Dancing in the muddy puddles

What a week. It feels like this year is zipping by, like I’m standing still. It’s funny that I type that because I stayed up far too long last night reading. Now, I don’t read very much romance anymore, but I’m mulling over a new series, so I wanted to get a feel for the genre.

It’s still romance, but it was Christian romance. (Mine will most likely fall into women’s fiction.) Anyway, I was reading Not Until You by Valerie M. Bodden and one of the lines hit me hard.

“Somewhere along the line, she’d forgotten that each day was a gift from the Lord and had started to look at the days as something to simply survive.” -Violet (main character)

Man, did that hit home. I literally teared up and put my hand over my mouth because it was 2am and I didn’t want to wake up my husband (who never softly snores by the way, but people in glass houses can’t throw stones. I think the next time I have a character snoring, they’re going to be ripping like chainsaws.) 

I feel like these past six months that’s exactly what I’ve been doing. Stressing, worrying, looking all the negative, and as much as I’ve been trying to dance in the puddles, I’ve been wrapping myself in everything I can find that will keep the rain off of me. 

The puddles have been so deep, I’ve been afraid that my rain boots will fill up, and I’ll be pulled under. Why have I been wearing the rain boots in the first place? Why haven’t I just gone barefoot?

Barefoot? God, you want me to go barefoot? But my puddles are full of sharp objects. I don’t want to get cut, and I’ve been cut so many times. And you’ve let it happen. Where’s my bubble wrap? Don’t you see all the wounds I already have? 

By His stripes, we are healed (Isaiah 53:5) floats to mind. 

These gaping wounds don’t feel healed sometimes. Sometimes they feel like they’re infected. They’re flayed open and they ache. They burn and hurt and sting.

Why don’t I feel healed? 

And yes, facts aren’t feelings. That doesn’t make them any less real. Or hurt any less. Or crush any less. 

Sometimes, I feel crushed and bruised.

But He’s living water, right? The answer to a thirst that quenches all. 

Maybe instead of looking at the puddles and only seeing muddy, murky water, I need to dance in the Living Water. Perhaps, just maybe, I need to have faith that even when I can’t see the bottom, that maybe I’ll get cut, bruised, or broken, that Jesus has me. Perhaps bubble wrap isn’t the answer. Maybe the answer is a soothing grace and mercy I don’t deserve. 

Maybe there’s a reason that stepping out in faith is so hard. I know I’m going to be beaten and bruised. 

But the Healer will be there. Maybe I need to focus more on the Healer, trust that those puddles will bring me closer to Him.
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Not maybe. Definitely. And practice, living out that faith, is what builds the Kingdom. Isn’t that what I’m called do to? Build the kingdom? He was beaten for my transgressions, and I’m over here whimpering about a few minor cuts and bruises. I’m not supposed to make sense to the world. In it, but not of it, right?

Maybe it’s time I put faith in its rightful spot as an action and not a adverb.

Maybe I shouldn’t be an adverb either.