Hard to Swallow

When I was a little girl I had trouble swallowing pills. It was frustrating for my Mom and me. Mom knew I needed the medicine to get better. And as hard as I tried I just couldn't choke it down. After several tries and tears my Mom said, “Jennifer, I am going to pray and ask Jesus to help you swallow this medicine.”

Mom prayed and then I followed up the prayer with this, “...and Jesus could you please help my Mom to cut the pill in half.”

And that is exactly what my Mom did. She cut the pill in half making it so much easier to take down. Frustration and fear always cloud our problem solving.

I’m looking at the big picture and it seems so overwhelming, but what would happen if I cut it in half? Taking it scene by scene, the beginning, middle, and the end. So many things seem overwhelming and hard to swallow in life. It's easy to get frustrated and not know what to do. We approach so many different angles, wrestle with options, trying our best to make life fit.

Each dance starts with the first step as you build on the first by adding layers to each step until the final result is a routine that is seamless.

I have these dreams and goals for my life and I wanted to “arrive” last year. I want to accomplish these things, but I want to skip a few steps in my process of becoming. Knowing for a fact that the ones I admire so greatly had to pay a price for excellence, I have to throw away my expectations of just having something handed to me.

Right now I don’t know what my next step is supposed to look like, I just know I have to keep trying, to keep pressing on towards the prize and call of Heaven. I have to trust in the One who inspired the apostle to pen,

“…being confident of this very thing, that He who begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.” (Phil 1:6 NKJV)

At times my dance might look the “funky chicken.” At times it might look effortless and pristine with the fluid moments of a trained ballerina. And when I’m ticked off, which is pretty rare for me, it might look more like “krumping.” (Which for you white folk is hard-hitting, hip-hop street dance.)

So, if every step I take is ordered by the Lord. (Prov 37:23) I have to trust that even the most awkward, painful steps lead me one step closer to my God-dreams.

Let the dance begin!