people around me. The Lord has given me a sensitive nature that feels deeply when others are hurting, yet in my weariness those sorrows are settling like weights on my chest. One couple who lost their precious daughter 10 hours after she was born. Friends who are struggling to keep their marriage going. Lies that are believed as truth, and subsequently wreak havoc on a life. One family lost their son at the age of 18 to cancer. More cancer diagnoses. Massive transportation accidents that have claimed the lives of hundreds of people in the past few months. When I think about the situation in Syria, my heart breaks for the parent-less children, the child-less parents, the families forever destroyed, the innocent lives taken.  It is just too much, and I wonder how the Lord is going to bring beauty out of these ashes. I know He will, because He always does, but to me so much of the pain seems unnecessary – as though there should be a better way.

Then I am reminded that we live in the gap, between God’s perfect plan and our present reality. That our world is broken and cracked. That darkness often looks like it is prevailing, even when I know better. And I am reminded that the purpose of the gap is to push us towards our Rock. Towards the One Being in the entire universe who is completely trustworthy.  That on my own, the wave would win and I would come undone. But with Christ, I have an everlasting Rock who will never let me go. In my exhaustion, He is there. When I cannot sleep because my brain refuses to stop whirring, He brings peace. When the wave threatens to engulf me, Jesus tells it to be still. When my heart feels wrung dry, He renews my soul. When decisions must be made and I do not have the energy to focus, the Lord directs each step.

One day at a time, and in every moment choosing to lay these burdens at the foot of the cross. Though the wave grows ever higher, I shall not be moved, for the Lord my God is with me, and He is strong and mighty to save.

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