Tangled in the Briars…

God has this way of saying, “Just sit down, please, stop talking and just listen to me”. The past 10 days of meds for this respiratory junk has been a slam dunk of “Stop it, be still and hear me”! Takes a while for my forward motion to come to a halt…but halt it has…

Sitting here in my cozy chair in the still morning quiet, coffee in hand, working on the racing thoughts, but mostly this week trying to quell the nausea of icky meds, He reminded me of a scene over 20 years ago..and it resonated.

I had 2 very hyper, headstrong but sweet Jack Russell Terriers. I lived on a farm property of the DNR here in Maryland. These pups would take off in a flash and you could NOT catch them or even get close to them hearing you calling them. For some reason as they darted off into the woods I found that if I honked my horn they came running back. Fast forward a couple of years and I arrived at my then boyfriend’s home, Beringer, yanked his lead from my hand and took off. He was free to dash on his own accord, not knowing all the danger of that areas horribly busy streets and a train track that was also busy. I quickly stuck the other dog inside and got help in tracking this errant pup. Hours of searching and calling to no avail. He was so lost, I was terrified for him. After searching over 2 hours, I thought of the horn…up and down the streets, just honking and listening. I finally heard a faint bark down a side field near the tracks. In his excitement of breaking free, dragging a retractable leash behind him, he had run into a very thick mass of sticker bushes. Continuing is his new found freedom from the control of my loving hand he had wound himself around and around in these long sharp stickers and could no longer move. So there he sat, shaking and scared…he had been so intent on his own way that it had almost cost him his life.

Sound familiar…so intent on our own agendas and doing things our way. We jerk loose from God’s loving, life giving hand and take off on our own. On our own not understanding the dangers all around us. How everything seems right to us until we have wound ourselves so tightly in the long briars that we can longer move. We hear Him calling but are afraid of the repercussions awaiting …then we are just stuck til we finally cry out, “please find me and help me get back to your care and protection “.

Those briars can get tight and hurt! Freedom. Yes, freedom has a cost. On this journey of life it is good to find our freedom in our loving Father’s hand, under His wings of love, care and direction to keep us on track and at peace!

My prayer for myself and all of you taking a moment to read this is for us to protect ourselves, from ourselves, and rest in the hand that created us😊

Much love to you as you stop and listen for just a heartbeat today ❤️