I’m no doubt a worrier. I overthink everything enough on my own, but my husband often makes it worse. He’s a scenario person. He has to run through all of the different scenarios of every big situation. This would all be fine except for the fact that he does it out loud, with me! To me this is torture. It just feeds into my anxiety to the point that I am in a state of total unease. He on the other hand is just fine because it’s his way of thinking things through, and then he just goes on about his usual business.
I could totally relate in this chapter when Joyce talks about she and her husband disagreeing about stuff and just realizing they are 2 different types of people. Here’s the thing, its ok! It’s ok for us to be different, it’s ok for us to need to process things in our own way, as long as we remember who’s actually in control.
“As much as we would like to know God’s plan and ways for us, all we really need to know is that His presence will be with us wherever He sends us and in whatever He gives us to do.”
I need to learn to rest in Him. I get ahead of myself and the situation at hand. Something that could turn into nothing, has already created chaos in my head and in turn my body. Sometimes I put so much energy into worrying about something and I think there’s no way around this mountain. At some point in the midst of all my worrying I realize the situation figured itself out and my worry was useless, the mountain has been moved. I’m sure I’m not the only one who does this right? “When we get upset about unimportant things, we throw open the door for the devil. We give him an opportunity to come in and wreak havoc. Often it is really not the devil’s fault, it is ours.” I’m so guilty of this, my front door is basically wide open with a welcome sign!
And then there’s the big life altering situations. We are in so much distress when we go through them that we cannot imagine what life will look like on the other side. If we aren’t in enough turmoil on our own, people come out of the woodwork to devastate us even more. It was funny reading this chapter because my husband and I have talked about this so much the past year. My whole life when I am in times of distress I have more friends then I ever realized. It’s certainly kind and I’m grateful to have people when I need them, but where are these friends when my life is good? When there’s no chaos or devastation. Why aren’t they there then, checking in, celebrating the good?
“The devil does not want us to think we can relax, rest, and enjoy life while we are having problems. He wants us to think we have to be up and running around doing something…..He will send our most closest friends and most trusted family members to say ‘I heard about your problem; what’re you going to do?’ In times of adversity, it may seem that everyone we meet wants to know what we are going to do.”
This is the time when we need to rest in Him the most. At some point the day comes where we look back and realize we made it out the other side. I can think of so many times in my life when I felt as if it could never get better or I could never get through the situation at hand. Or life will never be the same and why was God allowing this to happen to me. But I now realize at those moments I let the devil in my head and here I am on the other side of all those incredibly hard situations.
It reminds me of my favorite poem Footprints:
‘My precious, precious child, I love you and I would never leave you. During your times of trial and suffering, when you see only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you.’
~Elena
Elena And Erin.....It Is What It Is 