by: Liz Byer
“Hmmmmmm”,
I actually make that sound a lot when I am studying on something. I love
to be curious about things and that is my curious sound. I was playing
Clue with my daughter a while back and she pointed out that I made that
“hmmmmmm” sound every time I got a new clue. I guess I am easily
intrigued with information. While I love to be curious, I love even more
getting to the answer. So when my heart makes that “hmmmming” feeling
inside, God always has my full attention because I want to know what is going
on. What should I be seeing that I am not? What did my heart just
figure that that I am missing?
Lately
I have been visiting with a young lady about disabilities and dealing with life
in the midst of our physical bodies doing crazy and unexpected things to us.
I shared with her that I have always felt that God protected me from a
very hard and ugly life by blessing me with this incredibly imperfect body.
I know that if I had not been given this disability that I would be a real mess.
I would have followed in my family's footsteps and been a raging alcoholic.
It’s a long story on how I know this, but I do know it without much doubt.
Sometime
when God gives us lemons, we just sit down on the curb and cry for awhile.
Then finally we do the obvious thing of making the lemonade in a stand on the
street. But what about making Lemon Chiffon Pie or Lemon Mousse or
Lemon Tiramisu in a galley fit for a king? What about going one more
step forward and using our ordinary lemons to make something extra-ordinary?
Lately God has been showing me that there is so much more to the life situations
that He gives us than we ever see. I don’t think we are just called to
“get through it” and merely survive, but I think He wants us to get through
in the very best way and bring honor to Him…to get through it in style with
Him. My heart has been "hmmmmmmming" a lot about this.
I
challenge any who pop in to read this to think what your extra-ordinary outcome
might be if you decided to embrace whatever difficulty you are dealing with and
allow God to work in a mighty way through you because of it. We spend a
lot of time and energy as humans wishing the immoveable thorns in our sides
could be gone. If we used that same amount of energy and used those thorns
to help others or to show others about Jesus how much further along could we be?
I have said for many years…mostly to my children…but also to myself, “You
get what you get and you don’t pitch a fit.” It works to stop the whining
over things that cannot be changed. It propagates acceptance. But
lately my heart has been “hmmming” over a new life motto…how about..
"You get what you get, so embrace it!" or "You get what you get,
so run or dance or fly with it!" This would continue to propagate
acceptance, but in a much more hopeful, grand, Jesus-like way don’t you think?
“Hmmmmmmmming”