Stay Anchored

These seem to be unusually hard times. If you aren't going through some kind of 'trial' yourself, then someone close to you probably is. I can list the number of 'tragedies' that have happened in my own life in the past 8 weeks, as many of you can. My dad passed away on July 4th. 3 days later my mother had a massive stroke in which we didn't know if she would make it. We ended up relocating her to Amarillo, and this past Monday my mother-in-law passed away. While that is a tremendous amount of loss in a short period of time, I found myself wresting with the way I was handling it. I consider myself a woman of faith, and yet my anxiety was through the roof, I found myself easily offended and intolerant. Those are not good signs.

As I wrestled with myself about my level of stress, I came across a 7 day devotional by Christine Cain. It is called "How Did I Get Here?", which is the exact question I had been asking myself. In it she talks about the danger of 'drifting', taken from Hebrews 2:1-3. If we don't pay special attention we will drift. Drifting is subtle and we don't really notice. The writer of Hebrews knew that sometimes the more familiar we become, the less attention we might pay to God, His word and His promises. We must put down our anchor, which is Jesus and His word, once again and remain there no matter what.

I am now practicing. When I begin to worry, over plan or go through all the 'what ifs', I am trying to immediately pray about it and ask God to take care of it for me. I put down my anchor and ask God to give me the time I need today, make clear to me Your priorities for my life, help me to trust You for the future. Yes, I am practicing and I am getting better. God intends for us to have peace. He wants us to trust Him, so of course He will help us if we ask.

These are hard times. As one of my father-in-law's friends said to him yesterday, "When our friends hurt, we hurt." Yes many are hurting and we feel the pain that is going on in our world. When Jesus tells us that in this world we will have many troubles, but He has overcome, He really has. He really has overcome it in a way that we can walk through it with peace and joy. I didn't really believe Him, but I think that I am beginning to. I can honestly tell you that today I am at peace and I don't feel hopeless. I might even dare to say that I have joy. I will will be honest and say that is how I am today. I will also tell you that I am going to pay close attention. I don't want to drift and find that I am again asking myself, "How did i get here?"