Sometimes life gets the best of you.  Sometimes our focus is a bit fuzzy and we don’t see the reality of the real view in front of us.  Sometimes when one bad thing happens to us, it has the ability to speed up and snowball, growing bigger and badder with each tumbling revolution.  Maybe that is what I recently experienced.  Maybe the big white ball rolling down the mountain was threatening enough to get me to take my eyes away from anything good and solid to be standing on.

            It is easy to do.  You lose your job.  Your kid is sick.  A grandparent passes away.  A coworker seems to be carrying a grudge and is making work miserable.  You are driving home and get a flat tire.  A policeman stops to see if you are ok and discovers that the title and registration is overdue on your car. Hey, I get it.  Things happen.

            I admit it.  I took my eyes off of what is important.  Days of frustrations seemed to coat upon one another so thick and deep that you couldn’t tell that there was still a pretzel in the middle anymore.  Not only is my brain injury hard on me, but living with my injury is hard on others around me.  It is sometimes very difficult for me not to be the “everything” that others look to me to be.  Our family has needs.  I try my best, but when I can’t meet certain things, it can quickly lead to disappointment, negative self-talk, and despair.  I can’t do what I used to do, and all that combined with the seemingly ever-present pain, it is a tough combination to hold.  Having a disability is a frustration that I’m still learning to live with.  Maybe someday I’ll get it right.

            And then in despair, I put my eyes to see the wrong things.

            I’ve often said the fastest way to brood misery is by the use of comparison. I consciously am aware of my very own warning.  Yet in moments like these, when you are barreling down a hill and everything seems out of control, it is hard to have the self-confidence you need or the dependency on the Lord that you should.  If I turned to the right, all I see are happy families who are functioning like a well-oiled machines.  They go on “normal” vacations, do fun things together in the evenings, even go to events together at times.  They don’t have restrictions of what dad can do.  They aren’t limited, or so it seems.  A comparison is raised, and in my mind, my life doesn’t stack up to the bar; disillusionment sets in.

            If I look to the left, I see well-established artists, authors, gifted people who are using their talents to the best of their ability, just not for the right reasons. Some of the most talented people, although are using their platform for all the wrong things, are many times the most successful people in the world.  I look at artists, ones that I could be doing similar works as they do, and yet when I try to keep a steady hand at something as simple as sign lettering, realize I still can’t do it.  A second comparison chimes in.  This one has extra sauce on it.  Not only did I just make a comparison, but I added the extra sprinkles on top that the secular world is getting ahead of where I want to be as a Christian.  Aren’t God’s people the ones who are supposed to be blessed?  Now I’m waist deep.  I carry the gloom that I’m not there for them in ways I think my family needs me.  I carry the disappointment that I caught in their eyes.  Now I added envy to the heap, and it is by my own doing.  Doesn’t God allow the rain to fall on the just and the unjust?  Sure looks like their lawn is getting a lot greener. I catch myself looking over that proverbial fence often.  Why do I do it?

By the time my snowball is almost down the mnountain, I realize it is the size of a house, and if I don’t move it will consume me.  But instead of getting out of its path, I stand and gaze at it.  It is too hard to move.  I am stuck in the tarry pit of self-pity.  Even when others around me tell me to snap out of it, I can’t take my eyes off of all the problems.  

            And it is going to destroy me.

            Friday night God got ahold of me.  In a weekday service at a local church, I heard the words of a pastor who must have been given the message specifically for me.  As I listened, God’s Word cut right into the heart, separating the thoughts and intents of it, just like the book of Hebrews says.  I listened to words that challenged me, that opened up my eyes to see clearly, and the direction needed to take a step to get out of the hole that I had been wading in.  And I realized something huge.

In all the frustration of the events that have gone on lately, I, and nobody else, had effectually handed over the power to someone else to go ahead and steal my joy.  

Think about it.  Maybe you are in the same boat.  I had been grumpy about everything lately.  I had blamed my hardships and situations on the snow, the rain, the cold, all the things about life I didn’t like.  I didn’t like the climate my life had been stuck in the last fifteen years.  I grumbled about how easy and enjoyable other people were living while I was beating my head against a wall.  I was frustrated that I couldn’t physically do what I wanted, while others who seem to take things for granted things were using their time in the wrong ways.  

But guess what?  I’m the one who did it.  I started the snowball rolling.  It wasn’t anybody else.  I’m the one who gave power to the enemy, or someone else, to walk right up to me and take something that didn’t belong to them- my joy.  

I confessed that I needed Jesus.

And then it hit me like a ton of bricks.

Sadly, I had forgotten.  It seems like a mystery now, how I could forget such a thing, but I was reminded that getting hit in the head was the greatest thing to ever happen to me.  It donned on me that I had said those words once before, but instead of carrying through with that momentum, allowed my eyes to go elsewhere and allow the wonders of comparison to nearly destroy things.

I thanked God.

            Everything changed.

I woke up this morning with all the same problems.  I was still dizzy when I tried to make coffee and had a hard time following along with my wife’s conversation.  It took a while to be ready to face the world like always, and like always, I hoped the world wasn’t going to give me too much to handle at one time.  Nothing had changed for me financially, the house was still a mess, and the dog still needed fed.  But I had changed.

I realized God’s goodness.

Praise God that he allowed me to get hit on the noggin so that I could see him differently.  Thank God that I have the best job in the entire world.  I get to write, and what I write leads people to Jesus. I have a beautiful family.  Nope, I can’t kayak the Nile River, but I can be there for them in other ways.  I’m still alive, and with this life, I’m going to use it for all the good I can squeeze out of it.  

Friday night, I was escorted to the throne room of God, ushered by his grace and his amazing word.  I learned something big.

Nobody has the power over me to steal my joy.  

I realized it was my own fault for allowing myself to be in the predicament of gazing at a massive snowball crushing everything in its path.  It wasn’t going to jump out of my way.  Playing chicken with it was pointless.

But I can move out of its way.

And that is what I did.  No more comparisons!  God didn’t die for me so that I can try to be like someone else.  Jesus Christ hung on the cross and paid my price to free me to be the exact individual that he intended me to be.  No more.  No less.

So, my challenge today, maybe if for only one other soul out there, is to start the process of being thankful for what God has blessed you with.  Don’t compare.  Don’t look over the neighbor’s fence wondering how much rainwater God is showering on them.  Just look to God.  He wants you to be content, and to be yourself, even more than you do.  He died to make it possible.  Are you in an awkward situation in life right now?  Does your life look like a mess?  Good news.  You have the amazing, wonderful, and incredibly relieving opportunity to give thanks.  Yes, be thankful.  Do something with it.  Find the flower that is growing through the cracks in a concrete sidewalk.  Things out of control?  Don’t look at the snowball.  It will only get bigger.  Instead, ground yourself in truth.  Truth, such as I found Friday night, will indeed be the thing you need.  It will set you free.

By Chuck Carr