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When you’re waiting for the wind to change…

You desperately need something to shift. To give.

And you know that it will. Sometime soon.

It’s the way of things. One day seeps unstoppable into another. Today’s narrow focus becomes lost in tomorrow’s vast forgetfulness. The single thing that never stops ticking-on is time. You can be sure of that.

But deep down — at a flesh and blood pulsing heart level — you are unsure. Afraid even. What if things don’t change? Ever? What if it always feels like this?  This unstoppable, insufferable, uncomfortable, inconsolable. STUCK. 

When you are buried in a pool of mud, toes sunk in, squelching deep, no matter what the particular ingredients of that mud may be (call it grief, anxiety, pain, sickness, relationship struggle, or just plain old fear and struggle) it can be hard to look beyond the mire. Sometimes, it can be difficult to believe you will ever emerge on the other side again.

That’s when you pray like crazy for the wind to change, for the circumstances to shift. For relief.

Sydney has been stuck in a string of endless summer days. A daze of high humidity without relief (you can’t get much higher than 100%), restless nights that press like heavy hands on sweating skin, and searing sun. Sure, it’s just the weather…but it’s enough. And problems rarely come alone. Along with the heat, has been the sleeplessness, the sickness in our family that has reverberated and ricocheted around our small apartment like shrapnel. Hitting all, sparing none. Problems breed problems, and reaching for solutions can feel a little like finding more obstacles.

And you are so tired.

And you pray, you pray for the wind to shift.

And it’s right you should, after all, who else should you go to for gifts, than to the giver.

But is there something else? Something more to hang onto, than a hope in ephemerality, in the inevitable shape-shifting nature of life under the sun? Pain, followed by relief, followed by pain, and so on. An endless exchange of to and fro.

Last night I heard him say it soft and slow, from up the front of the room. More than a hundred listeners hanging on his words like threads of silver hope.*

You can be healed.

You have been healed.

Where you most need to be healed. Inside.  Healed of your biggest sickness. Your darkest infirmity.

He said it through almost-tears, through tremor of chin. He said it from a place beyond theory, from the singe of the fire. Pain had touched him, fear seized him. But he had not been undone.

BECAUSE

Of the Gospel. The unchangeable, unalterable, unshiftable Good news.

And one day there is a future free of baggage, full of grace. Rock solid. Permanent promised. He spoke of it with reaching joy. Should not we all? For one day, one day we will be going home. Malaise free. Celebratory. Full.

Whether the wind shifts today or tomorrow, and it will, at sometime, in some way,  your soul anchor can hold fast and strong. It is assured. For He has made it so.

And that is all we really need to know.

*I refer here to Scott Blackwell speaking to his recent book, Healed at Last, Matthais Media. I have not read the book yet, but am keen to! His words of wisdom were like a balm to this over-wrought mama!

Comments

Impacted by these words in some way? I’d love to hear you’re thoughts.