Not My Own

I was facing a hard truth.

The first anniversary of my dad’s death was approaching and it was becoming clear that my plan to be in Pensacola with my mother to mark that day was not going to happen.

I wasn’t mad or anything.

But it hurt.

The kind of deep quiet hurt that you feel when you know something is right but it comes with a significant cost.

After being diagnosed with dementia in March my mother-in-law had come to live with us in early June. Our family was dealing with significant changes in our daily circumstances and the reality of my life not being own; of my time not being my own, was staring me starkly in the face.

Then somewhere inside of me I heard her laughing. I don’t know if you have a her but my her is the girl who lives inside of me that really believes all of the things I confess to believe. She’s the me I wish I could be all of the time; the me that responds rightly to any given situation. The me that shows up enough to remind me that God is indeed faithful to complete the work he has begun in me.

Anyway, I heard her laugh.

Then she said, in a gentle mocking tone, “Have you been under the impression that your life was your own? That your time…the minutes & hours, days, weeks, months, and years, belonged to you?”

And in that moment I realized how often we might say we know that truth but we forget to live it.

Our lives are hidden in Christ. We are called to lay them down every single day in every single moment; to be used by him for his good pleasure.

My life is not my own and it never really was.

Because I am his child.

My life belongs to him.

I can safely trust that when things aren’t going according to my plan, they are going according to his plan.

So I took a deep breath and, I think, grew a little more fully into her, the one I want to be all the time, and leaned into where he had me.

And was at peace.

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I wrote this post months back and it has been sitting in my drafts, along with quite a few other posts, waiting to see the light of day when the blog would go live. As I was reading over it, changing a word here or there and correcting any mistakes, I realised just how often God has brought this truth to my door.

We are his.

And this beautiful awful place that we have walked over the last eight months has revealed him to me in ways that I had never known and I have come to understand like never before the words of the old hymn,

‘Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus,
Just to take Him at His Word
Just to rest upon His promise,
Just to know, “Thus saith the Lord!”
Jesus, Jesus, how I trust Him!
How I’ve proved Him o’er and o’er!

That me I want to be shows up more often but sometimes we still wrestle it out. Some of the hardest parts of this journey have been smoothed over but it is still, by far, the most difficult thing I have ever done. Yet there is a sweet relief in knowing that I can trust him; that I have and can prove him over and over as he bids me to follow closer; to go deeper.

Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus!
O for grace to trust Him more!