The hardest thing i have ever had to do is understand that i cant fix everything.
God puts you where you need to be to influence the lives of others in his name and he gives you the words you need to speak at the moment they are needed. And when that moment has passed you have to let go and give it back to God. By design, you will never be the whole thing that helps a person start to finish. Some plant seeds. Others water them. But one seed will be watered by many different influences over the years. It has to be. Because the reliance should be on God, not those who carry out his will by extending kindness and grace to others.
I wish to God that i could take all of my friend’s pain away. Joy is such a beautiful and fleeting notion. It is rarely experienced at length. It is like a crystal among smooth pebbles in a stream. Those moments are there. They are just few and far between and you may have to look a bit harder to see them. Joy is not something experienced in a vacuum. Joy is more an ability to allow yourself to get lost in a moment while you know the world is burning around you, as it will still be burning when you are done.
There are a thousand injustices of the world and then there are injustices of a personal nature. So many things one wishes or thinks should be changed. The hard truth is that we dont get to alter these things. Joy has to happen in spite of them, irregardless of them, because a spirit without joy, a soul who does not experience joy, will harden, dim, turn inward, and eventually extinguish.
I cant take all of the pain away, no matter how hard i try. I am not qualified. Not because i am too ugly, too short, too weird, too sickly…because i am human. God is the taker of pain and the breaker of chains.
Psalm 107:14
“He led them from the darkness and deepest gloom; he snapped their chains.”
Zach Williams says it better than i ever could myself in a song called “Chain Breaker”
“If you’ve got pain, He’s a pain taker
If you feel lost, He’s a way maker
If you need freedom or saving
He’s a prison-shaking Saviour
If you got chains
He’s a chain breaker”
I want desperately to take my friend’s hand and lead him into what joy is, help him see the crystals among the pebbles of life, but i dont have that kind of power, and it was a job that was always out of my reach. My job was to lead him to the stream.
At times people have to find their walk with God by themself and you have to give them the space and opportunity to do so.
Wanting to remain a good sounding board, a good friend, a good resource… i find myself forced once again into self evolution. During times of peace i become stagnant. It is only during times of great turmoil that i embrace growth, because growth is hard, and often painful. We dont choose it by nature. We accept it by default when the only alternative would cause pain to those we value.
The nugget of wisdom that has come to me this morning is this:
In order to help someone in crisis you have to be able to give them your hand without allowing their energy to change yours.
In order to help someone who is drowning, you must first know how to swim.
Which means i must first know how to cope with my own life before i can hope to water anyone else’s.
For all the broken things i cannot fix, for all the pain i cannot erase, for all the injustices i cannot set right, for all the people i have let down, for all the times and ways in which i have fallen short, for all the flaws i cannot change…there are horses.
Nothing can be too terrible on the back of a horse. Its just where i wish i was every single moment of every single day. Its where my bones want to be. Unfortunately, theyre not my horses and i have other responsibilities to take care of, so i’ll have to settle for a once a month saturday ride. i am making time and setting aside money for trail riding because this is the biggest crystal in my stream. And i want to be someone who sees crystals in amongst the pebbles in the stream.
