February 11th

February 11th
Coping. I don’t have to. More than that, I’m not designed to live like that or called to live like that.
Coping is a do-it-in-my-own-strength thing. Which is actually, at the bottom of it all, sin.

“Grant to me the grace of your healing and deliverance and a deep and true repentance.” Daily prayer quote, and more and more I’ve realised that the order is right. The grace of your healing and deliverance first, and then I am free to repent.
Because you’ve shown me the root of all this, Jesus, in your grace. And it comes from my mother, and it comes from her deep wounding, her backstory with her parents.
“You shouldn’t mind about anything.”
“You should be able to cope with anything.”

But that’s not actually true. You minded about things, Jesus. You wept, you laughed, you were angry – and all the emotions in between. You minded.
And I am not called to cope. I’m called to abide, to rest, to stay rooted: all in you, Jesus, all in you.
Coping has strategies. Chocolate, films, computer games, alcohol, extreme sports… Anæsthetics. And so many of them aren’t wrong in themselves: it’s how I use them. I can tell the difference: the difference between your gift to me of a film that will make me laugh, lift my mood, and me just reaching for anything at all to fill the gap that can only truly be filled by you.
But I am not called to cope. It isn’t what you want me to do. And we broke the power of that curse this morning and I am waiting to find out what this new landscape of freedom holds. Apart from repenting each time I turn to coping again, that is!

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