By Alison Feinauer
My journey the last few weeks has been daunting. It started by going to an indoor water park and putting on a bathing suit. Trigger alert!
I felt fatter and uglier than I have in a long time. Rejection set in. It’s like a light turned on in the darkness of my heart and I started seeing the cobwebs.
They were still there? Had they come back?
I thought I had killed that spider a long time ago. It’s back. It looks a little different and smaller than before, but it went to work, and started making cobwebs again.
I’ve been asking God to remove them. How long, oh Lord, will I continue to disappoint you? How long will it take to beat this giant? I thought you said it only took one stone for David to beat Goliath. What about my giant? Will it ever be gone? Will I ever make it through this life without counting every single calorie, without looking at my reflection in the mirror with disappointment, or without saying my eating will be perfect tomorrow?
Really, am I still here? It feels like I’m back in the pit and can’t see any way out. But I’ve recently had a song stirring in my heart.
Awake my soul to sing
With Your breath in me
I will worship
You taught my feet to dance upon disappointment
And I, I will worship
Let the weary rise
Lift their eyes to see
Your love crushing every lie
Every doubt and fear
I will, trust, here in the mystery
I will, trust, in You completely
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, You are making all things new
And I can’t get enough.
So in my disappointment, in my mess, I will worship. In fact, I will dance. I will choose to dance! Worship changes the atmosphere. Worship brings peace, joy, and perspective. Worship ushers me into His presence where everything else becomes blurring and powerless. He’s taught me to glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance (Romans 5:3).
My disappointments become appointments with my Father. When I lay my crown at His feet to worship Him with my rawness and realness, that’s when life gets tender and sweet. Then I feel His fresh breath of love and pleasure over me.
It’s true, if we look up, we will see Him fighting for us. Wow. What a Father! What a Protector! What love! He’s fighting for us, and He wins! Don’t you think for a minute that you’re lost on Him. He’s fighting and you can rest and rely on Him.
In your moments of struggle, of doubt that you’ll never be enough, of disbelief that you’ll never have self-control, of angst you’ll never have that relationship or that job, His love CRUSHES every lie.
But what’s our role? Our role is to STEP up, to dig into the truth, to put it on His armor daily, and remember who we are and whose we are!
My friend gave me a picture a month ago, and it says: I am a daughter of the King, who is not moved by the world. For my God is with me and goes before me. I do not fear because I am His.
Claim this for yourself today. You are His daughter; and His love fights for you!
Father, will you teach me to dance upon disappointment, to trust that You aren’t holding out on me, to trust that you go before me, to believe that you are with me and you will never leave me? Help me to trust and be bold enough to dance before you. Empower me to lay down my crown and the earthly things I value the most, so that you can do what you want with and in me. I love and Honor you Father. In Jesus name I pray, Amen.
“You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you…and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you…and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile” (Jeremiah 29:13-14).
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us” (Hebrews 12:1).
