edge of the precipice…

The hillside path which they were following became narrower all the time and the drop on their right hand became steeper. At last they were going in single file along the edge of the precipice and Shasta shuddered to think that he had done the same last night without knowing it. “But of course,” he thought, “I was quite safe. That is why the Lion kept on my left. He was between me and the edge all the time.”

In this scene from C.S. Lewis’s The Horse and His Boy, Shasta, the main character and the others are walking along the edge of a cliff, when he looks down, he shudders at the thought that the night before he had done the same path in the dark, without realizing that there was a huge drop off to his side. He is comforted in the thought that the Lion kept to his left to protect him from falling. When I read this passage and visualize this scene, I am almost brought to tears. In my life, I have been on the edge of a precipice, trotting along, without realizing that I was never walking alone. I thank God that he knows when we are on the edge and decides to stay and walk with us.

This scene reminds me of God’s love in my life in two ways. The first being the obvious: that he never leaves nor forsakes us. That he is always with us, even when we are inches from the precipice, the edge, the drop-off of falling into complete despair, recklessness, or desperation. God is always there. Like the Lion in C.S. Lewis’s Narnia, our God shows up right and when we need him. The second truth that I gather from this scene is that what is done in the dark will always come out in the light. Shasta had been on the same exact path the night before. He had taken the same steps, endured the same journey, but it is revealed that he had to cover his tracks again during the day and in the light.

My nights on the precipice are just now beginning to unfold in the light. The nights on the edge and the clinging to a little bit of rope and hanging on. God was there on those nights, and he shows me every day now in the light that he never left me, he still loves me, and I am safe with him next to me.

In difficult times, I know I want to I think I am alone and by myself, but when the day dawns, I realize, like Shasta, that He was always there between me and the precipice.

Thank you God for standing between me and the edge all the time.

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God of shoe racks??

During my first year of teaching, I moved into a new apartment with a huge walk-in closet. I was excited about the vastness and space that was available in the closet. I absolutely love shoes and clothes, so the large closet made me extremely happy. I decided to buy a shoe rack to store some of my shoes as a way to best utilize the space. So, I headed to Target and picked up one of the types of shoe racks that you have to assemble yourself. When I got home, I was eager to put together the shoe rack and begin putting my shoes on it. However, assembling this particular shoe rack was one of the hardest things that I have ever done in my life.  There were poles that needed to fit in notches and plastic brackets to hold it all together, and for some reason all the pieces did not want to fit together properly. Every time I thought I was finished, I would watch the metal poles slip through the holes and the entire rack fall to ground. After hours of assembling this shelf, I just sat on the floor and cried in frustration. I couldn’t understand why it wasn’t working. I had all the right pieces, and I knew where they were supposed to go, but they just wouldn’t fit.

How many times in our own lives have we had the right pieces, but we just couldn’t make them fit? I think when we are the carpenters of our own lives, the pieces will never go together as they should.

Eventually, I did get the shoe rack assembled, with the help of a lot of duct tape and tons of sweat, frustration, and tears. The crazy thing about that shoe rack was it never actually stayed together. On countless occasions, I would go to pull a shoe, and the entire rack would come crumbling down. At first, I met this with more frustration and a lack of understanding. However, I got to the point that year that when the rack fell, I rebuilt. You can never give up on anything, even if it seems as trivial as a shoe rack. We are all God’s shoe racks, he puts us together, and we fall apart. Instead of waving his hands in frustration, he picks up all of the pieces and rebuilds us again and again and again.

Where do you go when the pieces fall? Do you attempt to rebuild your own shoe rack? Or do you let God put the pieces exactly as they should go?

For most of my life, I thought I was building my own rack, controlling my own life, and time and time again, my rack fell to the ground with a large bang. Now, as I see God as the owner of my whole life, I know he controls the pieces and will build the rack with a sturdy foundation, such that if it falls, I know he is ready to pick up the pieces and build again. I thank God that he never gives up on us, even when we think the shoe rack will never be operational.

Where is God sometimes?

It was an early May day, but the temperature in Nashville was already in the mid-90s. It was the sticky, sweltering type of heat that makes it not only difficult to breath, but every task is intensified by the mighty rays of the sun. I was sitting in my car at a local park in between errands for that day. Although I was parked in the shade, I could feel the sauna that was right outside my car. As I sat in the car, I began to feel tears swelling in my eyes. I didn’t want to cry in that moment, I wanted to feel the warmth of the sun and be reminded of God’s love and presence. However, in that moment, all I could do was cry. I don’t know how long I sat in that car with tears streaming down my face, and sweat dripping from my forehead, but after a short while, I was distracted from my tears by a buzz of my cell phone.

It’s weird that I would ask where God is sometimes, when I know he is everywhere at all times. But sometimes I think we just have to be reminded that he is with us and cares for us. When I picked up the phone and wiped the tears from my eyes that were blurring my vision, I noticed a text from a friend that simply said, “Are you okay today?” I don’t know how she knew to text me or that I was sitting in a hot car crying in isolation, but that text message reminded me of God’s love in my life, and how he sends people to us in our most desperate situations. Later that afternoon, as I was walking to class, I looked at the big, bright, beautiful sun, and I knew God was there. I felt him in the warmth of the spring air. I saw him in the blinding rays of the sun. I sensed him in the humidity that clinged to my skin. I met God that day and he told me that he is with me always. For me, that message came from the largest celestial body in the solar system. For others, it can come in all kinds of different forms and ways.

At hard times, I think it is easy to forget that God has a plan for our lives and to trust his plan, but when we surrender to his good and perfect will, that’s when his love and grace is illuminated in our lives like the beauty of the sun on a hot May day.

Be blessed and live in the name of christ…

Stop looking down during stressing times and look up and find the “sun”, the light, and the way.