Here we go again

Chicken pox.... that lovely little disease that most of us got when we were small. It was miserable and itchy and you had your dad threatening to play connect the dots with them (or at least mine did). But the beautiful thing about Chicken Pox is that typically if you got a really good dose of it you could rest assured you wouldn't get it again. Well, when we go through difficult seasons in life we tend to develop the same mindset (or at least I do). I think, "Wow! that was painful and yet God did a lot through it, but I'm happy it's over and I won't have to go through that again." And yet again that is another time when God seems to go, "Awww... Kelli, that's cute you think that, but I'm not done with you yet and therefore you need to go through the fire yet again." In Scripture we read about Jesus saying how God prunes us to bring about growth, and the thing is that you don't just prune a plant once and then you never have to do it again, it's a thing that has to happen again and again to maintain the health of the plant.

About a year ago I would say I went through the most difficult season of my life between being broken both spiritually and physically and having to deal with loosing some of those I'm closest to. Right now, I feel like I'm embarking on another season that has similar traits to what God got me through last year. Right now, I'm basically (sometimes literally) crying out, "God, please! Not that again! I can't hurt like that again!" I feel like I'm on the beginning of a class 5 rapid, and basically when you're about to do that you either paddle or if it gets too rough you get down and hold on for dear life. Already any strength I have of myself is gone so "paddling" isn't exactly an option, but "getting down" is. One thing that God has already brought about in preparing me for this season is teaching me just what a vital thing prayer is. We so quickly turn to so many other sources to talk/complain about our problems, but very rarely do we lift everything to him in prayer. He continues to remind me of the fact that He's with me as I'm alone crying out to Him, He continues to remind me that He's still on the throne, and He continues to remind me that "His ways are not my ways".

I praise Him for His faithfulness to meet me in my times with Him. That He cries out to me through His word, and a lot of the time it's with things I've tried to avoid admitting to myself but have no choice when it's so clear what He's calling me to do. Sometimes I'm so afraid of what this season might bring. It's been said that sometimes God calms the storms for his saints, and sometimes he calms his saints for the storm. I pray He just continues to equip me to take on the storms of these next couple of months and as Peter trusted God to the point that he was sleeping the night he was due to be executed that I would have that "peace that surpasses all understanding". I guess all that's left to say is, "Ready or not, here we go again".