Standing on my Soap Box

This past little while, I was sitting in church and the pastor who was speaking was talking about Hope…

There used to be a saying years ago that said “Due to financial difficulties, the light at the end of the tunnel will be temporarily turned off.”

Hope, when things go wonky, nothing works the way you had planned it. Well, I have had some experience in that realm. Not everything works the way you want it. People get sick, and cannot work, finances are no longer what you are used to. The light has been shut off, and it feels permanent!

This reminds me of 1 Corinthians Chapter 4, verses 8 and 9 states “We are hard press on every side, but not crushed, perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.” Verses 16 and 17 also states “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.”

BUT, if you are anything like me, those words are great, and awesome, but when the rubber meets the road it is tough to remember them. We went through a dark time in the past three years. The light at the end of the tunnel hadn’t only been shut off, it had been broken, smashed beyond recognition, and was nowhere to be seen.

I would like to ask you to put the pads of your thumb and forefinger together… that is how close we came to selling our house so that we could live off the equity, as my job was not enough and my husband was not working, due to health reasons. But God in his infinite wisdom came through right in time, and we didn’t have to sell anything.

So where was the hope in all this?  God was carrying me EVERY STEP OF THE WAY! I knew in my heart that God loved me and wanted the very best for me. If this was his best I needed to accept it. Did I like it, NOPE. Did I grumble? In my head ABSOLUTELY, outwardly, to my husband on occasion, I tried not to full on complain to others.

A friend of mine once stated that there is a “bug’s eye” view and a “Bird’s eye” view to things. The Bug’s eye view is when you look at everything around you and only see the misery. You are knee deep in the misery and can only see what is happening to you. The Bird’s eye view is when we see the whole picture. What happened to us in the bug’s eye view was crappy, but now that we can see the Bird’s eye view we can see all the lessons we learned from our experiences.

Where am I going with all this yapping? To tell you that it does get better, if we do not lose heart. I’ve been there, and I can tell you from experience that the testing of our faith produces a whole mess load of attributes. I am a better person, I am a more giving person for those who are in need.

The eleventh chapter of Hebrews goes on and on about those who had faith, the catch phrase for that chapter is “By faith”… Trouble comes, and God is there in all things.

My life is but a weaving between my God and me. I do not choose the colors He worketh steadily.

Oft’ times He weaveth sorrow, and I in foolish pride, forget He sees the upper and I the underside.

Not ‘til the loom is silent and the shuttles cease to fly will God unroll the canvas and explain the reasons why, the dark threads are as needful in the weaver’s skilful weavers hand as the threads of gold and silver in the pattern He has planned.