Resting In The Lord

Something happened on Friday that really made it difficult for me to sleep. It was something that was stressful, but also something that made me angry. Ephesians 4:26 says, “In your anger do not sin: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry,” and I understand why because I could not sleep. I finally got up at 1am and made myself a cup of chamomile tea and looked through supermarket flyers and coupons, and I finally got a little bit of sleep, maybe two hours. I woke up sometime before 5am and had to do laundry before going to work at a health fair in Brooklyn. The train was all messed up and I had to transfer to a bus – it was a crazy night and morning and one I didn’t need.

But maybe in a way I did need it so that I can decide once and for all that I’m not going to let people who try to stress me out stress me out. It’s almost like they see your peace and they want to destroy it, but we have the choice to let them destroy it or not. It was an attack that hit me by surprise in many of my most vulnerable and soft spots, but if I really trust God, and I do, I’ll ask Him how to handle it, handle it the way He says, and then go about my business. But that is sometimes easier said than done, and now I definitely understand why being angry can be a sinful thing – if we lose our temper that can mess things up worse, and if we don’t lose our temper, it eats us up inside and keeps us from the rest we need to do our work for God with a joyful heart.

I had been asking the Lord to help me with the anger – to help me not wish harm to the person who has been trying to do harm to me. She hasn’t really harmed me, but she’s been trying, and even though I see God’s faithfulness over and over again and He keeps showing me that I can be still and know that He is God, I still have a problem with the anger. It’s hard to bless someone who’s out to get you every day in every way that they can, and it’s hard to bless someone who is trying to oppress you. But that’s what the Lord wants us to do, so I had to ask Him for help.

He kept telling me to just get some rest on Friday night and trust Him, which I didn’t do, but when I finally arrived at the church on Saturday morning, the health fair was so nice! It was in the area where I first lived when I was born again – there are no coincidences with God – and so I was reminded of His faithfulness at that time and over the years, over and over again. That place is one of my altars, a place where I stopped to rest for three very strange months when I was newly aware of this God who was talking to me every day and helping me to get on a new path. So on my roundabout way to the church, He had already started talking to me, and then at the church when one of the speakers started talking, he said a word that started speaking even more to my heart. He talked about four balls that we can carry with us: our work, which is a rubber ball and if we drop it, it can bounce, another ball that is our family and another that is our health and another that is our integrity, and that those are glass balls and if one of them should drop, it would easily break and might even shatter and not be able to be repaired. The person who has been making me crazy always talks about their integrity, and one of the things that had been making me so angry is that what I see is the absolute opposite of integrity, and it’s making me angry to have someone be so self-righteous, when they’re not really acting righteous at all. But she is the one who has dropped that glass ball and shattered it, and I don't have to get cut on the shards of glass or let my own glass ball drop.

Another speaker started talking about dementia and Alzheimer’s, and there were some things that really started opening my heart up, the place where my compassion and forgiveness are. I started to understand that the person who is treating me so badly may be suffering from early onset dementia, and that the erratic behavior and actions she is displaying against me are something that, whatever the cause, are a disease of the brain. I felt like I was let off the hook somehow – I don’t know how to explain it except to say that I really don’t have to take it personally any more. It’s still a rotten situation, but as with everything else, there will be an end to it sometime. After that presentation, I spoke with the woman who had given it about the situation I was dealing with and she said that the signs are there. She said that unfortunately it will most probably get really bad, that this person will eventually “reveal themselves,” that right now they are trying to pretend that what they are doing is fine and that they are fine, but it’s really not and they know on some level that something has gone wrong in their mind.

When I started to think about that, the compassion came immediately. What must it feel like to think that everyone around you is out to get you or that you have to attack people to be in control?  What must it be to live inside this woman’s head – it’s so scary to think about that I knew I had to start to pray for her. I’d been praying all along, but my prayers had been mixed with the anger. Now I could just pray.

When God tells us not to do something, He is doing it for our own good. When He says to not let the sun go down on your anger, it’s because He knows that you won’t get a good night’s sleep. When He tells you to bless those who curse you, He’s letting us know we can release the anger and everything and anything else we want to, and that we can give it right to Him. When we release the anger we can rest easy, we can be still and rest in Him, and watch and wait and let Him guide us on the path that He knows is best for us.

Blessings,

Jannie Susan