My YOLO Is More Like A YO-YO
YOLO - You Only Live Once, right?
Actually, we live twice. We live here on this earth until our physical bodies give out and then our souls spend the rest of our days in eternity. This gives me comfort as my life has been yo-yoing back and forth for, well, pretty much my entire existence. Can you relate? We from good stuff to bad stuff, then back to something encouraging, then another something that takes us down.
This would be downright depressing if I thought this one life was all I had to define my reason for taking up space on this planet. I keep reminding myself, however, that a paradise exists where I will someday gain an understanding of the meaning of the tough moments and get to bask in the sunshine of all that is wonderful.
Sometimes life hangs in a perfect balance and we get to experience a brief season of peace. Sometimes we are faced with things that take us to the edge of ourselves. This ‘yo-yo’ existence can be so draining. I feel this a lot with my physical state. I got some potentially good news this past Thursday only to be sent to the ER yesterday where I would find out that things look fine and that this is probably just an indication that my attacks are worsening but this could also be an isolated incident so no one really knows. Up, down, up, down, up, down.
My entire world is a waiting game at times with no real answers or solutions. My emotions yo-yo with my experiences. Sometimes I want to throw my hands up in the air and quit, and sometimes I want to fight like hades to push through the giant pile of garbage that separates me from my joy and emerge victorious on the other side. In all of it, I have to realize none of this comes from my own strength, and all of it is orchestrated by a God who knows me better than I know myself. Everything about my body and my destiny has been carefully created with purpose:
Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in (the place of death and darkness), you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,” even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.
For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.
Psalm 139:7-16
You see, friends, our paths were foretold before we even had a heartbeat. Our purposes were formed before our bodily frames, and there were no mistakes in the crafting of our stories.
My health condition is not accidental, nor is it a surprise to God. There’s a reason I’m shackled to these chains in this life, and I can have faith that I’ll break free from them when Heaven becomes my home.
Sorry YOLO, you’re simply not a term that exists in my vocabulary. Hello YO-YO, I’ll do my best to take you in stride knowing your trials are temporary and my response to you can bring glory to my Maker until I get to see him face to face.