STAYING ON COURSE AMIDST LIFE'S INTERRUPTIONS

​Two nights ago my husband woke in the middle of the night because our power went out. I know, who needs power to sleep? He does. Because when the electricity went out, so did his fan, and the silence woke him. Go figure. He walked around the house with his phone flashlight shining, trying to solve for the outage. He later got back in bed, rolled around, sighed, and eventually fell back to sleep.

If your fan stopped blowing, would you be able to sleep?

I’m no better. Last night I woke up because there was such a strong scent in our bedroom I worried there must actually be a skunk in our bed. Thankfully, there was not. But the skunk in the woods outside our window must have had some turbo-powered perfume. I sat there in the dark pondering the probability of a skunk getting in our house, climbing the stairs and snuggling in, after awhile got a glass of water, crawled back in bed, rolled over, tugged the covers, prayed silently and concentrated on relaxing and falling back asleep. I eventually succeeded.
 
Our lives are filled with interruptions—things that disrupt our regularly scheduled programming. Whether that’s the addition of something (a pungent odor) or the subtraction of something (white noise). We are interrupted by the buzz of a text or a car cutting in front of us. Our work is impeded when we can’t get a signal and dinner is delayed when we accidentally set the oven at the wrong temp or spill the spices while measuring them into tiny spoons.
 
In all these circumstances, we eventually put down our phones, pull into a parking spot, tap into the 4G network and pull the lasagna out of the oven. But it takes patience, concentration and focus.

Just like these skunks look innocent, harmless interruptions can impede our self image.

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The same is true when our true reflections get interrupted, disrupted, disturbed. We can go around knowing full well we are created by God, that He loves us, that we have a God-given purpose in life, and then like a rock being thrown into a still pond, something comes along that causes ripples in who we see ourselves to be. We get a rejection letter. Our best friend bails. We get in an argument with our spouse or sibling, or get blamed for someone else’s mistake. We let someone we care about down. The coach benches us. Our friends do something without us. Someone casts a snide comment our way. We lose our balance in a yoga pose or our way on a bike ride. Some days we just plain lose our way and our balance—no exercise required.
 
And when that happens, we have to get back to who we are, that we are Christ’s masterpieces (Eph 2:10) that we are wonderfully made to inspire awe (Psalm 139:14), and we need to do it with patience and focus. We might need to get up from where we are and move around a bit, get a new view on things, shine some light on them. We might need to hydrate with living water (Jesus), wrap ourselves in the cover of God’s love and pray. We need to turn back to our Bibles and fill up on the truths that God loves us. He’ll give us courage and strength. We have nothing to fear with Him on our side. Jesus offers us peace. He is our hope, light and way.
 
We need to go hang out with the special people who remind us of these truths, who love us for exactly who we are. We need to do the things God created us to do—the things we’re good at, eat our favorite foods, wear our favorite clothes, listen to our favorite bands, and talk to God over and over again until we remember, until we fall back into our rhythms and find the blissful peace of knowing we are beautiful, we are priceless, our lives have meaning.

​And even when it feels like nobody else knows or notices, God is there loving us—in the middle of the day, in the middle of the traffic jam, the disappointment, the self doubt and even in the middle of the darkest nights. It just takes a little focus, concentration, and turning it over, but soon we can tune out the interruptions and settle back into knowing we have value and worth, because we are loved by God. We can once again embrace our true reflections.