Overwhelmed

'Tis the season to be overwhelmed.

Overwhelmed.

What overwhelms you?
What is it this moment that crashes over your existence like a tidal wave, that consumes your thoughts, drowns your focus, and rocks your once-sure footing in the sweeping violent undertow, like you don't even know what hit you?

 

For this heart it is the pieces of paper stapled together into multiple choices and essay questions.
It's the scan-trons bubbled in, and the letters of the alphabet that hold the potential to become perverted into the expression of my worth, and, oh how I hate to admit-- God's ability to answer prayer.

Final exams.

It is the high-stakes fork in the road of this semester: the choice to be overwhelmed.

The overwhelming in itself is not the poison-- its the thing that the heart is overtaken by in its overwhelmed state. 

I chose wrong that Friday morning where the heart beat too fast as the Professor described the Final Exam, as I looked over the chapters we'd gone over and begged the memory to just whip up the concepts like they were fresh once more.

I chose to be overwhelmed by a powerless final exam, by a stack of papers stapled together.

I chose stomach-knotting worry.

I chose fear and doubt.

But this God I love, He is a merciful God, He never closes the door to the path that leads to the overwhelming life of fullness He offers when you just trust Him.

I realized it then: Am I more overwhelmed by His love or by this final exam?

I long to be so overwhelmed by His love and the way it was displayed on a cross and the way He offers it with such abundant grace it'll keep you fuller than a Thanksgiving feast forevermore.

I long to let that glorious, gracious gift of His love overtake my thoughts, to be the reigning factor that every other thing has to compete with.

Because in Him all things are held together regardless of the outcomes of the odd mesh of joy and chaos that is the final exam/holiday season-- because in His love my final outcome, the real outcome, is set in stone and sweeter than anything.

I don't know about you, dear friend, but I would rather be overwhelmed by the vastness of the ocean of eternal, churning, invigorating love than the wanna-be tsunami that is just a ripple in the tide pool of this life by comparison.

This love, it's the real thing to make one become lost in breath, to be wrapped up in, to smile till cheeks burn and know peace that rocks this crazed heart to sleep.

Hunt for His love in the Word, in your life, in His presence-- you'll find it at the cross, and from there you'll find it everywhere in everything.

Be overwhelmed by the only One offering something to truly be overwhelmed by.

Be overwhelmed by the one who keeps you from stumbling,who has the ability to take you into His Holy, Mighty, Glorious presence faultless and filled with joy!!