The Bed Is In The Bathroom

I've lived under an assumption for three and a half years now, an assumption that I eventually "claimed" as truth, simply because I honestly thought it was truth. And now, here I am, further down the road, seemingly removed from the situation and I find out that the assumption is completely backwards. What do you do with that? I cannot even begin to wrap my head around it.

I can only describe it like this: Imagine you've lived in a house for three or four years and you've always had the furniture the same exact way. You've never even moved a lamp. And suddenly, after four long years, you come home and unexpectedly, your bed is in the bathroom, your couches are turned upside down, and everything is not like it was when you left for work that morning. Where do you sleep? You could maybe move the furniture back to the way it was, but there is other furniture in its place now. Maybe you just have to adapt and change your way of doing things. That's so hard.

I've been wrestling with this all week. What do I do now? My world feels like it's been turned on its head and I can't even figure out when it happened, much less how to deal with it. Needless to say, with a new semester of classes, leadership, CA-ing, and two surgeries in the near future, this ought to go on the back burner. Problem is, I don't think that's possible. I'm frustrated and confused, angry and reeling from the shock of it all.

Today, on leadership retreat, during quiet time, I was reading 2 Corinthians. I read parts of a few Psalms yesterday, but today I jumped to the NT.



Paul writes: For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and He will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again. (2 Cor. 1:8-10)

and later...

We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed. (2 Cor. 4:8-9)



Somewhere deep down, I know that God has delivered me and will do so, just like Paul says. But it's hard to feel that when you've journeyed so far in three years, only to have it all unravel so quickly and unexpectedly. But God is good and I know that with time I will look back on this period and be able to see God's redemptive power at work. And that right now, I have to both surrender this to God and trust that He will see it through. David Mallard talked about how those two (SURRENDER and TRUST) go together, and one without the other is worthless. Surrender without trust leads to depression, confusion. Trust without surrender is self-trust and a reliance on self, which will ultimately fail. God will see this through. God will see me through.