Thursday, January 19, 2017

Time flies when you are riding on God's coat tails

I remember as a young girl being bored and feeling like time took forever.  Days would drag on and boredom was my anthem.  I never liked it and I would go anywhere or do anything to avoid the drudgery. I guess I should've appreciated those quiet boring days a bit more because they seem to be such a distance memory for me these days.  Like...I remember that I used to have time to do silly things like deep clean my house or read a book in its entirety.  I used to be able to dream up more things to do because I didn't have enough to do.  Shut! I had 3 kids before I thought I could be a stay at home mom and not get bored.  Maybe I just have more energy and gusto than the average person, maybe I'm just too intense.  I don't know.  But God does and he has been happy to oblige in filling my life to the brim and maybe even to overflowing. 
I remember, it must've been 2008 or 2009, God told me to enjoy my rest because it was coming to an end.  I really didn't understand that concept because, well, I had never experienced a season that was so full rest would be illusive.  I remember it clearly, but never really pondered what He might mean by that.  Here I sit, 8-9 years later and I'm like the fat kid on the motorcycle screaming," SLOOOOOOOOOOOOOW DOOOOOOOOOOWN!" Hahaha! Cannoli! God wasn't kidding that my time of rest would come to an end.  I don't mean lack of peaceful sleep at night, though those moments have been readily available as well. I mean that life is soooo intense and sooo in your face that truly, there is no rest.  Each day is filled to the brim and maxed out that there is very little time to think or do anything else.  I have had friendships suffer and I have suffered and my kids have suffered, but praise God we have all survived!! 
The beautiful news is that in this filled to the brim life and days, I see the grace and mercy of God free flowing like a wellspring of life.  He is walking it with me and teaching me and training me and loving me and growing me in so many beautiful ways that I don't think for one second, I would choose to have restful days over these intense ones.  God is challenging me to my core of what I believe and Who I believe and how I believe and why I believe.  If there has been no other time in my life that I have ever loved God so intensely, now is my time.  Now is my time to live what the Bible has taught me.  To face my Garden of Gethsemene and sweat out my pleas as I pour out all who I am to Him and that it may be a sweet frangrance unto Him.  
I have recently felt that God told me there will soon be a time of peace for me.  This season of intensity beyond measure will subside and I will never be the same.  I will be stronger and more appreciative of the rest and peace.  I will draw from it, too, the beauty that God will reveal but I will always find this time in the smelter of God as a powerful and beautiful journey.  I have met intense happiness and intense grief in this time and it is kind of interesting that happiness doesn't seem to stick around as much as grief.  Grief seems to be more of a state of being in human form and my spirit experiences divine joy, and in that joy is where the beauty of grief lies. 
Time flies riding on God's coat tails.