Nope, it’s not a write about fishing or anything like that. Though, while on the topic, have you ever noticed how a nice fat nightcrawler squirms when you’re trying to use it to bait your hook? Or, for that matter, how much they squirm when they are on the hook? No wonder fish find them so enticing. Probably as enticing as a pole dancer in a sleaze bar is to some folks.
I’m talking about another type of squirming here. It’s the squirming we do (inside) when we begin to feel noticeably uncomfortable about something about ourselves. It’s quite like the squirming feeling the guy in the sleaze bar experiences after time when he realizes just how much money and time he has squandered and for what?
If you were to search deeply into any of the life lessons you have learned throughout the journey that is your life, under what circumstances do you think the most meaningful and lasting lessons were learned? The lessons I am referring to here are those lessons that were to become defining moments in how you acted and reacted with people and with the stuff that life inherently throws at us.
If you are anything like me, the best lessons about life and relationships I have learned have come about as a result of my squirming with pain and discomfort from the realization that I had just grossly screwed something up, hurt someone, made a complete fool out of myself, etc, etc, etc. The best lessons didn’t come from sitting around campfires with s’mores and hot chocolate singing Kumbaya. Affirmations come out of feel good times. Good life lessons come out of pain.
- when I’m hurtin’, I’m squirmin’.
- when I’m squirmin’, I’m learning’.
- it takes some pain to gain.
Look at those times in your life when you feel as if you are that nightcrawler getting placed on the hook as a blessing. God has taken that opportunity to hold you in His hands so that you can feel the discomfort, and even as He has done that it is those same hands that offer you redemption and grace through the lesson you have just learned. The blessing is your campfire, s’mores, and hot chocolate.
Do Life Better Ministry 