How is life going for you?
Are you on a high or a low… an up or a down? I feel like it’s pretty rare that life is just a steady and stable middle ground. At least, it hasn’t been for me.
I’ve been contemplating quite a bit lately. This past year really. Maybe it’s just the fact that we are reaching into those “middle age” years and my perspective is shifting. Maybe God has just been teaching me a lot. Maybe I’m just a really slower learner.
I feel like the last year or so has really been a whirlwind of things, personally. It seems like we’ve jumped from big thing to big thing, while still living a pretty ordinary and mundane life in between. It has been such a slow season in some ways but has flown by in other ways. Nothing obvious has changed. If you looked at our family and compared our lives to this time last year, it pretty much looks the same. We haven’t grown or shrunk in size (yes, both of those are very real things that completely shift your daily life).
The change seems like it’s been more internal. A slow growing and stretching within. My perspective has shifted, and I see the world in a way I wouldn’t have expected. I have hurt deeply. I have grieved. I have waited. I have watched.
Some hard things have been a part of our personal lives, but I’ve also watched a lot of hard things in the lives around me. Watching close friends go through impossibly hard trials really effects your own life. Seeing people say goodbye in ways that you are all too familiar with reminds you of the depth of sorrow that exists every day.
I think I’ve gotten to know myself a bit better. I have seen some of the things God has given me that are gifts, but I also can see areas that I struggle. As my focus has shifted on different things as time has passed, I have seen how parts of my life fall through the cracks and my failings become glaringly obvious. I can see things that get neglected through the ups and downs of life.
I have been forced to dig deeper and reach higher. I have seen the brokenness. Within me. Around me. The world feels full of it at times. It is so clear that there is only one Truth. Only one solid support that we can grip as we ride these ups and downs.
So why are we here? What is the point?
Is it possible that God will use us in this broken state? Is He equipping us with the tools to go and comfort one another as He has commanded us? Will your story be the hand up that someone else needs who is walking a similar journey?
Probably… but I am more and more convinced that this life is not about us. It’s not even about what our role in the bigger picture is. It’s not about what we can do or say to make the world a better place. It’s only about Him. We’re all pointing at Him. Who He made us to be shows who He is. We are His image. The way He redeems us shows us what Love actually means.
Sometimes we spend so much time trying to figure things out. What are our gifts? Why are we experiencing this hard thing? What are we supposed to do about this problem? But in all reality, that is still such a self-focused way of living. And I also realize much if this post has been about “I”. What I have been feeling, learning, seeing. But God is teaching me (all of us) through all of this brokenness. He is walking it with us, showing us who He is.
Maybe, in the things we experience, we can grow. We can allow Him to use us. Not just to help others (which is a bonus), not for us to feel better about ourselves (which is selfish), but to glorify Him. To fill this world with His love. With His Truth.
So how is life going for you?
Whatever that looks like… know that kind of Love.
