Ranaldi Way of Life

I don’s know about you but this picture makes me giggle… just a little. 🙂

Call me a mean mom, but sometimes those horrible-no good-very bad moods that our children get in and the faces they make are just priceless! While they sit there crying, tears streaming down their face… their little hearts breaking like it’s the end of the world and no one is left to help them; there I am with a camera in their face giggling away like a crazy person.

Lately, I feel like I am that same crazy person click, click, clicking away and giggling despite the complete chaos going on around me. I swear recently my life has literally been one thing after another. You know that saying; “When it rains, it pours”? Well, that’s been my life.

The normal, typical “me” is the person that is running around all manic, desperately trying to control everything and plan everything I possibly can. If something goes wrong, I have to have a plan. If something else happens, I have to figure out our next move. And when it all inevitably falls to pieces??? Yep, I am that person shaking and crying, crumpled up on the floor, pulling my hair out, grinding my teeth, hyperventilating, being so overcome with anxiety that I throw up…SO many times I have stood at the top of that cliff looking down, knowing exactly what was about to come.  I had fallen off this ledge so many times before and yet more often than not I find myself back at the top teetering on the edge with no strength to step back onto solid ground.

Despite being taunted and tested with all things that can and will go wrong lately I feel like somehow I have been given this superhuman strength to brush it off and keep on walking. I have been given a sense of peace and the clear assurance that no matter how many horrible things happen in my life; I will be okay-I am stronger than anything that comes my way.  My reaction to this?? -Laughter.

You know this feeling I am talking about, the “okay, Lord…what’s next?  Bring It On!” type of feeling. Where just about everything has gone wrong and nothing else could possibly surprise you. You can’t help but find the entire situation humorous.  Sometimes things that really shouldn’t be funny, are.  Sometimes things that should be funny to begin with end up causing an overly drawn out two hour long giggle-fest.

So after all these years being an incompetent control freak, why the sudden change?

I have NO clue.

I remember reading this devotional one day and thinking to myself about all the things that just were NOT going my way. In this moment I saw how my “natural reaction” to control everything, or even my natural reaction to freak out when inevitably it all crumbled apart were the things dragging me down into the pit of despair. With this realization came the ability to let go of the panic and craziness I felt and embrace God’s presence in my life knowing that it was all under control.

So, throughout these last few months when I’ve gotten hit with sucker punches; one right after the other, I have struggled with seeing the positive and embracing the unknown. However, through exercising this ability to trust in Him and believe that although I am not making all the choices… everything will work out, I have learned SO much!! I have been given a sense of peace having released these worries and stresses-they are no longer my own.

Sure I could worry about money, I could worry about my broken vehicle that seems to be irreparable(or at least not worth the cost of repair compared to getting a new-to-us car), I could worry about the fact that Eric’s pricey PC just broke and will now cost an arm and a leg to replace, or how about the fact that my drivers license is suspended.  I could worry about who’s going to be sick next, what animal craziness is going to happen next… Of course the worries are easy to come by!

 But instead I am filled with laughter and joy.  I wonder, “really?! whats next??”  The irony in all my current problems just seems too humorous to overlook I find myself feeling a lot like the giggling crazy person that sat there clicking away with the camera while her child was screaming and crying.  There is obvious chaos going on around me, definite problems I could be stressing about yet all I can manage to do is sit back and laugh at the craziness of it all.

I hope that in the “crazy” storms of your life, that you can find humor and peace in it all.  That all though it may be raining, pouring even… that you can find shelter under His arms and know that nothing can ever destroy you. So if it rains?? Let it rain, let it pour. Sit back by the fire and put your feet up. Soon this too will pass.

Jeremiah 29:11  “For I know the plans I have for you”, says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.”