All my life, I’ve tried to keep things smooth, calm, peaceful. I don’t like change, especially when it is outside of my influence or control. I suspect that’s one of the reasons I never rode roller coasters. Well, that and intense motion sickness.
My spiritual life lately has been paralleling my personal life, and both have been on a rather wild roller coaster. I feel like things around me are just tossing me back and forth. Just when I thought things were smoothing out, a radical turn in the track throws me in an entirely different direction. Just as things were slowing down a bit, the hill peaks and the ride drops down a hill I didn’t even see coming. Just when I think I can’t take the intensity any more, I roll out at the bottom and the ride takes a new turn.
Just like a roller coaster, though, there never seems to be a slow spot or a pause in the action. Every day is a new turn, a new hill, a new twist. Unlike a roller coaster, it doesn’t end in two minutes, letting me back out of the car at the station.
One of the things that I learned about roller coasters when I finally did get up the nerve to get on and ride one is that the ride is always worse when I’m tense and anxious and I try to fight against the sudden changes. That’s when I get thrown around the hardest. When I relax and look ahead and anticipate what’s coming, I can shift myself and go with the turn or the hill or the twist. When I let my body settle into the seat and flow with the ride, it can actually be enjoyable.
The problem with carrying this metaphor over to real life, or to my spiritual life, is that settling into the seat is much harder. With a roller coaster, the ride is always the same, and you can even check it out ahead of time and start to predict what is going to happen along the way. In life, although you can predict a little from time to time, the unexpected things that slam into you from the side or from behind and catch you completely off guard are nearly impossible to predict.
My problem, I think, is that I’ve been trying to do it all under my own power. I’ve been trying to figure it all out by myself. I’m realizing (not for the first time) that I have a team around me that wants to help—starting with God. I have to lean on God, rely on his wisdom and understanding. He already knows every turn that’s coming on my ride: he put them there. He already knows the best way for me to handle them and be prepared for them: he designed me. If I get to know the designer of the roller coaster, if I begin to understand how he thinks and how he works and the process he used to come up with the design, then the designs will start to make more sense and become more predictable.
I also have family and friends around me that can help. A blog post for another time, perhaps, because there are so many thoughts and feelings that go with that idea, but basically if I surround myself with that team and let them know me and get to know them, then we can lean on each other and support each other. The ride is much more tolerable when you’re doing it with a crowd than when you’re the only one in the car.
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