Humble Pie

 The mile high, golden brown fluffy sweetness on top of the warm, gooey, chocolate piece of heaven, I mean pie...mouth watering yet? Oops, I was describing the wrong pie, have you ever tasted humble pie?

    I have, but I didn’t realize it until this past Sunday. Nick and I were on the way home from grocery shopping when I asked him, “what lesson are we supposed to learn from all of this?” He shrugged his shoulders and said, “ I don’t know”. To that, I replied with a heart felt, “I’ve been praying for God to show me what I’m suppose to learn.” I was met with silence and a change of subject. :) It wasn’t until later that day that my answer, my lesson came flooding in and slapped me in my face.

    As the memories of the major events over the past five months flashed through my mind like an old movie reel, the lesson began to sink in and take hold of me. The lesson wasn’t what I should or should not have done, but where or should I say who I was focused on. My lesson begins before 5 months ago, it starts with me wanting to go on a mission trip to Honduras this past summer. I wanted to go for all the right reasons, but there was one, yes only one, wrong reason thrown in with all the right reasons and that one reason hit me hard in the stomach. I now want to stop writing this, but I will share as I am being led to do. I eagerly signed up to go on the mission trip and as I prayed I felt God telling me not to go. I fought this for a few weeks then finally, slightly embarrassed, backed out. I was determined to make this trip work financially it would’ve been hard and I admitted that to a few people, but deep down I knew I just wasn’t supposed to go. As it turns out, I had some unexpected medical problems which led to expensive bills and in turn confirmed my decision to not go on the mission trip. Now, the first piece of humble pie is served, I selfishly wanted to go to spend time with a friend that I don’t get to spend a lot of time with, which isn’t bad, but shouldn’t be in the heart of one going to serve and show others the love of God. Sweat tea anyone? How about a tall glass of milk? I need to rinse my mouth out before I take another bite.

    Fast forward to May/June when the children’s series fell through. Yes, it has been that long and yes I wanted to curl up in the fetal position, pull the covers over my head and shut out the world. I didn’t, but I sure wanted to and now here comes the next piece of pie~ the only person I cared about was me and my feelings. I could only think of how others would now view me, because of this let down, this failure even though it was out of my hands. I didn’t think how the others felt that were involved in the book. Anyone starting to put the pieces of this lesson together? Excuse me a second while I finish chewing, this pie isn’t the best I’ve tasted.

    The final piece of pie was the day Nick told me he was no longer in the band. I wasn’t worried about the other members and how they felt, nope I was worried about Nick and of course me. Now, the last pieces doesn’t seem too bad, but when you put all this together….Oh, wait there is one more piece to be eaten, my stomach is hurting. A close friend of mine moved this summer without saying a word and I was crushed. I was mad, hurt, angry, sad and the only thing I thought about was my feelings. I couldn’t think of or hear this person’s name without getting angry and wanting to cry. Suddenly, I feel like a pretty selfish person and a real jerk. Now that I’m finished eating humble pie, sharing a part of me that I would much rather you not know about, but feel I must share, let me tell you where I’m at now.

    I had to pray myself through each event, through each emotion that crashed into me until finally I found myself on my knees at Jesus’ feet realizing I lost sight of Him. Much like Peter when he was walking on water I became overwhelmed and looked away. When I took my eyes off of Jesus I started to sink, but here I sit with Jesus’ firm grip on my shaky hands. We can’t trust others or even ourselves, we must always keep our eyes on Jesus. There is nothing like realizing the error of my ways, but I'm so glad that Jesus meets me right where I’m at. Here’s to another lesson learned in the humility department, until next time...stay focused on what matters JESUS.  “The works of His hands are truth and justice; all His instructions are trustworthy.” (Psalm 111:7)