During the autumn months, a lot more falls than just the leaves. My internal temperature plummets so that I clutch hot tea all day. I prefer to shrivel like a leaf and curl up in a corner with a book. The gloomy sky promotes both boot-stomping puddle-jumping fun and also fits of denial and hibernation.
Some days I just feel heavy with life, thinking too far ahead, with problems piled on top of each other like layers of dirt. It drapes over my shoulders like a cloak of plus-2 gravity.
And on those days, I do not want to be around people.
But those are the days where I feel God reminding me that His strength works best when it does not have to wait for mine to be used up. I’m not defined by a blanket of heaviness, but wrapped in an ermine cloak of love. In that love, I can smile at the people I walk past, greet friends, love people.
Powerful threads of love are woven in the Bible.
“10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”
“31 “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”
9 “As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. 10 If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. 11 These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. 12 This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. 14 You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. 15 No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.”
“5 Let your conduct be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have. For He Himself has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’ 6 So we may boldly say:
‘The Lord is my helper;
I will not fear.
What can man do to me?'”
God, thank You for the cloak of love, that You never leave me. Thank You for helping this introvert get out of her routine. Please help me to trust Your strength to get through the day and bear the weight without giving up. Thank You. To Your glory, Amen.
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