Wiggling from side to side. Rocking head back and forth. Arms up and down. Voice raising…screams. Yes, this is what it’s like when a one-year-old feels confined. Confined in her car seat while running errands. Being forced to sit for any period of time is like torture to her little body.
Thinking I have the great “mommy fix” I reach back to hand her an applesauce squeezy. Surely this will occupy her. As soon as her fingers wrap around the container Old Faithful erupts. Applesauce shoots in the air. We now have a mess.
I sigh…a big sigh. For there is nothing I can do in this moment. We are on a long hilly, curvy road. She will have to sit in the mess. However, the squeezy and the mess entertain her until we make it home.
Part of me is afraid to open the van door. Afraid to see how big the mess is. Afraid to see how my “mommy skills” failed.
The rest of the day while I meditated on these events I kept thinking, “there has to be a lesson here.” What can I learn? How can I see God in this seemingly annoying situation?
The squeezy is my heart. The applesauce: truth, love, joy. Many times my heart is full of these. Full of truth, love and joy. Then it seems out of nowhere little hands wrap around my heart and out goes the contents. Everywhere. Disappointments, failures, rejections, and lies squeeze at my heart. They squeeze and squeeze shooting truth, love, and joy from my heart.
Somedays I am able to keep the lid on. Somedays I am able to hold onto truth, love, and joy, but other days I let go. I let circumstances squeeze the contents of my heart. I let situations rob me of my spiritual food.
When that happens. When I let disappointments, failures, rejections, and lies squeeze life from my heart I have a mess on my hands, a big mess. On those days, in those moments I am afraid to open the door inside. Afraid to see how big the mess is. Afraid to see how my “Christian skills” failed.
On days when little hands wrap around and squeeze your heart and contents leak out, don’t run. Don’t hide. You haven’t failed. And you most certainly don’t have to sit in the mess until the journey is over.
God loves you and just like us mommies, He is in the mess clean up business. God understands the struggles. Jesus walked as a man on this earth. He endured the disappointments, failures, rejections, and lies just as we do today. Through His life and sacrifice, we have hope.
Let God come in and clean up. Let God love you where you are at. Let God pour truth, love, and joy back into your heart.
Luke 4: 17-21
17 And He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when He had opened the book, He found the place where it was written:
18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,
Because He has anointed Me
To preach the gospel to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives
And recovery of sight to the blind,
To set at liberty those who are oppressed;
19 To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”
20 Then He closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fixed on Him. 21 And He began to say to them, “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” NKJV
1 Peter 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, ESV
Mark 2:17 …“Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.” NKJV
Psalm 34:18 The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. ESV
