As I write from my heart today, I want to invite you into a story from the past, present, and future that comes with much mystery, tension, and wonder. As you begin to reflect on your life, I welcome you to think about some of the times when you were almost seriously injured or when you almost died or when you should have died. Perhaps in desperation, you cried out to God, and you’re still alive today to tell the stories.
My close-to-home stories are all true, and some of them are so fresh that I can still smell them. I live on a street shaded with old, huge sycamore trees. They shed their bark like snakes shed their skins, and my puppy, Camper, is always trying to eat the bark when we go for walks. Two years ago when I was riding my bike, within seconds of passing under one of the trees, a huge arm from the tree fell onto the street and smashed into pieces right where I had biked.
This past week, a semi drove down our street and clipped the same tree and pulled another arm of the tree onto the hood of a moving car right in front of my house. My friends from the police department blocked off the street. No one was hurt, and my friends from the street department were there in no time to clean up the mess.
Crashes come in many shapes and sizes. Mental breakdowns. Emotional meltdowns. Relationship conflicts. Crises of faith. Debt. Job loss. Sickness. Chronic pain. Crashes can be orchestrated by God, Satan, people, sins, diseases, losses, or deaths. Crashes can be painful, but the crash-induced pains can be powerful lessons that we may have been previously unable or unwilling to learn. We don’t forget the crashes of life—they become image-based memories which are stored in our bodies. What are some of the life-changing lessons that you have learned from life’s crashes? If you’ve recently crashed and if your life feels stuck, God may have you in a waiting period to show you His love and to teach you lessons that can alter the course of your life.
As I’m sharing with you some of my perspectives on life and learning from crashes, I try to write from a spiritual and a trauma-informed perspective. Although I try to be led by the Spirit and be sensitive to the life-situations that people have encountered, I apologize for contributing to your recollection of any painful memories. I believe crashes happen for a reason, and God orchestrates, allows, or uses our crashes in order to position us to heal, to be conformed to His image, and to find our place in the world. We become passionate about helping others who have crashed like us.
Life is a crash course. God designed us to know, follow, and obey Him. We willfully choose our own way. When we try to control everything and to do what we want, God allows us to crash. In His love for us, God sent Jesus Christ to this earth to sovereignly intervene. Jesus crashed into all of the people who refused to believe that He was the Messiah. Jesus’ way collided with all of the systems of this world. He was crushed for our sin, and by His stripes, we were healed (Isaiah 53). As we continue to battle with who is going to be in control of our lives, we can also be crashes-waiting-to-happen. We may think that we’re pursuing health and balance, but oftentimes we’re just masking our internal pain while finding ways to soothe and comfort ourselves instead of addressing the deeper issues.
When we come to the end of our “God-substitutes” that never work, our jealous and loving God draws us back to Himself. We may not experience crashes as God’s love-driven interventions. In fact, we may blame God and be angry at Him because our lives aren’t working the way that we want them to work. But God cares more about our hearts than our happiness. God knows that life only works by His design. We’ll only find peace and a love that satisfies our deepest longings when we surrender to Him. God is love, and He designed us to live in His love. His love is so perfect that it covers all of our sin, and it casts out all of our fear.
If you’re reading and reflecting with me today, I want to invite you to just close your eyes. If you’re full of questions, doubt, anxiety, anger, or wonder, I invite you to cast all of your cares upon Jesus. The Lord knows everything about you, and He loves you with an unfailing love. He does not turn away or send you away because of your sin. Instead, Jesus welcomes you to come to Him. As you begin to surrender your crashes and what may have crushed your spirit, God offers His love and His rest and His peace to sustain you. If you’re worn out from endless striving for perfection, for purpose, or for significance, God will come in and cleanse you, comfort you, fill you, and take control when you surrender the controls of your life to Him. God designed you to daily abide in His loving presence and to become love to those around you. Your future will begin to look and to feel better the more you surrender to God’s love.
Thank you for making time to reflect with me today. I welcome your comments and your feedback.