When self gets in the way

The last 7 days have been hard. School has been hard this week. The art of listening and hearing is a lost one many times. Over the course of the week, when the problems began to pile up and the answers were nowhere to be found, I began to get angry and upset, ready to take overly drastic measures. I know that I need to look to the Lord for the answers - He knows the outcome of all of this and I felt that I could handle it. Self tends to get in the way when times are hard. I know in my heart that I need to lean on God - it is easy to lean on Him when things are easy. Satan uses self to pull me away from God and lean on myself.

At the end of July, I spent a week at high school camp as a counselor for the students at our church. The theme for camp this year was Death to Self. Our youth pastor challenged the students, and the adults, to daily die to self. For me, sinful man that I am, that is one of the hardest things to do. It is like I must turn off my brain and just give everything to God. God has to handle all situations, not just the ones that I figure are too big for me to handle. He has to have the freedom to handle all situations - from the teeny tiny to the whale size ones. He has the freedom and the power but He is not an overpowering God.

I didn't know that when I went to camp that I was going to come out on the other side a completely different person. Over the last 17 months of this Type 1 journey, I have tended to rely on myself to find the answers and the way. When Jack was diagnosed, I sat in that hospital and handed it to God. I knew then, and still know now, that there is no way that I can do this on my own. At some point in the last 17 months, I decided that I was going to take it back and try to figure it out on my own. God has a way of letting us do that. He knows the outcome but He lets us do it. When we fail miserably and go crawling back to Him, head hung in shame, He doesn't scold or chide us. He welcomes us with open arms of love and eyes of grace and mercy. How awesome that there is a God that does that?! When we, as parents, allow our children to do something that we know the outcome to, what do we say to them when that outcome occurs? I know that personally I have said, "See, I told you that was going to happen." What would happen if I welcomed Jack with arms of love and a spirit of grace and mercy? Even in our adulthood, we are children. We act like children. We do things that children do, in defiant attitudes, because we think that we know better and we know everything. Our Father in His goodness will give us correction when appropriate but even that is done in a loving way.

I got to a point on Friday that I practically shoved myself out of the way. Through tears, I crawled back to God. I told him that I couldn't do this anymore. Only God! Only God can get us through this valley. I can't remember exactly where I heard this but I will never forget it - God doesn't put us in the valley to just meet us at the end of it. He puts us in the valley to walk through it with us. How awesome is that! He never leaves us even in the deepest darkest valley. He is there with the Light shining the way to the end. He is there for us to lean on every step of the way - in fact He wants us to do so. Don't feel like a burden to Him. He has me right where He wants me.

For now.