Picture yourself being a beautiful cake with luxurious frosting and colored sprinkles all over the top! You feel whole and fantastic! The cake represents your soul with its warm, soft and pillowy texture. It's the safe place in the center of your life. The place from where "Who you are" grows! The frosting is what holds you together, similar to our control habits that we exercise in keeping our life from falling apart. The sprinkles are our relationships, activities, and rituals. The steady constants that our daily life revolves around. A pretty little cake that is all put together nicely and suits our lifestyle just fine.
Then, some circumstance comes along and blows a hole right through your center and turns you into a donut in a blink of an eye. A gaping hole that empties your soul, leaves you out of control and scatters all that you knew to be normal spread out before you in collateral damage!
Have you watched the news lately? The world is falling apart bit by bit and it leaves us feeling shocked and fearful. However, when those blasts hit us close to our own lives it is quite different. It's then personal and the pain is inescapable. I often watch on television these interviews with students or parents...who have just lost a precious friend or child and I immediately say, "I cannot imagine." I secretly thank God that my prayers right then are for someone else and not for me and my family. How do they bear it? How are they even standing? The empathy I feel for them is even too much for my mind and heart to comprehend.
In this day and age we are so exhausted from trying to hold everything together. We whisper prayers like "Oh God, please keep calamity from our door!", weakening our spiritual life with worry as we live defensively and offensively. Our physical beings are drained from trying to protect our children from harm. If they leave our sight for a second we panic and scurry to find them. Mentally we are frazzled due to the demanding pressures of surviving and emotionally we are barraged with other peoples grief not to mention our own. All the while we are trying to present our selves as perfect little cupcakes.
The donut hole exists in all of us and no one can escape the trials of life. It's what we fill that hole with that counts. Jesus says, "In this world you will have tribulation. But, take heart! I have overcome the world." For every sorrow, claim a joy! For every complaint, counteract it with gratitude!... Don't let the world fill your soul but let the hope and love of Christ dwell there. Be honest and humble with others as you let them see you without all the frosting. Your vulnerability can be a healing force for someone else. Take your shattered dreams and brokenness to the ONE who redeems! We don't have to live with a damaged soul. Jesus gives us a choice, whether we choose our own way or His, we always have a choice of how we will react to pain and loss.
My granddaughter and I made a cake for a party but we were running late and didn't let it cool all the way. When we went to turn it out of the pan it fell apart! We had a choice right then of how to react. We rolled handfuls into little balls and put frosting on them. We made donut holes. It's a simple metaphor but it can serve us in all our calamities. Jesus can make a message out of any mess if we let Him.
Matthew 11:28, "Come to Me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest..."
Job 8:21, "He will yet fill your mouth with laughter and your lips with shouts of joy!"
Then, some circumstance comes along and blows a hole right through your center and turns you into a donut in a blink of an eye. A gaping hole that empties your soul, leaves you out of control and scatters all that you knew to be normal spread out before you in collateral damage!
Have you watched the news lately? The world is falling apart bit by bit and it leaves us feeling shocked and fearful. However, when those blasts hit us close to our own lives it is quite different. It's then personal and the pain is inescapable. I often watch on television these interviews with students or parents...who have just lost a precious friend or child and I immediately say, "I cannot imagine." I secretly thank God that my prayers right then are for someone else and not for me and my family. How do they bear it? How are they even standing? The empathy I feel for them is even too much for my mind and heart to comprehend.
In this day and age we are so exhausted from trying to hold everything together. We whisper prayers like "Oh God, please keep calamity from our door!", weakening our spiritual life with worry as we live defensively and offensively. Our physical beings are drained from trying to protect our children from harm. If they leave our sight for a second we panic and scurry to find them. Mentally we are frazzled due to the demanding pressures of surviving and emotionally we are barraged with other peoples grief not to mention our own. All the while we are trying to present our selves as perfect little cupcakes.
The donut hole exists in all of us and no one can escape the trials of life. It's what we fill that hole with that counts. Jesus says, "In this world you will have tribulation. But, take heart! I have overcome the world." For every sorrow, claim a joy! For every complaint, counteract it with gratitude!... Don't let the world fill your soul but let the hope and love of Christ dwell there. Be honest and humble with others as you let them see you without all the frosting. Your vulnerability can be a healing force for someone else. Take your shattered dreams and brokenness to the ONE who redeems! We don't have to live with a damaged soul. Jesus gives us a choice, whether we choose our own way or His, we always have a choice of how we will react to pain and loss.
My granddaughter and I made a cake for a party but we were running late and didn't let it cool all the way. When we went to turn it out of the pan it fell apart! We had a choice right then of how to react. We rolled handfuls into little balls and put frosting on them. We made donut holes. It's a simple metaphor but it can serve us in all our calamities. Jesus can make a message out of any mess if we let Him.
Matthew 11:28, "Come to Me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest..."
Job 8:21, "He will yet fill your mouth with laughter and your lips with shouts of joy!"
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