Sense and Sensability

I've said it before and I will say it again....Words Are How God Speaks To ME! (that's right he doesn't use the Goodyear Blimp....he uses words! Crazy, huh...crazy! haha!) But, what I mean by that, is a single word, verb or noun, adjective or adverb...a single word, is how I hear His voice.

It may seem strange to others who do not have this experience with words, but to me, who sits on a word in her head and just turns it and turns it and uses it to plug up the holes she feels in herself, well, it's not strange at all.


This is how I can equate it to you, have you ever had someone tell you something or relate something to you and you have thought, "Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, I've heard this all before," only to hear, almost the SAME thing come out of someone else's mouth or see the same message written in a book, but somehow THAT time is the time the message sinks in? And a person in your life who has sat there and "told you so" says, "I've told you that for years." to which you respond, amazed, "Yes, but now I'm actually HEARING it!"
This is how words speak to me....and fill me up!

In Sunday School, our lesson was on Fear; How if we are to say we are truly Christians who are living a life with God in charge, then why would we, as a nation, knee jerk react to things that "threaten" our security. Why do we feel the need to try to "control" things that are truly, uncontrollable? It was a lesson that came to our Sunday School leader after reading a USA Today article in which a Presbyterian Minister challenged whether we actually were a nation of "In God We Trust" by comparing our reactions to fear.

In the article the minister used the word "sensible". Ahhhhhh, I was searching for you and I didn't know it! I've been looking for this word to fill up this hole, this unknown hole. I didn't know I wasn't whole, but I wasn't.


Sensible, to me, evokes this image: a person who is calm, un-ruffled, measured, acts in a way that is realistic, and involves the group's wishes in coming to a conclusion or a decision. You feel you can trust a sensible person because they make good decisions.
I feel like this. That word feels good on me, I think it is a good describer of how I try to live. And, I like sensible people....I guess that's why I like me!


Hearing this word last Sunday and then accepting that this is part of who I feel I am has helped me to work through a recent offense. I find it interesting that me, a sensible person, when confronted with an issue where my sensibilities were questioned, felt quite the opposite of sensible. I felt infuriated and disrespected. Not feelings that fall in line with who me, a sensible person, usually feels. This situation made me feel as though a poison arrow was being hurled at my Achilles Heel and for as strong and as sensible as I am, I chose a very insensible reaction.

"Me, act insensibly?!? Well," I thought, "I'll show them! I will just stop doing any and everything to help them. I mean, how could they think that of me? Why would they choose to take this instance and find it offensive? Am I untrustworthy? Am I not helpful and committed? How could anyone take this situation and make it into something else?" My defenses were up and fully engaged. No one was going to attack me that way! "How about the way they act, huh?!? Why would someone living in a glass house throw stones at me?"

Clarity then came, as a word breezed into my being. It enveloped me like a blanket fresh out of the dryer, "sensible". The word flowed all over me. From head to toe, I felt this word and wondered if it could soak into me...when I was acting quite the opposite.

I felt immediate imbalanced when this situation, where I was the problem, was brought to me. Completely out of touch with me. I am not a person who gets infuriated easily...but, how would you feel when your Achilles Heel was being threatened? Interesting, isn't it, that when the core of who you feel you are is under attack, your immediate tendency is to act as your total opposite! I'm not attracted to people the opposite of sensible. I'm not akin to wanting insensible people in my life....yet I was reacting like one, wasn't I?

As sensible washed over me, I felt shame. How could sensible find me when I wasn't acting at all sensibly? Would I let it penetrate me and, again, define me? Would I allow sensible to fill me up and to cover my Achilles Heel? I had a choice....I was choosing this reaction..and it was far from sensible...measured.....realistic.....un-ruffled.

This dialogue came when deciding what to choose: "You cannot create a world in which everyone will be sensible. You can only infect the world with your sensibility. Changing who you are in reaction to this situation is exactly the opposite of who God made you to be. Accept that your reaction is the only thing you can do to better insensible situations."

Making sense out of situations can seem impossible. And, I decided that it isn't always what God wants me to do when he gave me sensible. Sometimes making sense is saying, this doesn't.
All I can do is not let insensible situations change the sensible me.

Thank You Lord for giving me that clarity. For bringing sensible to me in that newspaper article and for allowing me the sensibility to leave this situation out of my understanding. You'll bring me healing. I know this because you're a sensible God.