Living Chronically Blessed

ice cream with a friend.

After finding a table outside that was socially distanced from those around us, we disinfected the table and ourselves, pulled down our masks, and began to chat while eating our melting ice cream from the 90-degree heat.

It seemed like such an ordeal to do something as ordinary as meeting a friend for ice cream.

A few minutes into our time together a man drew our attention as he was storming down the street, clearly after something.

As we turned our attention to him he began to start screaming, “Attention! I’m here to kill all white people!”

The man then started running up to white people, jabbing his hand into their foreheads, while gesturing like his hand was a gun, and shouting, “You’re dead!”

From there he proceeded to stop cars in traffic and gesture with his hand as if he were shooting the people in the car, all the while yelling, “You’re dead! All white people deserve to die!”

By this point, I had lost my appetite and was in a bit of mental overload. When I came home yesterday, I was completely and utterly exhausted, all for some ice cream with a friend.

exhausted.

I don’t know about y’all, but it seems like I’m exhausted all the time these days.

From pandemics, to politics, to racial injustices, to the divides in the church, this world is majorly hurting. The world around me is hurting.

Flames seem to be erupting everywhere I turn and although I’m not in the middle of all the fires, the heat is still burning me, and the smoke is still stinging my eyes.

I’m a feeler and man oh man am I feeling the weight of everything going on around me and it’s draining me.

As I go into my daily prayer time, I hear myself saying, “God, there’s too much to pray about. This is overwhelming. I’m exhausted.”

If you know me well, then you know I love to set timers, I love schedules, and to me, there is nothing more glorious than a to-do list. Even in my prayer time, I apply my love of timers by setting timers to pray about certain topics for a given amount of time.

For the last month, I have used the time in-between start and alarm to plead with God for the healing of our land. But this past week I found myself setting my alarms and just sitting there, completely wordless.

The hurt around me had boiled up and I didn’t even know what to pray.

I mean, how does a worldwide pandemic go away? How does equality happen? How does the church get to a point where they stop fighting? Will I ever not be exhausted from getting ice cream with a friend? Will I forever have acne on my chin from wearing a mask all the time? Can Target ever be a part of a fun afternoon again?

just lookup.

It’s exhausting to think about it all. The reality is the answer to all of my questions is who knows, maybe, maybe not.

As I continually try and fight the exhaustion and the weight of my questions I’m choosing to turn to the one who does know.

I’m choosing to remind myself that I don’t need to know the answers to my questions if I know and trust the one who does hold the answers.

Jesus told the disciples, who were quite familiar with hard times, in John 16:33, that they would have trouble in this world, but to take heart, because He has overcome the world.

Paul encouraged the church in Galatians 6:9 to keep up the good work, keep up doing the good stuff because it will reap a harvest. Paul also commanded the church in Colossians 3:2 to fix their minds on things above, not on earthly things.

When the world is burning around you, lookup, don’t look at the fire.

If you look at the fire, you will be burned and your eyes will sting. When you look up you will be saved.

My encouragement to myself and to you this week is to take heart, keep up the good work, and continually look up, no matter how blazing and intense the fire is before you, just lookup.