Merry-Go-Round

Whenever asked one of those silly ice breaker questions about which cartoon character are you, I've ALWAYS had the same answer. The Tasmanian Devil. I don't exhibit all of his qualities, but ONE specific one describes me perfectly. (Let's not forget he is part of the Looney Tunes cartoon...and well, I just happen to fall in that category of being just a little looney!) Can you picture him spinning around in circles and all you see is hands, feet, tail sticking out of the dust cloud in strange, unnatural positions? THAT is me. Despite my constant endeavour to "slow down" life, I still find myself in that insanely wild whirlwind.

Spinning in circles. That describes life right now perfectly. For someone like me that is not blessed with the enjoyment of roller coasters, anything spinning and that gets sick just watching her children on the church merry-go-round, spinning in circles is not an enjoyable place to be. Life does feel like it is spinning out of control, despite VERY obvious attempts to slow things down and simplify. I tend to get caught in that cycle of it spinning faster with no way to slow it down and the inability to just jump off the merry-go-round.

Have no fear! My SUPERHERO is here and he hears my plea for his calming nature to overtake. I may be caught up in situation after situation that is placing me in either "unchartered" waters, major uncertainty, fear of the unknown, disappointment, unspeakable stress. However, along with all of this "whirlwind" surrounding us, God is faithful. He has given me an unusual calm, one that doesn't come first nature for me. Personality wise, I'm a tender heart to the extreme. I can easily find myself in panic mode where worry and uncertainty paralyzes. Don't get me wrong, I believe God's promises and KNOW he will provide, but in the meantime I usually get caught up in "trying" to help him along. That usually ends up in EPIC failure.

So this time as life is spinning, I'm finding great comfort in his peace. Stepping back and letting Him take it ALL (every heartache, every financial need, every family member that needs healing, every strained relationship, every disappointment, every failure, every uncertain choice, EVERY EVERY EVERY.....the list goes on). I just need to SEE Him, FEEL Him be the miracle worker that He is. I don't need my "two cents" worth in it. So as I'm spinning, I'm learning to "spot" Him. In ballet, you learn to fix your eyes on a certain spot each time you spin around to keep from losing your balance. Adriana learned in gymnastics on beam how to totally focus in on her task at hand and shut out every other sound and motion in the gym. So as I'm spinning, each turn is bringing my eyes back to focusing on Him. I've learned that nothing else matters. I can't necessarily change situations around me, but God can. Without a doubt. If life is too scary or too painful, I can just picture myself sitting in the middle of that merry-go-round, white knuckling the bars, with my eyes clamped shut....JUST begging for the spinning to stop. I'm sitting in the merry-go-round of life, with all the negative emotions and situations spinning around but it's not the bar I have a death grip on. I'm sitting in the middle with God's arms wrapped around me, with whispers of calm permeating my heart as He tells me to just hang on to Him for the ride.

Kev: just a little reminder that I know you will understand... "The Anchor Holds" The artist may no longer be inspiring, but the words of the song and it's meaning to us is not diminished.