By Angeline M Duran Santiago
If we had the opportunity to visit one another’s home right now, I don’t know what you would think when you saw the mess in my house? I’m not sure what I would experience walking into yours. My home is a mix of Christmas boxes gifts that have arrived and greet you as you enter. There’s a mish mash of furniture as we go through some changes, and bins of Christmas décor that was brought down from the attic and needs to go back because we’re done decorating. Yep. Lots has been done and maybe when you come into my home you may say it’s all beautiful or you may wonder if I’ve gone crazy and need help organizing my home. It’s all how you view my current situation.
Maybe as you walk in you enter a home where it may seem we have it altogether but, like many families, we’re struggling, too. Lots has happened this past month and the truth is it’s felt crazy and hectic lately. Change enters our lives when things happen out of nowhere and we’re forced to face what has happened but cannot do anything about it. Will we cry? Will we hide under a rock? Or, will we take a deep breath, tighten our belt around our pants, push back our sleeves and get to going what has to get down. For me, this is my only option, to keep going. Regardless of who is sick, who got hurt, who needs help and what’s falling apart around me, I don’t have the time to sit down and start making a list of all the things going wrong. Life calls for quick assessment of the situation, making a list of priorities and coming up with solutions. I can’t imagine anyone just wanting to sit down to look at the mess and the problem and choosing to die.
There will be crisis in our lives. Loss of health, loss of work, and perhaps loss of a loved one. All of these cause stress, pain in our hearts, and make us wonder if God is present at all? We tend to look more at our circumstances than to look to the One who has promised to be with us at all times. Our focus easily stays on our pain instead of keeping our eyes on the one who invites us to walk with Him on the waters in the midst of the tumult and the waves rocking our boat and our hearts violently, back and forth.
“O, ye, of little faith.” I read it and I hear it. I don’t want to be that believer that gives up but the one who knows how to trust and keep hoping. When the hurricane comes and lifts our house up and away as seen in the Wizard of Oz, we lose ourselves in the spinning, the howling wind, and everything in the house crashing up, down, and side to side. It’s when our world is being turned upside down and the voices around us start to tell us we’re alone and without hope that we need to declare to the wind, “My house is built upon the rock! So, yes, it may be going around like a tornado right now, but my house will not be destroyed! My house will not be crushed because my hope is in Christ and my foundation is His Word!” And, sometimes we have to stand alone and believe this truth all by ourselves. It’s easy for those who are supposed to be the strength and hold us up when things get tough to hide under the blanket and leave us alone. It’s easy for negative words that confess all they see is hopeless and without a solution. Through the storm, I choose to remember the sun is around the corner and it will show up, sooner rather than later.
I’ve chosen, in this season of my life, to trust that God is doing a new thing with my faith and my heart. I choose to not focus on what I don’t have, but on how He has blessed me before and how He shall bless me greater later on. I choose to look ahead, remembering what the Lord has done in the past and hold on knowing that He works in unexpected ways for our good. I choose to listen for His voice and not pay attention to the voice of anguish and despair around me that refuses to grab on to the hem of Jesus garment and say, “If I could only touch the hem of His garment, I will be made whole.” Wholeness and Healing. It’s what I believe the Lord has for us this season. Wholeness in our lives so that we are set free from the tormenting thoughts of our past that keep coming up to steal the peace. Wholeness in our body so that we can experience healing in our bodies and keep holding on to Him while we wait on His healing touch when it doesn’t come quickly and immediately.
As I finish this blog, the mess in my home hasn’t moved. I’m almost done with dinner. I have course work to complete and some sick bodies to attend to. I can choose to run into the storm and be carried away, lose my mind, and give up my faith. Or, I can run into the storm and surrender to the motion of each twist and turn to become my dance of faith. That’s what I choose. I choose to dance in the middle of the hurricane, in the middle of the tornado, amid my home being tossed to and fro, I dance, and I trust in the Maker of heaven and Earth. I choose to worship the Lord who created the storm and will command the waves to be still in His time. The storm will calm when the Lord knows it is time for the house to land in Kansas or where He chooses, and when it falls, everything will be in its place as if nothing was ever going crazy because when God brings peace, it comes. When God heals, it comes, and no one can take it away. You might still find the boxes and the items in my living room needing to find their place in a room, in the attic, or under the tree. But you shall not find my heart and my mind falling apart today, or this week, not yet, not as long as I hold on to the One who says, “Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me." John 14:1
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