Although Christmas is my most favorite time of the year there was one Christmas where I found myself in a very dark place. My business was a seasonal one and I was working a second job to help make ends meet. My mother was living with us as she was fighting her last battle with cancer. She was also fighting the need to have someone come in to help care for her. I was trying to maintain some sense of normalcy by continuing to be the troop leader for my daughter’s Girl Scout troop. But life was anything but normal. Worse, I was feeling like I had fallen into Alice in Wonderland’s rabbit hole, running helter-skelter without direction. My attitude was filled with the darkness of doubt, confusion, fear and exhaustion. I doubted myself, my abilities, my being able to care for my mom both physically and emotionally, being a good parent, wife, and daughter. I even doubted my faith. Like I said, I was in the rabbit hole. I knew I needed time to stop to think and pray, but even that seemed to take more energy and time than I could muster.
It was on an emergency service call to one of my accounts that I found the time to pray and I found God sitting with me and quieting my soul. I was waiting for a technician to repair a client’s air conditioner. He was late and all I could do was wait! I sat on the patio of the client’s condo looking out to the ocean on A1A. I felt empty, numb, and for the first time in my life, speechless and thoughtless. I didn’t plead, beg or beseech God as I had been; rather, I sat and waited – for what I thought was the repairman. What followed was amazing! With each wave that crashed against the sand and then washed back into the ocean I could feel my breathing slow and my anxiety diminishing. I felt as if I was being held by God and rocked into peace and tranquility. It was as if God were whispering to me to release the doubt, the fear, and relax because He was ever present in my life, would never leave me no matter what would transpire in my future. The feelings of doubt were replaced with feelings of love and joy! I knew that Abba Father would see me and my family through just as He always had from the beginning of time with Abraham and Moses, to bringing Christ into our lives to show us how to live and love.
My problems were not solved in those moments. But I heard God clearly say to me that it would take time, but that He was the master and I was the apprentice. If I allowed, His love would steer my life and the present issues would in time be resolved and I would survive them to be stronger and more resilient.
As the technician rang the doorbell to the client’s home I resolved to make time to sit and listen to God each and every day, despite the frenetic pace of our lives and the Christmas season! I would begin with a 5 minute commitment each and every day where I would ask a question to our Father and then listen. As I walked out of that home, I found I had climbed out of the rabbit hole with a smile on my face, and a joy in my heart that hadn’t been there all Christmas season.
Father God, thanks you for giving us Your Word to guide us and for Christ’s birth and life to lead us into a state of joy. Help us to make time to listen at your feet and patience enough to wait with expectation for the life You want for us. Help us to trust in You without full understanding but to seek you in all we do, knowing assuredly that you will lead our paths straight. (Proverbs 3:5-6)