Wednesday, August 31, 2011

nobody puts Baby in a corner

My 3 year old is very outwardly expressive. If she's happy, she's shouting "Hooray, hooray!" If she's upset, she's crying, loudly. If she has an emotion or an opinion about something, you are going to know about it. Sometimes when she is being too "expressive" for me, I tell her to go sit on her bed until she can calm down. She cries... loudly... and reluctantly goes to her room. And then she does this thing. She says "Mommy, I done." But she doesn't say it once, she says it over and over and over until she gets my attention. When she succeeds, I then say, "You're not done until I say you are done. Stay here until Mommy tells you to come out." That is followed by a loud cry and reluctant obedience. After a few minutes, she's fine and we have a talk and she's back to being Happy Rhema.

One day when this was happening, the Holy Spirit started speaking to me about seasons. There are reasons why we are where we are. There are reasons why things happen when and how they happen. And when we go through "time-out" seasons, our true nature shines through. Time-out seasons are those times when you think you should be doing something great and it doesn't look like it, or when you know you blew it, or when you should be really happy with your life but for some reason you're not. It's when you thought God would do one thing and he's doing something else. It's in a tough time that I find out who I am. It comes right out. When you get squeezed, something's coming out, that's for sure, and it's not always pretty, and we shouldn't always expect it to be. The point is not doing things just right, always keeping a smile on our face and every hair in place. Sometimes the point is to just make it out alive. Sometimes the point is to have a testimony to help someone else make it through something similar. Sometimes God uses those seasons to prepare us for something we are not ready to face. Sometimes we have no clue of what's going on and we come out with an odd look and an "I got nothin."

The importance is not that we know what's going on and why we are in a certain season but that we know that God does and we trust him to know what he's doing. I need my kids to trust me. If I tell them to sit this one out, I need them to do it, even if they don't understand. Sometimes when God says, "Sarah, sit this one out," I ask questions and I try to reason with him and I read old journal entries trying to look for clues as to what he's doing and why I'm on the sideline of a situation. Basically, I'm telling him, "God, I done." Really I think he just wants me to say ok and obey. No matter what I think, he's doing something even when it looks like he's not and when I protest, I'm only getting in the way of his divine plan. Whatever he asks of us, it's only out of his deep love for us, and that's an immense comfort.

"We humans keep brainstorming options and plans, but God's purpose prevails."
Prov 19:21 The Message


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