Uncomfortable

I wrote this one on the back porch, just sitting there looking at my life and realizing it didn't match the plans I'd laid out a few months back.

For a while I was doing what I always do when things get heavy. Head down. Push harder. Try to white-knuckle my way through until the storm passed.

But something shifted as I sat there. I started looking around instead of pushing through. And what I noticed almost stopped me.

There were people right there. Friends who had been calling me on the worst days for no reason at all. Not because I asked. Not because they knew. Just because something had nudged them to check in. I tried to count how many times that had happened in the last few months and I lost track.

There were single lines of truth that had been showing up in my mind. The Spirit teaching me one phrase at a time, letting it sit there for a day. Then later, the exact moment I needed it, that phrase would come back. Right when I would have spiraled. Right when I would have said something I'd regret.

And there were people who needed me on the same days I needed help. God would send someone with a problem and ask me to step into their situation, which pulled me out of mine. Every time I chose them over my own emotions, my own weight got a little lighter. My own problems started moving in ways I couldn't have moved them.

That's where the chorus came from. When I get uncomfortable, I start looking around. Comfort had me keeping my head down. The shaking made me look up.

My favorite line in the song is "the life I thought was failing was You teaching me to call." Because that's exactly what it was. I thought I was being broken. I was being taught.

I believe this life is a test to see if we'll seek God and recognize His hand in the small things. The hands. The windows. The mercies trying to hide in plain sight. I missed a lot of them when life felt easy. I see them all now.

So this song is me telling on myself. Saying out loud that the uncomfortable seasons are the ones doing the most work in me. Saying thank You for not letting me stay where I was.