The past weekend was a bit strange for me. I came into the weekend with not a lot of plans. In fact, I had no clue what I was going to do. Sure, I had the usual suspects like laundry and miscellaneous work stuff, but my ‘fun’ time.. I didn’t know! Some of you might be thinking, that sounds like a GREAT weekend: no plans, no worries! Some of you, like myself, might have had a slight panic attack. I like having a plan and a schedule; I like being busy. My idle/free time is usually wasted, either going down rabbit holes on social media or just not using my time in refreshing ways.
So behold, I found myself Friday night watching Fuller House. Yes, it was cheesy, but still so good. I grew up watching DJ and Stephanie figure out life and knew all the classic one-liners. The Tanners always put family first and had a policy of saying sorry, I love you and hugging it out. The premise of this new series began with everyone leaving SF except DJ, a recent widow with 3 young kids. She hustles throughout the first episode, claiming everything is fine and she can do it. But the breaking point comes when she is alone with a crying baby and reality hits her. She doesn’t know how she is gonna do the working-single-mom thing. And like any good TV plot, her family is hearing all of this on the baby monitor. Stephanie, later, calls her out about being too stubborn to ask for help and tells DJ she is moving in to help her.
I think it is easy in life to assume a DJ mentality; to keep going, work hard, and avoid showing your weaknesses. This can be especially true in the Christian life. We think we need to have things together, or perform for God in order for Him to love us/bless us. It is easy to put up a facade. To mask the internal emotions and thoughts we might feel and think. We might not even know we are doing it. But it is when we are alone and in stillness with ourselves that the walls come down. And we either face the reality that we are weak and needy people, or we numb the pain and emotions. For me, it is hard to sit in reality and recognize the walls and facades I put up. To see my ever-increasing need for Christ. BUT GOD is consistently calling me out like Stephanie was to DJ. And like Stephanie, God is saying, ‘I moved in to help you’. God in His amazing mercy and grace, gives us the Holy Spirit to move and work in us. I forget so easily the help we have to walk this path. I am comforted with these verses from Acts 17 “ that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are indeed his offspring.’”
My prayer for all of us is to slow down, to be okay with the stillness and face reality: we are weak people in need of God’s Grace. May you find God as you seek after Him and realize the joy we have in being His children!