Day 3: Because there Will be Lemons

Hey there, citizen! This post is part of a series I’m working my way through in the month of October. If you’d like to start at the beginning (it is a good place to start, after all) you can do so, right here.

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Yesterday, we talked about Comparison, the terrible stealer of joy, and about the challenging truth that we are the only ones who can swim our own race. The encouraging take-home, (at least for me to hold onto) was that when we remember the Lord, keeping our minds confidently set on His goodness, finding that place where we trust deeply in Him, He meets us with a nothing-missing, nothing-broken kind of peace.

I’m very able to tell you first hand that when you make a decision to redirect your life towards any goal, you are going to be met with opposition. So if you took a deep breath yesterday, and said Yes, Jesus, and in your heart decided to press in, even when the pressing is hard, I wonder if your day might’ve gone differently than planned. And whether you might’ve had opportunities to live out what you proclaimed.

If Comparison is joy’s greatest thief, perhaps Thanksgiving is joy’s greatest harvester.

Turning and refocusing on the goodness of God is likely to bring you joy, but when opposition comes, you will have the opportunity to choose to keep swimming, to press in, to tread long in the waters of fear, or even to turn back toward the wall and gingerly swim back to where you feel safe.

The choice to press in when you meet adversity is such a wrestling match. Life doesn’t stop happening, and it often keeps bringing difficulties. The house that was tidy on Tuesday looks like a disaster zone by Wednesday evening. You arrive home to this hectic house at 9 pm, having not eaten dinner yet, but knowing a friend is coming over for coffee the next morning. The outdoor freezer door is left slightly ajar, and all the contents gradually defrost overnight for you to discover the next afternoon. The babysitter forgets that you’re temporarily not cloth diapering and for some reason the baby that is always pooping in the potty poops in two cloth diapers, without liners, and you discover each of those two rogue diapers separately, and therefore have two extra loads of laundry, and you’re leaving for the weekend the next morning and have to pack for four people, and you already had enough laundry to do! And your laptop dies.

And this may have all happened in the last forty-eight hours.

To me.

You can put a flag in the ground and say, I am going to give thanks, I am going to focus on the God who sees me, and loves me, and I am going to walk to this place no matter how long it takes me to get there:

You will show me the path of life;
In Your presence is fullness of joy;
At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore. {Psalm 16:11}

Yesterday, life handed me a heap of lemons. But the fact that yesterday morning I’d put a flag in the sand to remind myself and anyone else who cares to listen that there is joy for the taking if we fix our eyes on Jesus, changed my perspective completely.

When the freezer defrosted, I was disappointed, but I brought a perfectly defrosted meal to a friend, and I gave thanks because the Food Lion MVP coupon center gave me a coupon for anti-bacterial cleaning wipes, and even though I never buy those, for some reason, this week, I did.

My friend who came over for coffee wasn’t able to come as early as expected, so I knocked out a stack of dishes and a heap of great stuff in homeschool. Tidyness was restored!

I was thankful that none of our children were hurt, they were safe and taken care of, even if the babysitter forgot which diapers to use and I had a little extra work to do. The work got done, and praise the Lord, I actually own a washing machine and a dryer and they are in my house! What a luxury!

The laptop that died was exchanged for the first Macbook I ever bought, a year before that, and that exchanged took place back in Glasgow in 2009. It had been dropped, had a child pour a glass of wine on it, travelled through life in a few different countries, had been dropped again, survived children tapping those little keys to play games on the PBS Kids website… got dropped again… and still made it for over five years. Thank you, Apple. And thank You, Lord!

By the end of the day, I still had a smile on my face. I’d turned to Jesus and remembered to say “Teach Me Jesus” and He did.

There is always something to give thanks for. Always something worth seeing God’s glory in.

Trust in the Lord, and do good;
Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness.
Delight yourself also in the Lord,
And He shall give you the desires of your heart. {Psalm 37: 3 -4, NKJV}

Can you feed on His faithfulness today? Can you find reasons to give thanks, make lemonade from that pile of lemons? If you dive into the pool and your goggles slide off your face, can you keep swimming?

Today is just one lap in the race of your life. The Author and Perfecter of your faith is intimately acquainted with what’s happening in your life, and readily available to lift you up and walk you through it.

Look for His faithfulness today, friends. You might be able to see it in a can of antibacterial wipes.

xCC