Tuesday, July 12, 2016

 I love walking through marinas, enjoying the calm rhythm of waves lapping against docked boats...one of my favorite sounds. I also love the serenity of ocean waves spilling onto shoreline. The lull of each ebb and flow hushes my soul. 
 But there is no such peace in the constant pounding of life's anxieties and irritations; those waves can beat down our weary souls.
I've had my share of frustrations these past weeks. I've battled one by one: insurance re-certifications, shaky social workers, leaky faucets, giant-sized walkers. I've fought loneliness, pain, a pile of medical bills. But yesterday, one too many waves spilled and all came crashing down.
My driver, a good friend, stood by helpless. I limped out of the Fed Ex lobby and three years of grief and exhaustion overflowed. 
You see, just like the ocean's rhythm, life can lull us into believing if we just try hard enough, fight long enough, we can put on a brave front and make it through life on our own might. I'd surely convinced myself and perhaps most others, that I was winning the fight.
It was an ugly breakdown yesterday; I even cried for God to just take me Home. But ultimately, surrender is beautiful.  I lost my battle with pride and self-sufficiency! 
My current therapy assistant has hinted that I might have a life-long limp from my injury. Thankfully, with more therapy, my surgeon disagrees, but the image is not lost on me. I'm reminded of Jacob, the heel grabber, subdued in his wrestle with God...a dislocated hip, a limp, a blessing. Was it the surrender or the limp that saved Jacob's life?
I'm learning it's not my fight. 
Paul wrote to young Timothy, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith." 
It wasn't Paul's fight either.
Faith! I almost overlooked the connection. Paul surrendered his difficult race to his God. Faith...putting the fight back into God's hands.

 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.  That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships,in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.  
2 Corinthians 12:9-10NIV


   

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