This then has the advantage of feeding my son the subliminal message that he should never ride a dangerous motorbike. Not sure if the Greek author necessarily had motorbikes in mind when he wrote the story, but it’s pretty much the same principle – don’t fly too high, or you’ll die. Right???
When we lose those we have loved – when they die, or move, or we move, or we break up, or are cut off – there is a loss: an emptiness. Part of ourselves is gone.
The loudest demands are not always the most important demands. We have to use our ‘sacred no’ in order to do what is best. Or, as my friend Tara says, “say no to things so you can find your ‘hell, yeah!’”
I’ve learnt that while God is sometimes silent, He is never absent. He chose to remain silent over our prayers for a child, but He was always present with us—even when we couldn’t feel it. And I’ve learnt that a greater tragedy than a broken dream is a life forever defined by one.
How do you respond when the reality of your life is so different from your hope? Miller argues that Christians are to be different – it is possible to thrive in the desert, in the tension, pain and mystery, because God is with us. We see the huge chasm between hope and reality, and somehow walk in the middle. Prayer is the key to survival when you are in the desert.
The darkness that threatens to overtake me? The clouds that seem to suffocate? I am getting close to him. Over and over I am told that God is near to the brokenhearted, He saves the crushed in spirit.
Why do I like the one type of beginning, but not the other? Why have I always loved ‘back to school’ but hate the new beginnings that relapses bring?
The answer is this: one feels progressive, the other regressive. One is macro, the other micro. One is linear, the other cyclical.
I would tell you that God’s story for your life is always bigger than your most painful chapter, or even the one you are in right now. Just because you’ve suffered incredible loss does not mean that your story is over
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Tanya Marlow blogs on the Bible, suffering and the messy edges of life [read more]