God and Boxes

Do you put God in a box? Is your box folded closed? Is it lazily flung open? Is it taped tightly shut? Or are all sides folded all the way open? How big is your box?
These are questions I ask myself daily. How much room do I want to give God. I find my box lazily flung open 99% of the time. And at times it's taped shut. Why? I know why. I just hate the answer. Having it taped shut means I want to do things my way. Well, I've seen how that works out for me and it stinks! I find myself thrashing around fighting the very things that God wants to take care of for me. He wants to! Hello Marisa! Give it up! But I am such a control freak sometimes. Well the good news is that it's not all the time. That box of mine that is 99% of the time lazily flung open can at times seem so small and at times feels so big that even the biggest trial seems small. Those are the good days. I believe that I have this box for everything in my life. But the most important is God. And yet this box still exists. He doesn't want to be put in a box, He wants free range of my life. Free range; sounds like chickens who don't get fed the good stuff. Well, we are getting the good stuff when we give him the ability to do so. I think sometimes the world has the good stuff and yet all that stuff, well its just, stuff. God has the meat and potatoes I need. I realize that. And yet my box for Him seems to always get in the way. N.O.T.W. I know what your thinking. What the heck does that mean? Not Of This World. There's a company that makes things with this logo on it. It's pretty cool. I saw it the other day. Thought to myself, "hey that's pretty smart" and then realized that I at times have one foot in and one foot out. Eeekkk! But hey, I realized it! That's the first start to recovery right? Well at those times, that's when my box is taped shut. I'm thankful that those times are very few and far between. But I want to have a box that all sides are taped tightly open. Well, actually, no box at all would be great! I'm a work in progress. And the good news is, that's okay. God doesn't expect me to get it right away. In fact, He wants me to take baby steps. Well that's great, cause I'm short, and these legs only go so fast. Be encouraged by this. Your never expected to be 100% in Gods eyes. He knows that's impossible. Keep your box open, better yet, take it completely away. I dare you.

thoughts...

Nine months go by, and you find yourself being told to push, and before you know it, something soft and pillowy is laid upon your chest for inspection. You hear, "It's a girl" and the room seems to be taking your breath away at the realization that you are now responsible for this tiny "girl" whom now you must name. A name that she will have for the rest of her existence. A name that will ultimately mark what kind of person she will be. She is perfect in your image, even after the trauma of birth, and although you usually have many words on your tongue, there seems to be a lack of brain function as you soak in what just took place. All your life you have waited for this moment and it is now here. All you hear is her, a sweet lullaby of cries, ones you've waited to hear for what seems like a millennium. Just as you feel yourself coming to, the cry seems to distance it self further and further away from where you lay. You wonder where she has gone. Why can't I hear her, where is everyone, where am I? Everything seems to have gone gray. Your breathing seems to be picking up as you feel terror in the deepest part of your stomach. My dreams, wants, hopes, desires, where did they go, who took them, what have I done? Water, no not water; tears, my tears.
Then you realize you are in your bed, drenched in your sorrow of reality. It's been years since you have been trying to conceive, and still the closest that you get to it is a dream. You hate sleep for the simple fact that it is nothing but falling into dreams. Dreams that seem to be everyone else's but your own. You lie there, catch what breath you have left and drag your hurt and beaten body out of the place that only causes you pain, bed. This is reality, this is your life.