Early this morning around 3:30 a.m., I was startled awake by some sort of noise outside of my bedroom window. In my slumber, I thought that it sounded a lot like someone rattling the screens of the window. I jumped up out of bed and stood silently in the quiet of the bedroom. I listened for several minutes to see if I could hear the noise again while my heart pounded out of my chest. I heard what I thought was a door shutting inside my house and I flung the bedroom door open, charging after what I thought was something that meant harm for me. Armed mainly with my ugly bed hair and a bad attitude, I went looking for whatever was making all the noise.
In less than wise thinking, I flung open the back door and started looking around to see if there was someone prowling about. That was entirely the stupidest thing I could have done. I obviously haven’t paid attention to the stupid things people do in horror movies because I was pretty much setting the stage for something bad to happen. Luckily, there was no chainsaw wielding maniac outside or even a prowling creeper. I went back to my bedroom and tried to rest my weary head. Every noise became magnified and thoughts raced as to what could have made the noise, especially the sound of an interior door opening within my house. Low and behold, the noise started again and I jumped up again. I ran to the back door, assured I would find something or someone in the backyard. Again, nothing. The wind was blowing slightly and the leaves were rustling. I convinced myself that had to have been what I heard and went back to bed.
Once I was operating with my full brain and not just a sleepy one, I heard the noise more clearly. It was the demon squirrels that live in the tree outside my window throwing acorns onto an out building nearby. I swear it sounds like they have little acorn cannons that they shoot them out of at all hours of the day and night. When the acorns hit the metal roof of the out building, it sounds a lot louder than a tiny acorn. Instead, it sounds like a gunshot. When they are busy at squirrel acorn warfare, they’re also running up and down the tree that is full of crispy leaves. It sounds like they’re rolling in a pile of leaves, a lot like a burglar on the prowl on a cool fall night.
Sometimes when we are not at our best, we can convince ourselves that even the most mundane things are attacks on us. Our perception is our reality, even when it is not even realistic. Faith is supposed to keep us grounded but even with faith, sometimes it is really hard to keep our composure. Being human comes with the occasional fracture of being grounded. We stumble through the dark, looking for the source of whatever is bugging us. Even with faith that all things work together for the good, we try to figure things out on our own. But just like me last night, we’re left stumbling in the darkness. Tired. Confused. Weary. No closer to answers than when we started.
Wisdom was the one thing my Nannie told me to pray for as I was growing up. I didn’t understand true wisdom then. I thought it meant that I would be smart. But wisdom is like smart to the tenth power. It’s like the word smart is 3-D with the depth of a 200 foot well. But when I was stumbling through the dark with nothing to protect me, I was neither smart nor wise. I was doing things my way, even if it was going to hurt me. Why in the world would we willingly choose to go down a path that could cause harm? Because we’ve abandoned wisdom, we’ve set faith aside. Our way has got to be better, right? Well, I was pretty lucky that, at a minimum, I didn’t get attacked by a ravenous raccoon.
Faith is our stabilizer, just like sleep for a weary mind. It allows us to know, without a shadow of a doubt, that things are working for our good. There’s no need to take the alternate path because deliverance is coming. Resolution is on its way. It’s not how we would work things out because His ways are higher. The purpose is higher. The results will be higher and mightier than we could have done on our own. But that’s such a hard lesson to grasp. Human nature wants us to fix it and fix it now, in our timing. As we use faith as our stabilizer, something wonderful starts to happen. Piece by piece we gain wisdom that we would not have been able to absorb had we done things our way. We see things happening that we could never have done on our own and the “ah-ha moment” hits us.
What Nannie was actually encouraging when she told me to pray for wisdom was for me to practice faith. Wisdom isn’t a crown that’s just placed on our heads. We earn it through the trials and tribulations of this life. The beauty of it all is that no matter how painful it was to gain that wisdom, no one can take it away from us. It’s a byproduct of hardship and the fruit born from dark days. Sometimes it is next to impossible that something beautiful can come from the trials but it always comes.
If faith is our stabilizer, keeping us grounded, then wisdom is our protector. I was listening to the live version of a song by Cece Winans, More Than I Wanted and one of the lyrics says, “I love the way that you love me.” Faith and wisdom without love for the journey will breed bitterness. Sometimes we can have all the faith in the world because it’s what we think that we should do, more or less going through the motions. We can see things unfolding for our good through wisdom yet hold a grudge for what we’ve had to endure to get there. Loving the pain is a hard pill to swallow but if we can love the result, then we have to respect the transformation in its entirety. Butterflies don’t gain their wings without spending some time in an ugly cocoon. Do you think they resent the time spent there? It has a purpose and is fulfilled when those beautiful wings spread out into their new world.
No matter what we think we’ve lost, the pain we’ve felt, the time we’ve wasted everything happens according to the design that God has in mind. Stop fighting with the past and make peace with it so that you can be present in the present and be ready to receive the future. Tonight, I say thank you for God’s protection even when I least deserve it. I give thanks for loving me when I’m unloveable. I give thanks for the things that have broken me and caused me pain. I love that everything is coming together for the good, despite the times when I doubt and my faith is faulty. I love that God gives me wisdom through some of the most trying times because that wisdom is something of which I cannot be robbed. I pray that in God’s perfect design shall I step out of my cocoon and spread my wings. The day is coming and I’m going to be ready.
Messpot Diaries 