Thus, when my daughter announced she lost a precious toy, AFTER we'd already found it once, because it had already been lost once, and AFTER I'd paraded she and her younger siblings all through the church on that search and then through the parking lot and then squeezed everyone into their carseats (because our behemoth vehicle was tightly parked next to two fellow family-lugging behemoths) and was clicking the last buckle so we could FINALLY get home to daddy, that new wail of, "I lost him again!" might have made me lose it, too.
And I may have been yelling at my six-year-old daughter about making smarter choices, like putting said toy in a pocket or holding it tightly, right in the middle of the church parking lot.
I might have been that mom.
Maybe.
But God is so good. Because even when I'm that mom, I know he's whispering in my ear, "Calm down. I'm still here and I'm still good." And even when I'm kicking myself for failing, once again, to display for my children grace under pressure, I know he's telling me we'll have another chance. This isn't the end. He's not done with me, yet.
Each time this explosive eruption of boiling words comes from within me, I get even more hard on myself remember how so many others have it so much harder when their challenges rise from more than a lost toy, a crying child, or just the repetition of, "Mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy . . ." There are those battling big things, scary things, things that give one the perfectly good right to lash out at the world around them.
And I wonder how I think I could possibly handle the real storms of life, even with God by my side, when I can't even handle the drizzle.
And this where we die by a thousand paper cuts. Because when the big hurts come, the ones that cause gaping wounds that bleed openly, we tend to those. We see them, we know their cause and we address them. We bind them tightly, we turn to the Healer and we are renewed.
That's not exactly how paper cuts are handled, though, are they? A thin sliver of nothing slices us in just the right way so as to inflict pain, leaving little outward evidence. You can't even see it unless you know where to look. And it's so miniscule it would be laughable to bring it to the attention of a medical professional. Maybe we bandage it, but mostly not. We brush aside, work through the pain and move on. And in our daily lives, we do this again. And again. And again. Until we're covered in wounds that seem so inconsequential, but when added together can make it unbearable.
But God is so good.
He is ready to heal no matter the circumstances. Big and small. We don't need to wait until we lay dying, whether outwardly or in the pain of our souls, to cry out to him. No pain is too small.
And if we can't trust him with the small hurts, when will we decide something is big enough to give over to him? When we're in over our heads? Or curled into a defeated ball of tears? Or, even when our limbs are cut off and we're bleeding helpless, will we still be crying, proudly, defiantly, "It's just a flesh wound!"?
It may be hard in this season of small things, because the world, our lives, our families, don't always allow us to take a break and mend, but we need to recognize our need for the Healer, turn to Him and allow Him to do His work in us. Because He will be faithful to complete it. Even when the papers keep flying.
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