Ecclesiastes 3 talks about the seasons of life and there is a time for everything. I am reminded today on my 53 birthday how true this is. Last year I celebrated with all my people and got this cool picture frame from some of the people I call my kids.
In the year since my birthday:
My daughter got engaged
I moved
I was diagnosed with breast cancer
I had surgery to remove and replace my breasts
My husband had some job changes
I flooded my car and had the engine replaced
My son went to Italy - ALONE!!! (at least without his family)
and in the midst of those things we walked through a variety of struggles with others.
I would like to think that the next year will be smooth sailing. But in the not too distant future we will have two weddings and my son will graduate college. And if the good Lord allows it I will start my master's degree in Social Work.
As I have faced all of this in the past year I have also had to deal with a lot of fear and some deep dark places in my mind and heart. You see I have a tendency to dwell on the worst and worry about how it will all work out. I have physically practiced taking my thoughts captive and stopping them or telling them the TRUTH!! Because what I have to remind myself of is that if I don't take them to task and speak the truth to my thoughts they will overwhelm me and take me to a deep pit of despair.
I have had to remind myself that my thoughts are often not the truth. They are overshadowed by past experiences and the reactionary process to those experiences. In other words what my past tells me is to expect what I got from someone else or what the world tells me should be. You see I'm human and I get scared of the what might happens, and what ifs, and what will everybody else think or the ever present comparison game.
Man does that comparison stuff suck. My journey and the people who may be walking a similar one will never be the same. My cancer may not have been as bad, I may not have had to have chemo or lost my hair but the losses I have been dealing with lately have a lot more to do with the inward battle. Will the cancer return, will I get all the feeling back in my breasts, will they look okay, will the clothes I wear fit right or look right. Will anyone notice but me and if I notice will it shake me so much that my confidence or lack of will be affected.
And then God. He sent me back to some awesome stories of imperfect people, David and Joseph and so many more. They faced some crazy broken issues and sin and God still included their stories in His word. I've been reading some Sheila Walsh books and they have spoken to that broken, not okay, place in my spirit. The place that satan likes to wiggle around and try to get my focus off of God.
You see my faith, my belief that God is who He says and that His Son came to free us from the laws of religion and from our sin, hold me up and helps me look at my emotions and thoughts with His truth. When I dissect what's going through my head and heart and hold it up next to His Word then I'm reminded that life is seasons. And just like the weather seasons can change quickly so can the seasons of my life.
So for today, I will celebrate with my peeps and enjoy the glory of God who frees and restores the broken and builds family from so many places.
