Swimming Against the Current

I have often heard others referring to someone “swimming against the current” with their actions. In this, they are referring to actions which go against the flow of their lives, or the direction in which they should be going. These actions often exhaust a person or cause a person feel like they are doing everything they can, but gettin’ nowhere.

Today I was doing some reading (Joyce Meyer-Battlefield of the Mind) and had my own “ah-ha” moment. After getting sick in December and then getting diagnosed in February, I of course began doing research on what could help me be in better health, what foods would be easy for me to eat and digest, and what food would speed healing. While all of these things are great, the latter of the three is where I had my “ah-ha”. Not only was I looking for food that would speed healing, but in my mind I was depending more on the food and what I could do for myself then I was depending on God for my healing. I had been sick for such a long time that I started to feel like there has to be something I’m not doing right. There has to be something that I can do to help this along. I’ve prayed and prayed, so now maybe God wants me to do something else! I was completely OVER being sick and not being able to be out and about like I normally am. I was stressed out every day because I felt guilty for not being able to work and was fearful of what was going to happen if I lost my job. I was all over the place, but never really settled in to the fact that maybe I was supposed to just be still and know that through faith and perseverance and when the time was right, I would be healed.

I am still healing and living through my illness, but today I realize that sometimes God has to slow us down to talk to us, teach us, develop us, and get us to a better place in our lives. I may not understand everything right now, but what I now realize is that with all of my hard work in trying to heal myself, I was doing my own “swimming against the current”. Sometimes God stretches things out and makes them so that we will know without a shadow of a doubt that it is He alone who has delivered us and that it wasn’t through anything we could do on our own.

When everything is going well I have felt in control of things and like I have had a handle on them.  During this time I have felt fearful of what is and could be and out of control.  But I was never in control to begin with, right!?  Through this journey I am learning to expand my trust and really give it all over to God.

This whole journey is a learning experience, and God is still working on all of these things with me today. But what I do know, is that through all of this God has taken care of all my needs and on the other side there are great rewards and blessings.

Images via flickr – Yvette Inufio

Tagged as: Life Inspiration