Fit For a Crisis
Due to the likelihood of them, God designed us capable of bearing under them: crises. When we cannot, we bow to Divine strength to get us through. Whichever way we look at it, we are fit for a crisis.
Notwithstanding, crises come to all of us; we might as well be as ready for them as we can be.
DAILY AND LIFE-ENDING CRISES
Both occur – the former is typical, the latter we wish not on our worst enemy. Still, the latter variety is destined to come.
Daily crises come both by anticipation and surprise. Life-ending crises always nip us by surprise, though many will be anticipated by hindsight. Life-ending crises might otherwise be termed life-changing – one way of life has ended and a new one, begun.
Either form of crisis is an opportunity at grace.
MEETING CRISES WITH GRACE
What anxiety is present in life if crises can be competently met? None – if this were the case there would be no reason to be afraid.
Yet, we’ll never achieve the completeness of preparation in handling every situation; many potentialities threaten to sweep us out on the ripping current, from the safety of shore to the tremulous, choppy sea; the creation of the perfect storm.
The best sensible process and outcome to any personal crisis is grace.
Grace knows not the answer to complex life problems, but it works beyond the perplexing.
It sits there, beaten by the waves of change, sodden by the inundation of grief, dizzied by the incomprehensibility of the panicked present and future, and it accepts what cannot, now, be changed.
It bears the truth well – as good as could ever be expected.
And when such truth cannot be held – for an hour, or even a day or so – it approves escape to the safe asylum of numbness – the soul taken, as if by lifeline, to the Presence of God, and we will be carried.
Grace oversees the entire process – a moment’s adjustment, or adjustment, through the seasons, to new life; one engineered by God, alone. Grace is enough for us, though at times it feels replete in inadequacy.
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Readiness for crises is wisdom, as is grace to cope. Underpinning all crises is the sufficiency of God; especially even when God feels missing.
We are fit for the crisis. When they come, we, of course, doubt. The truth is we either solve our problems resiliently, or we’ll be carried through them, if we don’t give up. Grace helps.
© 2011 S. J. Wickham.
