When Life is an Unamusing Rollercoaster

One of the pleasures of summer has always been going to an amusement park or fair. The atmosphere is fun and festive; the food, bad for you, fabulous. But I love the rides. Especially the ones that go fast and flip around.  With one exception! I have a love/hate relationship with the ride that goes around so fast you stick to the wall and the floor drops out from under you. You are standing upright but going so fast that it appears that you are flat on your back.

This past week felt like that. It was a whirlwind. Started with scary news about a relative’s health; followed by an ok update. I left one job and started a new one. One might think that would have me standing tall, but it has begun with revelations that have me on my behind. At the end of this week we have been planning for a family gathering at our place and have been learning new spin-y dance moves. My head was spinning. Literally and figuratively. More than once my tummy lurched. And I could barely find solid ground.

I also ended up with vertigo.  This is an inner ear issue that creates imbalance. Everything is nauseatingly moving, even when your eyes close. It is very much like getting off a fast moving, upside down propulsion ride. That feeling just hangs with you a while. It can make one nauseous, and pray to get off the ride. There is a moving, unstable cacophony in my head and heart, so I’m not sure Bono is right.

Uno, dos, tres, catorce
Turn it up loud, captain

Lights go down it's dark
The jungle is your head, can't rule your heart
A feeling's so much stronger than a thought        (U2 – Vertigo)

For two days and a week things were on the move. Felt like no solid ground anywhere. God, it is too loud and too unstable. HELP!

The topsy turviness was very disconcerting. And it too threw me into a tizzy. I kept thinking, “Get planted, take root.” Praying the “stone” in my inner ear, and everything else would settle down.

                     “Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.”
                                    ― Søren Kierkegaard

“Don't be afraid, for I am with you. Don't be discouraged, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will hold you up with my victorious right hand.”  New Living Translation (©2007)

This week I just had to let go. Let the spiraling take me…..right into the arms of strength, hope and newness.

"Love works in miracles every day: such as weakening the strong, and strengthening the weak; making fools of the wise and wise men fools; favoring the passions, destroying reason, and in a word, turning everything - topsy-turvy."      Marguerite De Valois

I Waited Patiently for the Lord and he inclined to me, and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet on a rock, and established my goings. And he has put a new song in my mouth, even praise to our God: many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the LORD. “ Psalm 40:1-3

  O God who brings good things to those who hunger and thirst;
your care for us is shown in how the world is turned upside down for us;
The strong made weak; the weak made strong. All playing fields made level.

Thank you!

And you hear the cry,
you come, saying ‘do not be afraid,’
offering your very self that we might be made whole.

God of the topsy-turvy,
hear us as we pray that those who sow in tears, may reap with shouts of joy
and that the captives may know the liberation of your promise of jubilee freedom.

Amen.