DOA or DOB?

So here we are. In a tight spot. A dark place. A difficult time. Going through the strangest, most painful, scariest experience of our lives. We’re in a place we’ve never been before, and not at all by choice. We want out…now!

Where we came from -- the place, the situation we were in before –maybe it wasn’t perfect, but it was definitely less scary, more familiar, and more comfortable than it is here. Before the big push, before the jolt, the breaking… before that horrible squeeze that almost crushed us, we were sort of okay for the most part. We were making due. Getting by. Even happy sometimes. And, well, we just didn’t see this coming.

But this... this is still shocking! Where are we, anyway? Where is this? Why are we here? Who’s doing this to us? Who’s in control, because we’re certainly not! Who can make this madness stop? How do we get out of here? Where are we going? Will we survive? Somebody fix this! Make it stop, now! Please! Help!

Wait a minute. This is… this, is intentional. This is… directed. It feels like everything is twisted and all messed up, but there’s a consistency here…a pattern. There is something about the way we’re being moved. There’s a process… a definite process here. We’re being tunneled through it.

The path behind us is closing, and a light is breaking through ahead. So this… this is temporary. It’s…it’s like some kind of connection… between what was, and, what can be. This... this is a “birth canal”. Hmmm. This is a tunnel of possibility. It’s a chance to be born…”re-born”…”born again”… transformed…renewed…healed…made whole…empowered…set free. And we can’t get there without going “through”.

But it’s too much. It’s too hard. We can’t make it. No, wait, we don’t have a choice, remember?

So, the question is not…

“Will we come through?”

The question is…

“How will we come through?”

Because, one way or the other, we will be delivered. When this trial, this test, this part of our journey is over, we will be born. Either, we will be still born… DOA… Dead On Arrival…if we give up now, or we will be born again… with a new DOB… a new Date Of Birth… a new date of rebirth…renewed by the transforming of our minds, if we hang in there, and trust the One Who created us to see us through this process.