Fighting for Control

Jesus and I are wrestling for control of the steering wheel that is the directional for the car of my life.  It would seem as though I am winning, until I swerve into the left lane and oncoming traffic, but Jesus pulls car back into the right lane at the last moment.  This happens multiple times, until I finally get savvy to what He is doing, and begin to fight back again, even as He is saving my life.  One more close call, and I am fed up with His intervening in my driving, and jab His hands from the wheel with my elbow.  In that moment, though, I swerve the car in the opposite direction, and into a tree.  There is a sickening twist of metal, and the taste of iron in the back of my throat.  My body should be colliding with the tree with a sharp smack and cracking of bones, but something stops me, something protects me.  It is Jesus, throwing His own body over mine, to keep me from hurtling forward, as I should.  He, instead of I, takes the full force of the impact, and just like that, it is Jesus taking my place in the grave.

And given the opportunity, He would do it all over again.

My Autumn Rainbow

Last year, at this same time, I posted about this very same tree.  Time goes on, and yet another year flies by.  I remember watching this tree change, the leaves darkening into deep blood reds and pumpkin oranges.

It's the most beautiful tree that I saw, by far, two years ago, and now it stands as a sign to me that God never leaves my side.  As the perfectionist walls that I built so carefully around myself in 2010 came crashing down, my self-worth with it, this tree was being taken up in the flames of Fall.  I didn't know it at the time, but I would need God more than ever that year.

Eventually the year had passed, and I grew from the experience, however dreadful it may have been.  Then Autumn 2011 came around, and the tree began to change again.  The first time I noticed the leaves were no longer green, it was as though God was speaking to me, reminding me that He's here every moment of every day with me.  His message was so loud and clear, a symbolic version of Moses' burning bush, if you will.

And now it's year three of this beauty, and God is reminding me of His everlasting presence in my life yet again.  The changing of the tree is serving as a rainbow in my life, a promise from God, just as after the forty year flood and Noah's Ark.

This orange and red rainbow reminds me not of the worst times of my life, but of the way God worked and healed me throughout that.  God never leaves, He never forsakes, and He always loves.