The Juggler

He told me to shut up and stand still.

I tend to like the stories more about Him comforting and loving His children, and I promise I don't question His love for me. I just thought He would be less.... cut throat when He spoke. I had hoped He would be calm and quieting and maybe just whisper a breezy revelation into my ear. But, no. Not for me. It was more of a close-up shout that blew my hair up, away from my face, and caused me to close my eyes to avoid eyeball windburn. I could have smelled what He had had for dinner. His voice, although raised, was still loving, but it had the "And don't talk back to me, young lady!" timber to it; the kind you don't question. And, so, I didn't question it. I just nodded my head in reverence, slumped my shoulders, and turned to do what I knew I had to do.

My brother can juggle. He taught himself in college. He started with little bean bags and worked his way up to fruit from the produce section of the supermarket. Then, my mother "helped" him work his way back down to things that were already purchased and not necessarily edible, for safety and sanitary reasons. And, I always thought I wanted to learn to juggle. My brother looked so cool doing it. But then, my life started needing to be juggled and it stopped looking so cool. And, I kind of wished it was just my brother who knew how to keep things in the air long enough to toss something else up, and I wished it were just bean bags or even fruit from the produce section of the supermarket and not my own life that was being tossed up.

Asking for God's direction is not for the faint of heart. Seriously. If you're going to ask, the next important thing to be ready to do is what He says. I get stalled in that second step sometimes. I ask, and then keep asking until He changes His mind and tells me what I want to hear. He hasn't ever changed His mind... so, it would make more sense to listen to Him the first time, wouldn't it? I know. I know.

So, somewhere between throwing something else in the air and catching another something as it was falling, God let me know that what He expected me to do was to shut up and stand still. He had probably been telling me to do this for some time, but I was too busy asking Him over and over again what He wanted me to do to hear His answer. I was dumbfounded. Stand still? Then, everything would fall.

But, then, I could put my arms down and stop juggling.

The wreckage was massive. The destruction awesome. Most of the things I had been juggling were totaled. My heart was broken. My life a mess. It has taken me years to sift through and clean up the pile of people, attitudes, thoughts, lies, feelings, situations, consequences, theologies, and ideas that I had been juggling for so long.

But, it has been in the clean-up that I realize that God knows what He's doing. A teeny, tiny part of His master plan revealed and understood by another teeny, tiny part.

Most of the things that I had been juggling shattered into a million pieces. And, when I dug down deep enough to find the shattered pieces, they weren't worth saving. I pointed to the shattered mess and yelled at God, "Look at what you made me do! How could you?" But, even as I yelled at God, I knew that I was the benefactor in the situation. He helped sweep up the last of the pieces and with a breath of redeeming love, He blew the dirt away to reveal a clean, unblemished spot where I could see His reflection.

Some things were broken but salvageable. Big pieces of relationships and ideas were recognizable. Finding all the pieces proved to be the hard part. But, I knew, at once, that I was to search the entire area to find those that were missing. I presented the pieces to God and asked Him to put back together something that I had caused to break, and without hesitation, He took the pieces from me and began to glue them back together with His Spirit, giving the glue time enough to dry and those of us involved time enough to heal. Reconstruction, although altered, is almost always stronger.

And, there were some things, more things than I realized, that were not phased, in the least, during the tumble. I saw these things as the solid, cornerstones on which to begin rebuilding my life. Promises and truths from His Word that stood the test of trial and tribulations. People who knew me better than I knew myself, who saw the fall coming, who committed to being there when it was time to move on. Parts of me that turned out stronger than I thought, more resilient than expected, steadier than what was shown before.

Years have passed. Time has healed wounds. Love has replaced fear. Priorities have changed.

God has remained the same through it all. Whispering breezy revelations to those who will listen, yelling for those who won't. Always ready to breath redeeming love into an empty vessel and reconstruct salvageable broken-ness.

Juggling occupies the hands. God occupies the heart.

The easiest way to stop juggling is to stand still and shut up.