Stop, Drop and Roll

"Teach me your way, LORD, lead me in a straight path because of my oppressors." 

Psalm 27:1

These past few months have turned out to be a time of reflection for many of us.  I've been thinking about things I've written in the past and have started rereading my old posts from my daily blogs, Freedom in Christ (originally written in 2003) and Another Perfect Day 365 (written in 2017).  Through them God has been telling me the knowledge I already have is not being put into practice.  Then He took it a step further to show me this last Thursday.  This is the story of how I stepped off the straight path, literally, and how God is using it to show me how to get back on it.

My husband and I were at a grocery store we hadn't been to in almost four months.  I was glad to find some things I couldn't get elsewhere.  We were almost finished shopping when we decided to get ice cream for the next time the grandkids came over.  I was focused on the freezer along the wall looking at all they had when I saw one of my favorite brands was on sale....and I had a coupon that was good if you bought two!  But there was only one flavor of the Natural recipe.  I remembered they would put the featured sale ice cream also in the freezer at the end of the aisle across the way.  With my eyes on that freezer in the distance I completed my turn to head in that direction and caught my right foot on the wooden pallet in the middle of the aisle that I had not seen when I'd entered the aisle.  I lost my balance and flew forward landing on my left shoulder and the left side of my face.  My cheekbone took the full force of my fall.  I was almost hysterical with fear that I'd broken all my teeth, but everything was intact.  It wasn't long before my husband was at my side and store employees were there offering to call an ambulance.  But when I got up off the floor and sat in a chair they'd found for me I became so nauseous all I wanted to do was go home and lie in bed.  

My husband consulted with the Nurse Line and later with the doctor's office.  An x-ray the next morning did not show any obvious broken bones, but they want me to have a CT scan to check for internal damage since the nausea was one of the signs of a concussion.  Once the nausea subsided by 9:00 I began to feel the full force of the impact on my body so am lying low until I can have the CT scan next week.  

As I lay in bed all the rest of Thursday I did my usual "what if" scenarios....all the should'ves when something bad happens I didn't see coming.  If I'd walked in a straight line back to my cart, I would not have crossed the path of the pallet. Then I shifted to the could'ves like I could have broken my shoulder or my wrists or my ankle, and I was grateful it wasn't worse.  Now I'm in the would've phase as it relates to would I have had to go through this if I'd learned my lesson when I wrote in my January 9, 2017 blog post about why the Amish shun those who stray from God:  

I am grateful that God will not let me stray from Him.  When I stumble He will let me "skin my knee" as a way to emphasize my need to rely on Him instead of myself.  He has provided a straight path for me to walk on.  If my desire is to be a child of God, then making peace with Him and with others will be my path.

Yes, this is what God has been showing me these past few months through various books, blog posts, and experiences:  my need to rely on Him instead of myself.

As I discussed this in my journal with God this morning I wrote:

You've been showing me how to identify quickly when I've stepped off the path:  my emotions are a clear indication, like a fever, that I have an "infection" in my thoughts which will lead me away from You and when I do that I start relying on myself.  And because I am so good at that I am soon off the path You prepared for me, and I become mired in self to the point I am blinded to Your Grace.  The moment I feel unhappy, if I "stop, drop, and roll" (like children are taught to do if they ever catch on fire), then I will roll into Your Arms and be saved from the fiery furnace of self-pity.  There in Your Arms I will receive Your Grace, which is sufficient for all my needs as well as enabling me to do Your Will.

 

Then I searched this blog to see what I might have written on God's sufficient grace and walking the straight path He has prepared for us and found this post from February 15, 2014 in which I wrote about my unrealistic expectations and consequential disappointments:

Paul, in 2 Corinthians 12:9 declares, "And He has said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.'"  I, like Paul, am weak.  Whatever is fueling my unrealistic expectations is a weakness that God uses to remind me that His grace is sufficient....that it is He alone I should lean on--not myself, not others. 

If all this wasn't enough to encourage me to once and for all quit relying on myself and remember God is sufficient I came across a Hagar the Horrible cartoon in the comics this morning in which his daughter's boyfriend complains when his music is booed, "Everybody's a critic."  She says, "I'm sorry!  Let my love lift your spirits!" then asks if he feels better.  "No!" he says.  She responds, "sigh...my love is not enough!"  Hagar overhears this and calls her inside and goes out and confronts her boyfriend about his boorishness.  

Yes, God's grace, also known as His Love, is sufficient.  It is always enough, if we will just get self and its expectations out of the way.  As soon as your emotions alert you to any discontent, stop, drop and roll into His arms so that you don't fall into the quagmire of self-pity.  In God's Arms you will find everything you need.

Father, I've been praying several times a day since the first of the year that Your Will be done in my life and in the world.  Your Will for me is that I stop relying on my myself and be one with You so that Your Will is my will.  There I will find relief from my oppressor--self!

Link to scripture:  1 John 4:16

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