Have you ever looked behind you, just to see how far you’ve come, and noticed the tracks you’ve left are more like two thin trails left by buggy wheels as opposed to a single bicycle groove? Our travels through life leave evidence that there have been separate paths running alongside each other; same direction, belonging to one vehicle, two unique experiences. What will be the story we tell? Will it be one that was only filled with grief and heartache, or will we recognise that running alongside that very real pain, there was laughter and feasting and even quite a lot of dancing?
A friend of mine messaged me this week and described this very thing so well! She said, “The good and the hard are running parallel and we get to choose what we will dwell on.” She spoke of how the good leads us to focus on God and how the hard is in the background making lots of noise to try and get our attention and we almost just have to ignore it. When the hard is shouting loudest it’s easy to perceive that time to have been all bad. I think sometimes I get such tunnel vision that I don’t realise my capacity to experience both. I can overlook the gift of all that is beautiful right there beside the ugly.
Maybe we feel like traitors if we find ways to experience peace in a war. Perhaps we feel guilty of being joyful about new life coming when death has occurred. As for the busiest of times, did you know that there are always ways to rest even when you are telling yourself there is no time to? I have insisted that rest is impossible and my husband has insisted I lie down anyway, even for a few minutes, and when I get up again everything looks strangely changed. The overwhelm shifts and a balanced ease falls into place where I was cutting deep grooves on only the left side a short time before. It’s important that we accept these invitations into the lighter side of life, especially when the seasons are heavy and intense. There is always going to be a tension and we can largely choose what we will focus on.
Like train tracks running together perfectly, we need the fast and the slow, the hot and the cold, the rough and the smooth, plenty and lack; both sets of wheels on their tracks. Both sides of the coin are allowing a perspective and gratitude that would not be realised if we experienced the joys and sorrows in isolation. The contrasts, like complimentary colours, bring a whole new dimension and depth of meaning to what would, otherwise, be a rather dull portrait. Like wedding vows: “for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health” – we would do well to go through each day mindful that no matter what comes our way, we are committed and we will make it! We will run this race, thankful, for how can we know what is easy unless there is hard? How can we understand the thrill of breakthrough when we have never reached the end of a road and had to keep pushing through the thorns like leather-skinned pioneers with veins in their arms and sweat stained hats?
We have stories to tell and it is okay when they are not cut and dry. Everything is moving, the seasons are changing, I am not who I used to be and tomorrow I will have grown from who I am now. It’s not a crime to be depressed during a season and yet still have the ability to be the neighbourhood clown. It’s perfectly reasonable for tears to fall whilst you laugh and to feel unsure about whether they are happy tears or sad tears. What is truly rich and what is truly poor? We might be surprised to see which track is actually which. It’s acceptable, even valuable, to begin to tell our story without having all our ducks in a row. Our vulnerability is powerful. Our faultiness is perfect. Our great needs run right alongside God’s bountiful provision. Our brokenness is just the vessel He can pour wholeness into.
When I am weak, then I am strong – 2 Corinthians 12 v 10
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