How many holes do you have?

When we are born after checking our vitals, we are wrapped up as a bundle of joy in a blanket and given to our parents to hold us. After our parents admire us in amazement, we get a diaper, and a t-shirt to cover us up and keep us warm.  Our parents continue to care for us by picking us up and putting us down with love.  By the time we hit our toddler years, we are trying to stumble around and learn how to walk, learn to fall and pull ourselves up.  Those little falls turn into little tears in our pants.  Have you ever looked at in our toddler years we are being taught by our parents the “no” word and of course we buck back to trying to test that boundary. That is the beginning of our learning curve, it seems so hard at that age and then we become children.  We are now playing on the play structures, running all around the playground and falling on the cement, skinning our knee thru the pants and we look down and see its bleeding.  We start crying to be picked up and have our ouchy tended to by our mommy or daddy.  Parents usually feel bad that it happened, however all the drama they are going thru really isn’t all that, we say it’s going to be all better, it will hurt for a few minutes we  kiss it and off they go to run to play.  That validation it’s going to be okay and reaching out knowing someone will give you the love you need to get thru it is a critical stage in life.  Unfortunately many of the kids today don’t get that….  As we continue to grow into young kids, we get better balance, less awkwardness and play even harder.   Those little tears in the pants have now become little holes. They are getting bigger and so are the skinned knees when we fall.  Now as a teenager, we are stronger, bigger and more daring than ever.   As teens we are playing sports, riding skateboards, riding bikes and doing fancy tricks and the falls we take now are really big.    Those little tears become little holes in the pants and now as teens they have become big rips and huge holes.  As kids do, they continue to make those holes bigger and the tears they have tear more and by the time they get home, we have to throw the pants away.  I ask my kids what happened, they say oh I don’t know, I was playing and I fell and it was there. Then my other kid would say, yeah but then you were pulling at it and making it worse.  Does any of this sound familiar?    If we look at these tears and holes as growing pains, what would your t-shirt look like?  So go with me and picture a white t-shirt full of little holes from being a toddler… now look at that same shirt with the kids making each of those holes even bigger since we are now pre-teen. Okay so now that we are late teens, early adults is there much of that shirt left to hold it together?  Imagine this shirt to represent each hole to be our hurts, backbiting, jealousy, lying, stealing and pains we went thru growing up.   The jealousy we had in elementary school isn’t anything compared to the jealousy in high school right.  So that hole is so much bigger now then it was. That hurt is so much more painful than it was when I was younger.  Funny, it’s all the same; we are grown up more so we can emotionally understand the hurt more.   We share it with more of our friends, get down on ourselves for what happened, and stay in I can’t believe it mood for a few days.  Of course our parents would say, I’ve been there and this too shall pass, right? And that didn’t help soothe the pain at all.  I don’t know about you, but it’s at that time, when my friends didn’t answer the phone, they were busy and couldn’t come over and I sure didn’t want to talk to my parents about what’s going on.  I felt all alone and no one is there to hear me.  I’m sure that’s not you, but for me I was searching for some answers to help me thru my situation.  I learned this at a young age… It’s not our circumstance that’s the challenge, but how we react to the circumstance that brings us thru.  I don’t know about you, but if I did have this shirt for every heartache and pain I had, I would need a California king size blanket and then some.  When you have no faith, it’s like a black Friday.  There is no way out of the chaos.  Trying to come out of those situations would be tough… maybe cause a little bit of withdrawal, depression, anger, crying but all of this could be much easier, with Jesus on your side. He will carry your burden, not you.  When my kids were growing up, I would call them my little eagles.  My daughter finally said mom why do you call us that. I said did you know that God made the eagle and it’s the only bird that will attack a storm head on and rise above it.  I would hate to call you a chicken and all you do is just stay on the ground and run around in a chicken coop. God made us to rise above each and every storm, and continue to fly.  An eagle is a remarkable bird, do you know from high up in the air he will find his prey, and go after that only one. If it moves, it doesn’t lose sight of which one it is… the eagle never changes its mind. If it’s a fish and the fish swims into a swarm of fish, the eagle still knows which one is his target and that’s the one he will fly down and scoop up.   Don’t you want to be an eagle thru your circumstance?

Isaiah 40:31

New International Version (NIV)

³¹ but those who hope in the LORD
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.

 I think it’s awesome to hear I can hope in the Lord and he will renew my strength. Then I will soar on wings like eagles.  I will run not grow weary and I will walk and not be faint. If you are feeling any of those thru your situation, I encourage you to grow your relationship with Jesus.  Continue to call on him, pray and he will answer you.  Your friends might not be available, but Jesus is always there to hear you. In fact if you share your circumstance with Jesus first, you won’t need all 5 of your friend’s opinions anymore.  I know as we get older, we don’t want to hear our parent’s lectures, so turn your ears to Jesus and everything else will make more sense.  We need a close relationship with Jesus to close up all those holes we have in our t-shirts.  We need to forgive those people for the backbiting to close that hole, forgive the one who stole from you, the boyfriend or girlfriend who betrayed you and make that hole in your t-shirt much larger over your heart.  I’m sure you could tell me what each hole is and who did it.  That’s why we need to learn to live like Jesus.  When I have a situation going on, I stop and think what would Jesus do?  If you can start thinking that instead of who can I call and tell, great godly growth will come out of you.