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Sunday, April 26, 2015

God and Garbage Day




I believe that God created each of us as unique one-of-a-kinds, right down to the quirkiness of our individual personalities.

Because He is my Creator, He knows me better than anyone on this earth. He knows the way my brain works, and thank God He does. Because a lot of the time I don’t even know how my brain works. 

Eight years ago God knew it would take Garbage Day to save my sanity. 

I'm the kind of person who needs a purpose to fulfill, be it ever so small. I need steps to follow. Do this step and that will lead to the next step and so on. 

2007 was a stressful year for us. You know those lists - 10 Top Causes of Stress. We were going through about 5 of them at once and I was on the verge of "losing it". In fact, one of the books I read about an illness we were dealing with said that most mothers of children with this illness end up having a mental breakdown. 

Oh that's nice. Thank you very much.

So, middle of 2007. Middle of 5 out of 10 top causes of stress. And I could barely function. It took everything in me just to get up in the morning and get dressed. And then, though there were countless things to do that day, I'd do nothing. Watch TV. Wander around the house looking at all that needed doing and unable to do it. It was too overwhelming. Where to even start!

Then God stepped in with Garbage Day.     

It was kind of a gradual dawning: Oh! The garbage gets picked up on Thursday morning. I guess I could dump all the small garbage pails into a couple of big garbage bags and set them out in the alley. That's one thing I can accomplish by Wednesday night.

Suddenly there was a purpose to fulfill, be it ever so small. But one step led to another:

If that needs to be completed by Wednesday night, then maybe on Tuesday I can clear all the garbage off the counters, and while I'm at it I might as well put all the dirty dishes in the dishwasher...

See how that worked? One small step led to another small step. Slowly, step by step, until I could handle bigger steps and finally reclaim what most people would call a normal life.

God knew I needed one regular, concrete, and very small task to start me on my way back to health and life.

That's why I maintain that God used Garbage Day to save my sanity.



2 comments:

  1. God will use the foolish things to accomplish the big things. Thank you for your honesty, Joy. We need to tell each other of our lowest times so we have a reason to share how the Lord brings us forward. As you say, each of us is one-of-a-kind. Now I get to look at how he's used the foolish things to bring me forward.

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  2. This is a beautiful post, Joy, of how the Holy Spirit moves in small ways which gives us hope to conquer the big things. I LOVE this metaphor. I'm sure you look back on that year now and say, "Wow! God did this. He brought us through. If He can bring us through that, then He is faithful to bring us through anything!" I have those memories. They become rocks that I stand firm on when troubles come. He is such a good God.

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