One of the devotionals from Jesus Calling by Sarah Young this week says, You are feeling wobbly….. Wobbly means, of course, off center, unsteady, weak, tired, filled with anxiety, uncertain or wavering. I just love the word wobbly because it seems like it rolls off the tongue sounding exactly like what it is. I immediately thought of my 84 year old mom who has Alzheimer’s. She doesn’t use the word wobbly, she uses the word rickety. I’m just feeling a little rickety today, she will say.
Our family responds by offering her an arm to steady her. One of my favorite images is when my grown sons help her. For one thing, they are now double her height. Secondly, she smiles with so much pride when they escort her like that. She always comments on how strong they seem and how steady she feels. She walks faster and further than any of us can imagine when one of those grandsons offers her an arm.
When I watch them with her, I remember not too long ago when they were born and she would come stay with us, helping me with the newborn, cooking, answering the phone, screening visitors. I remember her holding their toddler hands and taking them on all kinds of adventures. How fast the roles reverse. How lovely that they do.
The Jesus Calling devotional entry I’m referring to cites a passage from Exodus, The Lord is my strength and my song….(Exodus 15:2). It also cites Hebrews 10:23, Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess…. It encourages us, if we are feeling wobbly, not to measure today’s tasks against our own strength. God is our strength and our joyful song. (Jesus Calling September 22)
So much is happening right now. We are still dealing with this seemingly unending virus. We seem to be enduring unprecedented fires, earthquakes, hurricanes and floods. We have individual storms of our own. Everything has changed around us. All the previously hard things seem even harder. We are in the last few weeks of local, state and a nationwide election season that has worn us all down and certainly divided us. We have every reason to be both wobbly and rickety.
And into that shakiness, God speaks. I am your strength and your song. Hold on to Me. Trust in my steadiness. I’ve got you.
Thanks be to God.
Dr. Cindy Ryan is a pastor, wife, mother of three, breast cancer survivor, Mosa to Keller, Pace and one on the way. To read more of her blogs, to see her upcoming speaking events or to learn about the Jesus Calling Weekly Prayer Call she co-hosts, go to http://www.drcindyryanblog.com. You may sign up there for her monthly Inner Circle email as well. For October 1, the Top Ten Inner Circle List will be How to Survive This Election Season. Join the Inner Circle by September 30 to receive it.
Dr. Cindy Ryan 