Sometimes things can look very nice on the outside, but they are, in fact, a mess on the inside.  Sometimes, we are making progress on the inside, but you really can’t tell on the outside quite yet.  Still looking rather messy.  And, sometimes you are a hot mess both on the inside and the outside.  It just depends.

The last few weeks, I’ve been working very hard to cover many bases, at work and at home.  In the midst of working hard, I am battling some anxiety.  Just when I level the anxiety, I realize that I am experiencing super high energy, which I assume is adrenaline.  I am basically going from high anxiety to high energy.  I really don’t know what that looks like on the outside.  Mainly because I am preoccupied with tending to the inside (and the circumstances).  But truly, I had the sense that I still looked pretty good on the outside.

It was either the fact that I forgot my make-up bag under my desk at work or I truly looked weathered, but three friends who would know the difference reached out to me with the same message.  You are not yourself.  You’re troubled or preoccupied with something.  I can hear it in your voice.  Yes, yes, yes, this I know.  But I didn’t think anyone else did.

Like you, I don’t have a lot of answers.  I have guts when I need to.  I cry when the Spirit touches me.  I try to have a heart after God’s own heart all of the time.  I dig my feet in the firm hold of faith when the horizon is looking bleak.  I ask for help.  I let go of having all of the answers.  I just do the stuff I know He calls me to in the best way I can.

My faith tells me that if I both hold tight and take action when He calls me to, the ending will be the result He had in mind.  We can’t argue with the result He had in mind.  Because it is always good.  Not often easy or what we had in mind. But always good and usually better than what you and I could have come up with on our own.

Like you, I don’t have a lot of answers.  But I had a moment of clarity this weekend.  My horizon is looking bleak lately.  I figured that if God painted a picture of my circumstances, and if I’m honest, maybe even me, it would look like the aftermath of Hurricane Wilma.  My version of what a war torn community looks like.  Trees down, grey coloring.  Silence all around you.

In my moment of clarity, God showed me the Emerald City and the Yellow Brick Road and the pack of friends walking and singing along the way to their Beautiful Destination.  He let me know that He sees the flower patches along my road.  He sees the friendships being made along the path.  He sees that, in community, I’m moving along the path to the Emerald City.  He sees what, right now, I cannot see.

And, now, thankfully, I can see what He sees.  He sees what my world is looking like on the outside, but in His wisdom, has shown me what He sees on the inside.  In our human ways, we can’t always judge what the inside or the outside really looks like.  Some days, the inside and outside don’t match, sometimes they do and sometimes they shouldn’t.  I’m just glad that we serve a God that always sees, always believes in us and always shows us the way down His Yellow Brick Road.