On running on empty

There have been days lately when I’ve felt like a crazy person at the center of a three ring circus of my own making. What I can’t figure out is if I am called to be at the center of the big top right now or if I stumbled in by accident. Either way I find myself juggling what seem to be purple poodles leaping through flaming hoops while dangling 30 ft up, suspended by only a thread, which a small but persistent caterpillar is nibbling through. I look down and see row after row of blurred faces cheering me on. Clapping and laughing they tilt heads way, way back and wave hands at me, smiling and certain that I won’t fall.

To the left and the right clowns are being shot from cannons and cotton candy sellers promise that everything will turn out sweet. Ponies prance and dance in endless circles and the music blares a marching anthem over it all. Left, right, left, right deadlines bear down to the beat of their own drummer.

I swing and spin and catch and release flying dogs and elusive peace – I am ring master and servant and my dry mouth feels the sweetness dissolves into vapor.

So I close my eyes. I close my eyes and let go and know I will fall a long way down amid a shower of poodles, hoops, and failure to prove myself worthy of all this trust and pomp and circumstance.

I let go and I don’t fall. I let go and I am held.

Strong, calloused hands of a Carpenter have been wrapped safety net tight around me. I lean my head way back and let Him support my weary head. I curl up into the tiny child I feel like on the inside and wriggle into the crook between His fingers.

It is such a relief to remember how big He is. It gives me permission to embrace my smallness. We are a perfect fit.

God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. – 1 Corinthians 1:27.

Me and the purple poodles.