Five Minute (Monday): Familiar

Gentle Reader,

Writing on Thanksgiving just wasn’t going to happen, thanks to a visit from the ugly Migraine Fairy. She decided to knock me about the head for a few days. She’s still hanging around, the tip of her icy wand just touching the back of my neck. I try to punch her, but she’s too quick. Or I’m too slow after two rounds of major pain pills. Either way, she sucks and I hate her.

Four days ago, Kate said: familiar.

Go.

Familiar things hurt sometimes. Instead of the warm fuzzies that flutter about your stomach when you smell your mom’s spaghetti or the smile that spreads across your face when a certain song plays, you feel a little sick. That word, that place, that person, that sound reminds you of something unpleasant. Something that came before that was perhaps never fully resolved. The blood rushes to your face. You get hot and prickly and you want to shout.

How do you do handle that feeling?

What do you do when you can see something not-great coming, but you don’t know how to stop it?

See, the thing about asking God for discernment and wisdom is that He gives it to you. Every time. In liberal quantities. Overflowing measures. Then you have to grapple with the burden of having that discernment and wisdom. Yes, the Lord is ever-near and bears the weight, but you still have your role to play. Your job to do. And it’s hard.

Harder still when you don’t know if anyone else sees it. Or when you know for sure that they don’t.

Getting close to God and becoming familiar with His ways means that patterns within yourself and others begin to emerge. Your eyes can’t unsee what they’ve seen before and what they’re seeing again. Your mind can’t ignore it and your heart can’t stop its anxious thudding. Blessedly, that same familiarity creates a deep and abiding knowing that God remains the same even as humanity remains fickle and reckless.

So, when the familiar thing comes and the pain begins again, you handle it by clinging to Him.

Stop.

Photo Credit: Marina Khrapova