Thursday, July 16, 2009

Grace Under Pressure

I just found this scribbled out in my notebook under the heading "blogs to write":

I have studied Esther to some extent and feel it would do me good to refresh my memory of who she was and the character she exhibited as a woman who lived with grace, even under the most extreme circumstances.

Being human I have a great many short-comings, one of which is being too quick to point out and condemn the rest of them. But I step aside from my attempt to curb this nasty habit in order to mention this: I have a great desire to be a woman who is calm and trustworthy even when things begin to unravel, fully relinquishing control to the Master while doing all I need to do. In other words, I want to be a grace-filled woman under pressure.

Paul described me today (May 1st) as a volcano: the pressure builds until kaboom! then peace; the great beast returns to its slumber. Only problem is that peace comes at a great price: the tranquility of those in the vicinity. I want to encourage not discourage those around me! I wonder how capable I am of being calm and collected rather than rudely blunt, irritatingly hurried and unnervingly stressed.

I will add here (16 July) that I am happy to report the Lord's faithful work in my life. The road is long and the way is tedious, and at times, dare I say, explosive, but I have hope and faith in the fact that the Lord will prevail. He will be made manifest in my life. Jesus is, after all, our ultimate example of grace under pressure.

1 comment:

  1. Volcanoes are an important part of the Earth's ecosystem. I wonder how much of that type of attitude/behavior is sinful and how much is the way God created some people. I think the people who are naturally calmer use that against those who are more boisterous.

    I can definitely understand the need/desire to be able to control our emotions, but I have decided that we may have things skewed a bit too far to one side. Think of the worldwide destruction if there weren't volcanoes to vent off the gases and molten lava within the Earth! Yep, the world needs a few volcanoes.

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