One of the most comical email forwards I have ever received depicted a mom who must have been desperate to entertain her two small children because she was down on all fours, serving as the fulcrum for a teeter-totter, the teeter-totter itself being a one by eight foot board across her back with a child on each end, each contentedly enjoying the ups and downs of the teeter-totter. Most of us have childhood memories, and parenting memories as well, of both the fun and the frustration of a teeter-totter. Perhaps we knew both because technically the teeter-totter is a mechanical system with two equilibrium positions. Equilibrium infers balance, stability, equality, even restfulness, but if one of the equilibrium positions is disturbed, the other position must somehow restore balance and stability, or, the whole system is disturbed. Translate that into the scene of a child on a teeter-totter, someone on that teeter-totter needs the skill of maintaining equilibrium, or else..................
Journeying through life can all too readily parallel the fun and frustration of the teeter-totter. Typically, “self” holds one of the equilibrium positions and the myriad of life experiences holds the other. Even with the ups and downs of life experiences, the ride can be enjoyable, sometimes even fun -- balance, stability, and restfulness, ebbing and flowing as “self” energizes, plans, organizes, steps back, re-focuses, identifies conflict and detours, copes, and steadily and persistently works hard to maintain equilibrium. “Typical” though is totally dependent on self and self, even at best, is very un-dependable. “Typical” doesn’t address the grinding, exasperating taunting of those life experiences that gnaw away at personal resources, depleting them without replenishing – broken relationships, inadequate finances, poor health, disappointed expectations, crippled emotions, demands to give and give and give some more. “Typical” avoids the horrendous, the tragedies we want to believe happen only to “others,” the empty, raw scouring of a heart that has lost what was deeply loved. Coming away from “typically,” it is humanly impossible for self alone to maintain equilibrium given the reality of the spectrum of life experiences.
Someone on that teeter-totter needs the skill of maintaining equilibrium, or else................ The only “someone” I know who has that skill is my Father, my heavenly Father. He alone is the parent who is capable of maintaining the equilibrium, who is able to give me stability, balance, and rest. If I ride the teeter-totter alone, the whole system will be disturbed. If I exert self to control life experiences, I will push too hard, or not hard enough, or I will crash on the hard concrete when I lose my focus. Apart from His encouragement and enabling, I will fail to hold, to persevere, to find the balance only He can give. I really don’t want to ride the teeter-totter by myself. I can’t. I really don’t want a substitute for the Father who loves me. That substitute will fail. I want the skill – the grace – the outpouring of my Father’s heart and resources – I want Him. He alone has the skill of maintaining equilibrium whether life seems “typical” or “typical” is distorted or even trampled.
– Bev
(Related Bible reading: Psalm 13:1-6)
