I'm STUCK!

As humans, we certainly have the tendency to get stuck in places that often we probably should not have visited in the first place. When I was a little girl, I loved to climb trees. I started climbing trees at a very young age – long before I ever went to school. Most of the time I climbed up and down with no problems. But there was one tree that I always got stuck in – a massive pine tree up behind my grandmother’s house. All of the grandkids called the various platforms and “ladders” a tree house, but in reality, there wasn’t much “house” to it at all. I could easily get up the wood slats that had been nailed to the trunk to form a ladder. And once I was in the tree, I had no problem navigating from one platform to another, or from one branch to another. But eventually, what goes up must come down, and that is where the biggest problem was. In order to get from the lowest platform to the top rung on the “ladder” I had to turn on my belly, let my legs dangle off the platform – and stretch to reach that first rung. Invariably, I would get scared. My older cousins didn’t help any – pressuring me to “just do it” or making fun of me when I was too scared to try. I would end up in tears, and eventually someone would have to go and find my Dad, and he would have to come and talk me down.

Right now, I’m stuck. For the last six weeks, I have hovered within in the same two or three pounds. I’m not gaining, but I’m not losing, either – and I’m frustrated. I should be used to this by now. Plateaus are part of the process, and eventually, I ALWAYS start losing again. I lose for a while, then I don’t lose for a while. This plateau has lasted longer than the others. Intellectually, I KNOW that my body needs to adjust and needs a rest period. But emotionally, I just want to keep losing. However, I believe that I will keep doing what I have been doing, and that eventually I will start losing again.

Sometimes I get stuck in my personal walk with God, too. It feels like my prayers stop at the ceiling and I’m not growing or making any progress. However, I believe that God is still there, and on His throne even in those times when I don’t FEEL it. And I know that He loves me.

“Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.” (1 John 5:12-14, NIV) (Emphasis is mine.)