The Ultimate Carnival Ride

Carousel?  Maybe.

Ferris wheel? Rarely that slow & gentle.

Rollercoaster?  Tilt-a-whirl?  Hammer?  Yeah, that's more like it. 

No, I haven't been going to amusement parks and carnivals.  These are metaphors of a busy life, the essence of multitasking in a world where challenges come from every direction, from the purely physical to the mental, intellectual and spiritual compass points.  Just when the climbs & plunges of the rollercoaster slow, just when it looks like I can step off the train, it morphs into a Tilt-a-whirl car spinning chaotically or a Hammer  plastering me to the back of the cage or  (if the carney has trickster hands on the controls) stopping up-side-down.  Kinetic force reasserts and...

Yikes! Toboggan splash, then I'm back on a spiraling coaster.

 God promises that we're never given anything beyond what we can endure.  I amble wobbly-legged down the midway and into the funhouse.  Check my short/tall/thin/fat/wavering reflections.  I'm not sweating blood like Jesus did in the garden of Gethsemane.  None of this is stress, then. It's only challenges, it's only annoyances, it's only a high rate of interest and event.  I grin and amble back to the ride.   It strains the limits of my inner gyroscope but God makes sure it's never tested to destruction.

 

And I haven't barfed.