Right before Easter I had watched a video that popped up in my Facebook feed about this little girl that was fighting cancer & how all she wanted to do was dance with Taylor Swift. Taylor called her & they visited, but she was too weak to even get out of bed. Needless to say...I got pretty upset with God. I thought to myself couldn't you even give the little girl just enough energy to dance? I stopped myself. I asked God to forgive me, because I know that there is a bigger picture, but I was still upset with Him. I struggled for probably two weeks leading up to Easter with this. Then I reached a point where I was upset that I was stRugGling with this, during the Easter season, when I should be SO THANKFUL for what Jesus did for us! So now....I wasn't JUST wrestling with being upset with how God does things...I was upset that I was upset about it & I just couldn't GET OVER IT!
I prayed...boy did I! I prayed for this sweet little girl & all children & all families & all patients fighting this battle. I prayed for guidance...for Him to lead me to scripture that would show me what I was missing....that He would teach me just what I needed to know to get to the place where I could LOVE Jesus (like I wanted to) for CHOOSING to carry out God's plan. Well....He led me o the book of Job. If I could insert the EXHAUSTED smiley face emoticon I would HERE. Sometimes I couldn't even get through a chapter without LITERALLY falling asleep on my Bible. It was SO strange to me. I was thinking: Okay. You led me here, now WHY won't you let me keep my eyes open?! How I wrestled with what I read & the thoughts I was still trying to work through about that precious little girl... All while...I was caring for the family God blessed me with & doing all the day-to-day things my life entails. I was SPENT. MENTALLY DRAINED. I was SO frustrated that I couldn't get where I wanted to be about being THANKFUL for what Jesus did for me, for us...
Then...4 o'clock Easter morning I woke up & didn't go back to sleep. I grabbed my Bibles & sat in one of my favorite places to read & literally felt like I threw myself in Jesus's lap & CRIED! In my sobbing I could hear the words coming from God: "Child! I love you." In a tone that....WANTED me to STOP worrying & trying to figure it all out...WANTED me to be okay with HOWEVER I was feeling....WANTED me to...stop being so hard on myself.
After reading Job for the length I had, & wrestling with even more things LIKE: God ALLOWS Satan to jack with us? Couldn't He have spared Job SOME of that grief? Wasn't there SOME other way? If He'll do that to Job, I better GET READY! I came to the conclusion that...ALL of the things I was wrestling with that I didn't understand were BEYOND my understanding. I wasn't going to understand them....no matter how bad I TRIED, or how bad I WANTED to. I had come to that conclusion....which I still didn't LIKE...when I threw myself on Jesus.
Yet...on his lap, clinging to the ONLY one that would UNDERSTAND me, I felt at peace with my thoughts, with my anger, with my inability to understand, because I FELT SO LOVED.
This book... The Shack. Man... People can say what they want to about it being made up, a hallucination, fiction. I PERSONALLY think The Holy Trinity talks to us ALL differently & I have NO DOUBT that They were talking to Mack. Mmmm. Mmmm. MM. What that man wrestled with... That kind of PAIN. Disappointment. Hurt. Unforgiveness. This book takes an unthinkable TRAGEDY & walks you through God's grace in it...in the UGLY. I LOVE the book. It touched so many different layers of my soul & though none of it, is PROVABLE, I know MY relationship with God, with Jesus, & this ever-developing one with The Holy Spirit has EVERY capability of doing what the characters in this book did for Mack. This book eased me into a better understanding about tragedy, forgiveness, pain, messed up people, the importance of relationships & honesty, & SO much more.
So now I saw The Holy Trinity working me through ALL those feelings that I was feeling early Easter morning.
Another thing that I was CONSTANTLY wrestling with was... The Holy Trinity. The order...how they were equal? The same? What? It had me trippin'.
This book addressed that VERY same struggle & they broke it down for me. Where LOVE & RESPECT are present and perfect....there is no rank. All three members of The Holy Trinity are equally instrumental in the development of our relationships, with each one of them & each other. Talk about LAYERS! Layers of fear, layers of love, layers of pride, layers of pain, layers of shame. Each member of The Holy Trinity instills the wisdom, shows us an example, or takes our hand & leads us where God needs us to go to fulfill His plan. We aren't disrespecting God when we pray to Jesus or the Holy Spirit, because that is what we NEED to make the plan work. We need ALL of their help...equally!
I'm really happy my friend kept urging me to read it! I'm really THANKFUL for it. All sorts of other emotions whirl around, as I think about what had to happen to even bring the book about. I wrestle with those emotions, yet remain THANKFUL for how the book touched me.
Buck Up Baby & Ride With Jesus....& Papa & Sarayu.....
