gray skies in an otherwise sunshiny life
I am mother to a sunshine kid. From birth, this little one was pretty much pure delight. The nurses fawned over her cuteness in the hospital nursery. She seemed to have a golden ticket in life. Rarely angry, fearful, or mean, this little fairy charmed us all.
Recently, gray skies have been moving in to this little sunshiny life of my sweetheart. She's doubting things. Doubting her looks, her intelligence, her relationships. It's strange watching it. Tears and frowns just don't fit her. I long to see the sunshine break on her face again, for the gray skies to clear. This week she has to say goodbye to her closest friend she's made in our year of living in Florida AND take her standardized test. YIKES! She's got some gray skies for her age. Underneath it all, she knows God loves her, mom and dad love her, and (I think) her sisters love her. But it doesn't clear the gray away. Not yet.
So I pray for her. I pray for myself. I pray for all of us here who have gray skies in an otherwise sunshiny life.
As Christians, we know that God is for us, so nothing else can truly be "against" us. But what does that look like? Bills we can't pay still mount. Isn't that bad for us? Pain still shoots through our body. Isn't that bad for us? People still hurt us in words and actions. Isn't that bad for us? Well, yes, all those things would be bad for us if we knew ONLY those things and ONLY this life. They would be "bad" for us in a retributive, "we deserve that" kind of way.
But we know more. Like a bee sting that fades in pain level, our bad things in life can fade in intensity, if we know where to look. If we aren't steeped in the knowledge of the love of God for us, these gray skies will never clear. I mean really. We won't feel them clear. Breaking through to sunshine is an active, vigorous exercise I must take up. Life can crush us if we agree to it. God asks us to have faith, not sight. So when I rely on my sight of all the bad, I will sink and be crushed by the weight if my focus doesn't change.
Changing my focus lies in repenting, in a sense. I turn from my natural inclination to look at the bad and force myself to look to the good...Jesus and His proven love for me. I see the cross, where I should have suffered and died to pay for all my sin. At first, this fills me with more gray skies. But then, I look up and see something else...a Man of Sorrow volunteering to hang there for me, instead of me. I well up with tears to think of someone else taking that pain for me. I think in my heart that it's not right, not fair for Him to die instead of me. He's done nothing wrong. He hasn't committed my sin. But He insists. He goes. He hangs there, pierced through, and stays there until He is dead. Again, my heart is filled with gray skies. The darkest of gray skies. What have I done, that an innocent man should hang there and die in agony for me? I am putrid. But then, the skies begin to roll back, sun begins to break through the gray sky. A radiance, a beauty begins to pour through the breaking clouds, and I look up to see the Man who hung on my cross high above me, radiant and alive, with arms open wide. His glory is blinding. I can't keep my eyes on him without burning up. He speaks something like this to me, "Child, I am alive. All your sin is cancelled. Someday you will be here in paradise with me. You will come here to me. You will be like me on that day. Without sin. Here there are no gray skies."
You see, gray skies exist here on earth. But they are passing away, one by one, for the Christian. Instead of looking at them as mounting, we should see them as breaking up, moving on by us one by one as we draw closer to heaven--the land of clear skies. Never fear the gray skies. They must be. But they will pass. Heaven is just beyond.
Recently, gray skies have been moving in to this little sunshiny life of my sweetheart. She's doubting things. Doubting her looks, her intelligence, her relationships. It's strange watching it. Tears and frowns just don't fit her. I long to see the sunshine break on her face again, for the gray skies to clear. This week she has to say goodbye to her closest friend she's made in our year of living in Florida AND take her standardized test. YIKES! She's got some gray skies for her age. Underneath it all, she knows God loves her, mom and dad love her, and (I think) her sisters love her. But it doesn't clear the gray away. Not yet.
So I pray for her. I pray for myself. I pray for all of us here who have gray skies in an otherwise sunshiny life.
As Christians, we know that God is for us, so nothing else can truly be "against" us. But what does that look like? Bills we can't pay still mount. Isn't that bad for us? Pain still shoots through our body. Isn't that bad for us? People still hurt us in words and actions. Isn't that bad for us? Well, yes, all those things would be bad for us if we knew ONLY those things and ONLY this life. They would be "bad" for us in a retributive, "we deserve that" kind of way.
But we know more. Like a bee sting that fades in pain level, our bad things in life can fade in intensity, if we know where to look. If we aren't steeped in the knowledge of the love of God for us, these gray skies will never clear. I mean really. We won't feel them clear. Breaking through to sunshine is an active, vigorous exercise I must take up. Life can crush us if we agree to it. God asks us to have faith, not sight. So when I rely on my sight of all the bad, I will sink and be crushed by the weight if my focus doesn't change.
Changing my focus lies in repenting, in a sense. I turn from my natural inclination to look at the bad and force myself to look to the good...Jesus and His proven love for me. I see the cross, where I should have suffered and died to pay for all my sin. At first, this fills me with more gray skies. But then, I look up and see something else...a Man of Sorrow volunteering to hang there for me, instead of me. I well up with tears to think of someone else taking that pain for me. I think in my heart that it's not right, not fair for Him to die instead of me. He's done nothing wrong. He hasn't committed my sin. But He insists. He goes. He hangs there, pierced through, and stays there until He is dead. Again, my heart is filled with gray skies. The darkest of gray skies. What have I done, that an innocent man should hang there and die in agony for me? I am putrid. But then, the skies begin to roll back, sun begins to break through the gray sky. A radiance, a beauty begins to pour through the breaking clouds, and I look up to see the Man who hung on my cross high above me, radiant and alive, with arms open wide. His glory is blinding. I can't keep my eyes on him without burning up. He speaks something like this to me, "Child, I am alive. All your sin is cancelled. Someday you will be here in paradise with me. You will come here to me. You will be like me on that day. Without sin. Here there are no gray skies."
You see, gray skies exist here on earth. But they are passing away, one by one, for the Christian. Instead of looking at them as mounting, we should see them as breaking up, moving on by us one by one as we draw closer to heaven--the land of clear skies. Never fear the gray skies. They must be. But they will pass. Heaven is just beyond.
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