... because I still throw temper tantrums.

What happens when you wake up and realize that life is not quite what you imagined it would be? What happens when your deepest dreams and hopes and desires are not coming to fruition and you don't see how they ever will? What happens when you find yourself dealing with a temper tantrum... and it's your own?

Grown-up temper tantrums. They happen. They're probably not be the "throw yourself on the ground kicking and screaming" kind, though sometimes that sounds tempting. No. Grown-up temper tantrums are in a league of their own. They are manifested in all kinds of different ways. Sometimes really subtle ways. The emotional disconnect from loved ones. Checking out of reality. Angry isolation. Tears. 

It can be listening to lies that eventually leak into reality and threaten to skew what is true.

No matter how the tantrum manifests itself, they all speak something along the lines of: "I don't like this. This is NOT what I dreamed about, hoped for, planned out. So change it. Now!!"

I hate starting off my days with a bad attitude. 

... but that's exactly how today began. With a bad attitude, and a discouraged heart. 

I went to my morning class and came immediately home to sit with Jesus. 

And I've come to a conclusion. 

The cure for a temper tantrum: 

Surrender. 

Surrender to the perfect God who breathes stars into place and set the entire world into motion. The entire world. He is in complete control of my little world, too. 

Trust. 

Trust that God has my back and I every single thing I encounter is filtered through His heart of love for me... including difficulties. especially difficulties. 

Praise. 

This is my favorite one. and probably the easiest for me. I have a hard time surrendering. and I have an even harder time trusting. But praising? Praising is speaking, singing, dancing, writing my love for Jesus. I love Him. A lot. and I love telling people I love them. Especially my Father. 

Today, I'm just asking for grace to stay the course, even when it feels like I'm riding the same conflict wheel over and over again like a little hamster. It makes me want to scream. I'm asking for grace to stay the course when my decisions seem to be constantly questioned. I'm asking for grace to stay the course when I'm not really at the beginning and I'm definitely not at the end, but instead I find myself in the middle. Some days, it feels like an awfully long road trip with crappy music and no one in the car to reach the snacks in the backseat. 

My dad loved to take our family on trips when we were really little. My brother and I learned to be content in the car for LONG periods of time as babies. We were just used to it. and we've seen some pretty desolate places. We've been in the "middle of nowhere" more times than I can count. and when you're in the middle of nowhere, you just have to stay the course, trusting that your destination will eventually arrive. There are no pit stops. The road just stretches out unendingly before you and the landscape is engulfing. It seems barren. But I remember, even as a child, being enamored by the "nothingness." There was beauty there. There is beauty there. 

This "staying the course" time... could that be beautiful, too? When the landscape seems barren and desolate... and all I want to do is turn around or go a different way... maybe I should be asking for my eyes to be opened to the beauty to be found here. 

"I will make rivers flow on barren heights, and springs within the valleys. I will turn the desert into pools of water and parched ground into springs. I will put in the desert the cedar and the acacia, the myrtle, and the olive. I will set pines in the wasteland, the fir and the cypress together, so that people may see and know, may consider and understand, that the hand of the Lord has done this, that the Holy One has created it." Isaiah 41:18-19 is incredible. 

Yep. I'm in the middle of nowhere. Maybe you are, too. 

But there's hope. 

Because God's power is that much more majestic and overwhelming when it is showcased against a backdrop of barren and desolate landscape. 

So, I'll stay the course. and continue to fight the fight for total surrender and trust. 

Let's agree together that no matter the landscape, Jesus WILL turn the barrenness into beauty. 

He will, my friends, and it will knock our socks off. 

and when He does, let's rejoice together. 

Love to you, 

Lyss

"Let all that I am wait quietly before God, for my hope is in Him. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress where I will not be shaken. My victory and honor come from God alone. He is my refuge, a rock where no enemy can reach me."