Sumo Wrestler

 

Do you ever feel put upon by the will of God? You know when He asks you to do something you really rather not – like not only forgive, but marry the person who treated you like the bottom of her foot? Sometimes, it feels like your entrails are being pulled out  . . . by horses …  wild horses.

I feel like a sumo wrestler – a pretend-one in the bulky costume. The fat body suit covers me, but does nothing to disguise that I am not the body portrayed on the outside.  It’s hard to move in that suit. Sadness and despair slow me down.  Daily pressures add more weight.

You see, I have had many challenges recently. They seem to come in double digits. I go in for an oil change, and come out with the check engine light on, the need for new brakes, a broken axle, something about realignment, after I get some brushes, and I forgot, I need the 60 month maintenance done- a whopping total of 2000 dollars, which I don’t have.

All of this comes after going in to see my doctor only to learn that I have two infections and need major surgery to remove fibroid tumors that have been causing my severe anemia. Oh, the surgery is supposed to lay me up for six weeks and might cause infertility- but God. When it rains, it certainly pours. What to do with these seasons in life where everything that could go wrong seems to go that direction?

I have decided that God has an answer for each of these problems, because I certainly don’t.  I choose not to get hysterical. I take one step at a time; I trust that something good will come out of this seeming mess. For example, when I was reminded that I had not done my state inspection, I remembered that I had not placed my state sticker on my car either. I asked God to help me remember where I had placed it. I went right to it. It seems like a small thing, but it helped center me. God’s got every detail. Which doctor to perform my surgery and when? What to fix and when on the car. I can trust him in the big and little details.

In my sumo-wrestler suit, I look silly and awkward. I should really take that thing off, and let God take the blows for me. Actually, He already did on Calvary: "He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all--how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? " (Romans 8:32). I say like Paul, I am down, but not out:

 

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.  We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair;  persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.  We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.  (2 Corinthians 4:7-10)

Taking a Load off,

M.J.

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