The Cell Phone, The Mixer, and Me

The past 36 hours have been painful.  As if I had lost a limb or my blood supply.

My cell phone stopped working.

Who knew that I could feel so naked, so out-of-the-loop, and so frustrated over a phone?  Missing calls and email and having to explain what was going on when people finally got a hold of me through other means. Thankfully, my resourceful husband, who works for our wireless carrier, got the issue resolved, and there were many apologies from the support team. 

I seriously live and die by my phone.  I typically log around 1800 minutes/month, and if you break that down, that means I essentially lost 89 minutes of phone time.  That's a lot of stuff to miss out on!  The most frustrating thing?  The phone was on the whole time, looking all normal-like, and all I needed was someone to flip a switch and give me service.  Yes, it was that easy...

In a strange way, I have felt like that cell phone lately.  Sitting here, looking all normal-like, but seriously needing someone to flip the switch and restore the connection.

Like my Kitchen Aid mixer.  It sits right by an outlet and stays plugged in.  It has a constant supply of power just waiting to do its thing.  What's missing?  The switch needs to be flipped, the mixer needs to be turned on.  And if that never happens, the mixer is essentially worthless.  It just sits there looking pretty but not doing what it was made to do. (And what a waste if it never got to actually mix and be a part of making something yummy!)

Life has been hectic lately.  Work is demanding, quotas are getting more and more difficult to meet, and it feels like things require twice as much effort to yield the same results. And I, unfortunately, have fallen into less of a groove and more of a rut, like a scratch on a record that plays the same annoying sound over and over.  Get up, go to work, come home, go to sleep.  Rinse and Repeat.

Ironically, I am plugged into the most amazing power source of all. God Almighty. Whose supply will never run out, and whose circuit breaker will never trip.  I've got all that power right here, but my switch is in the off position.  And I remain disconnected, like my cell phone. Powerless, like my mixer.

Easter was a great weekend for me.  God just held up a mirror and showed me the rut that I have fallen into.  That Kitchen Aid mixer, sitting there looking pretty, but not living out my calling.  Not walking into every day plugged into His power with true excitement about what the day might bring.  Not mixing and being a part of making something very yummy.

Simply put, I haven't been living.  I have been surviving.

The Bible tells us that "Jesus came so we can have real and eternal life, a better life than we ever dreamed of" (John 10:10).  And all I need to do is turn on the switch, and let his Power energize me to do what He made me to do!