More stirred, less shaken.

Since May, our family has experienced one change after another. Some have been good ones and right on schedule - a celebratory part of our family's story. Others have been completely unexpected - unwanted.

 Both types have shaken and stirred this season like a fast-moving storm to the sea, and - more than once - I've felt sea-sick and felt myself hanging over the proverbial rail of the ship.

You get it; you've been here. You know what I mean.

You get one challenge sent your way, and you’re holding on just fine. But then another smacks right into you, and you stumble a bit, but regain your footing. Then the next wave hits and you see a few around you go down; it’s just too much. 

It could be any number of things. 

The sudden loss and the diagnosis out of nowhere. The discovered secret and the news from the past. The breakdown of a relationship and the breakdown of ALL of the appliances. The letter of rejection and the awareness of public scrutiny. 

In the blink of an eye, it can become all too much for this day, this week, this season. So, when you need to do that productive thing — because other areas of life are moving parts you can't control — you find yourself in a whirl, trying desperately to accomplish. To be productive. To improve. To make a difference. Something. Anything, to try to restore the equilibrium to your heart, your brain, your life...

A while back, I came across these verses of Scripture, and today they are speaking straight to the bruised and broken parts of my soul:

Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew, Bethesda, having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of sick people, blind, lame, paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel went down at a certain time into the pool and stirred up the water; then whoever stepped in first, after the stirring of the water, was made well of whatever disease he had.John 5:2-4 (NKJV)

It’s fascinating that the waters had to be stirred up for someone to be healed within them. Not only that, but those who entered into the stirred-up waters only did so because they had faith the healing would come.

Sometimes change is very much that which stirs up the waters, isn’t it? The question becomes less "Why are things falling apart?" and more "Do I have faith to believe that even though the waters of my life are disturbed that healing can take place?" 

More importantly, am I willing to step directly into those troubled waters, or will I prolong the struggle by shying away from them?

Life-stirring changes. 

Life-giving waters.