Life in the Slow Lane

Life in the slow lane is total surrender and reliance on God.
It is just what the Psalmist says: "Step out of the traffic!" Psalm 46:10 MSG
But I am a fast lane kind of girl. I prefer exceeding the speed limit, passing others by. I like the traffic.
I like to try harder, do better. I thrive on the challenge, the excitement.
Only the slow pokes and do-Good-ers drive in the slow lane.
And I am definitately not one of those. Slow pokes, I mean.
With so many children under foot and merciless challenges in my face, I had to keep going. That's what you do. To survive. To maintain. Your sanity. Your hope. You keep going. No. Matter. What.
Now I find myself smack-dab in the slow lane.
And I don't know what to do, how to act.
I fanagle and wiggle. I push down on the pedal to speed up. And SLAM! The brakes are on. And I am in bed. Again.
Back in the slow lane.
In pain. Aching. Heart bruised and sore. Unable. To speed up, even the tiniest smidge.
I talk to friends who live in the slow lane. Who have been forced there by illness, by pain. For five years. Ten. Twenty-two. How can they?
They tell me I don't know how to rest. They are right. They tell me to give myself grace. I shudder. I am the one who had to keep going, remember?
My family is hurt, confused, disappointed. How can they not be? I am all those things and more. I look well. How do I explain that I don't feel well, when it is unexplainable even to me?
Yes, I know I have been attacked by a virus. It even has a name: coxsackie B5 virus. But when you try to look it up, it states this only affects children for a few days. I am an adult battling this for a month! It makes no sense! It's like trying to wash a window that no one else can see, but you know it is dirty and needs to be cleaned.
So, I find myself in the slow lane. Stuck there. Pitching a fit about being there.
It is one thing for me to admit weakness at certain times. It is another to admit I am weak. It is truth that I have disappointed. But to be in a position of admitting I will disappoint, is painful. And no less true.
On a day when my perfect-world plan was to go shopping and make my son a birthday dinner to celebrate his birth, I am in tears over being both weak and disappointing.
That is when a dear friend spoke words of truth: life in the slow lane is total surrender and reliance on God. It is about submitting my plans, my desires, my hopes, my very day, to Him. It is about being dependent upon Him, moment by moment.
This is a lesson I struggle to learn, at the moment.
In chatting with another friend yesterday, I realized this is about control. Coming from such a wounded background, you learn to take charge, take control lest you become hurt again. It is a way to protect yourself.
Relinquishing control is a frightening process. One that I have long battled. One that has become easier only as I have understood it is an issue of trust in a trustworthy person. It is only as I have come to know my God, that I have been able to release the grip. On others. On me. On life.
Time and again, my Father has set me in out-of-my-control circumstances. Situations both excruciating and ultimately freeing. Every time I have found Him worthy. Of my trust. Of relinquishing the strangle-hold I have had, out of abject fear.
Here I am once more. Thinking I have already learned this lesson of letting go. Yet, my Father, in endless love for me, has decided I have not. He has something more for me. Some other sweetness of His character I must know. Some other way for me to release and trust. To relent and depend. One more chain to break. One more way to be set free.
How ironic. To scramble and strive, to scheme and plan takes monumental effort. Life in the fast lane may be exciting, but it is also exhausting. I am always on the look out to make sure I have covered all the bases, don't miss anything. Don't get caught.
To be in the slow lane sounds like fluff. To take it easy, sounds easy. But to really rest means relinquishing all to Him. It translates to willingly stepping out of the traffic. Of schemes and plans and striving. It is a transition from gripping the wheel with all my might to relaxing against the seat and allowing my Father to drive.
Anywhere. At His pace.
Not mine.
It's as if this life was supposed to be about Him. And not me.
Maybe, just maybe, this is really where the excitement is.