I've been pondering this excerpt from the chapter about the paralyzed man who was lowered from roof from Reaching for Wonder. If you're feeling like you just can't go on, you can't get yourself to Jesus, like it's all too much and your overwhelmed, maybe this will help ...
Excerpt:
Helplessness. A child . . . A spouse . . . A boss . . . An incurable disease . . . there are places in life where we are paralyzed. They make us doubt our worth, they make us doubt our friends, our future, our God. We want to either wallow in our pain or snap our fingers and make it better. But sometimes “you can do anything you set your mind to” isn’t true. Sometimes we are helpless. And helplessness hurts.
Yet the man on the mat tells us that at times silence and stillness are just the conditions that Jesus needs to make us whole.
I am reminded of the day I found Smokey, my husband’s horse, standing still and silent in his stall. Smokey is never still and silent.
My daughter, Bethany, came into the barn. “What wrong with Smokey?”
Smokey stared at us from behind his feeding net. We stepped closer. He didn’t wiggle. He didn’t whinny.
Bethany moved toward him. “Oh, no.” She glanced at me. “His hoof is caught in the net. He can’t get it out.” She slipped slowly into his stall, hoping not to spook him. She took his hoof in her hand. “The fabric is wedged between his hoof and his shoe. I can’t pull it out. If he starts to panic, he’ll break his leg.”
“Okay, you keep him calm. I’ll find something to cut the net.”
For the next twenty minutes, we sawed and soothed and cut and calmed until Smokey was finally free. He couldn’t move, he didn’t speak, and he couldn’t help himself. He just stayed still and let us work. Sometimes, in our fear, in our helplessness, that’s all we have to do too. Sometimes God is whispering into our silence: “Be still, and know that I am God.” (Psalm 46:10, KJV)
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