Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: BUSY (08/15/19)
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TITLE: Yet, I Wrestle | Previous Challenge Entry
By Karlene Jacobsen
08/22/19 -
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I busy myself, racing against the clock. Your question nags in the back of my mind, as well as your promises. How can I trust them? You’ve never steered me wrong before, but this?
You have asked, “Do you love me?”
Of course, I do. I think I do, anyway. I just can’t bring myself to give you the answer I know you’re requiring of me. To trust without reservation . . . To believe you’re in control of all the details . . . To surrender my rights and my dreams? I just don’t know. That’s asking a lot. I have plans. Hopes. Hurts and insecurities.
Days pass. I know you are still there. Patient. For how long? How long before you decide I am a hopeless cause and you give up on me? Perhaps I should just give the answer you are waiting for just to say something. Instead, I find work for my hands and duck away from your presence.
In the night hours, when I am alone, I hear you whisper, “What frightens you?”
I stare, at nothing really, and chew on the question. So many things frighten me, but I believe I know what you mean. Right now, I am afraid to be honest—even with myself. My mind races because I allow it to keep running, finding things to busy itself so that it doesn’t have to swim in the depths of the truth. Drown would be a more appropriate term.
I’m becoming tired. Fatigue has shackled my ankles to leaden balls, and my wrists have no strength. I struggle to maintain focus on the many things I have lined up so that I can avoid the answers you wait for. However, I feel more like a prisoner with each moment of striving I hold to.
I need control. I have seen life spin out of my grip far too long. How can I allow myself to trust you to hold my world together?
And there it is. I fear giving up control, to let someone else, even the Creator of the Universe, hold my life in their hands. I have spent too many years thinking I must have it all figured out.
You have promised rest. Rest for my soul. Rest for my mind. What does that look like?
I am ready to give you that answer, but I don’t trust myself to stick to it.
Today, I will put aside my busyness and sit at Your feet for a time.
Today, I will choose to trust you, since my striving is doing no one any good.
Today, I will take my eyes off what I can see and place them on Your beauty and strength.
Today, I will take comfort in the promise that when tomorrow arrives, You will provide new grace, new mercy, new strength, a new willingness of my heart, to surrender once again.
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That's certainly reflected in this story too, especially searching question of the ultimate, and most important relationship: our love for God. Nicely and thoughtfully told.