That place we don’t want to go…

A couple of nights ago our cat brought a mouse inside and upstairs through her cat door. This was not the gift of adoration to her humans that you may presume as she has a habit of bringing in things, not for us, but for her to ‘play’ with (i.e. terrorize!): little lizards, tiny frogs, butterflies. The night she brought the mouse in my son, Adam, and I ended up in the living room trying to be quiet but somewhat hysterically laughing at 2am as two beady eyes and ears peeped out of the Christmas tree where it had noisily tried to hide. We popped the tree outside as neither one of us relished the idea of a quick grab into the branches, shut the door and expected that to be the end of that. But more frantic squeaking and cat dashing around and slamming into doors a couple of hours later made us realize that the mouse had slipped away in the darkness to parts of the house unknown.

Fast forward a couple of nights later. Steve was away and I was alone in our bedroom. I had been in dreamland for just about an hour when a very small mouse began to make a quite tremendous noises dashing, scrambling, clawing and climbing. I flicked on the light and that settled things down for a bit, but the mouse must have been quite hungry by then and the roaming continued. All night long. And I didn’t sleep. At all.

The next afternoon when I yawned and thought about the night before, it hit me. After years in the developing world I’m not very scared of rodents. While I don’t like them we’ve ended up cohabiting for periods despite my best efforts otherwise. So a mouse in my room was irritating, but didn’t make the adrenaline flow and thoroughly wake me up. I just tolerated it.

That afternoon I realized the idiot that I’d been as there had been one entire other bedroom free that night as well as the couch right out in the living room. If I’d used my brain just a tiny bit more for a solution, I could have easily slept! While the cat is not allowed in our room at night, I could also have let her in and she would have had no trouble scouting out the irritant. So many options were there but I just lay restlessly passive and let the little intruder steal my rest away.

How often do we do that? Passively exist while letting little things steal our peace, our joy, our zest for life and most destructively our hope? When life gets to be too much and we grow numb because we haven’t taken the time or effort for the connection back to our Creator.

I don’t know about you but I get upset at God. I don’t consciously think I am, but when days go by where I let my glance graze my Bible but don’t pick it up, or when the thought of sitting still to look inside makes me feel like I can’t breathe so I hop right back up again into busy; it’s going on.

Instead of finding peace, joy and rest, I sit there numb and let the rodent disturb.

Ridiculous, aye?

I suppose what holds us back can be a form of pride. Part of me sometimes thinks, “I’ve got this, thank you very much.” Or at least this little bit and later a little bit more until I falter under the load. Or it can be a lack of trust, “I’m not sure that YOU’VE got this, God.” Or fear that we won’t be able to handle what we find there, “I’m not sure You’re big enough, God, or that I’m valuable enough for You to help.” Or down right idolatry, because that’s putting anything else on the seat where God alone should dwell.

One thing I’ve come to believe about the human heart and spirit is that the place in there that we just don’t want to go—–is right where we should purposefully make our way to if we want to live free. And free is a place that’s actually so much easier to be no matter how insurmountable the mountains may seem that it takes to get there.

Martin Luther King Jr said, “Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.” That very first step can be the hardest, too.

Taking that first step can just be sitting with it: that thing that you want to avoid at all costs. It already IS so let it be present. You never solve anything by running away from it. It will come back to bite you. every. single. time.

I want to believe that eventually this lesson of not just passively letting the intruder do it’s worse gets easier, but I think that it’s one of those life long journey things that we have to take stock of and remind ourselves over and over and over yet again. So far it is for me anyway! I wrote this several years ago and rediscovered it the other day, proof that the lesson is ongoing:

“Why is it so hard to fall to my knees
When I’m overwhelmed, tired, and don’t know where to go?
Well, I do know where, it’s to Him
But somehow while I feel His presence I’m only scratching the surface
I reach out with grasping fingers but miss the fullness of His hand

I want to dive right in, the water is fine
I know He’s there yet my bent knees won’t take that final spring
They won’t dive into the water and they won’t kneel in prayer
Distracted, restless, still trying to do it on my own
Or maybe just too tired to move at all

Why is it so hard to fall to my knees
When I long for Him, ache for Him, need His strength in my limbs?
Need Him so much that I cannot even kneel on my own
Need Him to draw me in, I want to bow
Bow in His presence, rest in His glory

Anxiety, really the art of disbelief
Distracted, restless, not fully living
Puffs up the ‘self’, makes me think I’m ‘doing something’
What a waste of time, keeping me at half mast
You’d think I would have learned this by now

Why is it so hard to fall to my knees
When His hands are there to catch my fall?
When the very essence of love is etched in His smile?
When His tender compassion envelopes me fully?
When His all-powerful, all-knowing Self is absolutely trustworthy?

Silly, stubborn, wayward girl
Get on your knees
Just fall”

The effort of progressing in this lesson is worth it, however, no matter how many times it takes. After all our job in the journey isn’t what’s ahead, it’s what we do with the now. And with that thought here are a couple of ‘hope’ verses to remind us that He’s got this in the long run and that we can trust Him to sit still and grapple with the current intruders in our hearts.