What Keeps You from Flying Off the Edge?

Long ago when I was first married I was in the car with my father-in-law, who has driven thousands of miles around Houston for his job in his lifetime.  He worked for a company that did part of the work for the building of bridges and always had some interesting tidbit of information about the stretch of road we were driving on.  One day we were in Downtown Houston, on the Pierce Elevated.  This is a section of I-45 downtown that, as I'm sure you can imagine, is elevated.  Its a bridge on the interstate that cuts and turns through high rises, restaurants and car dealerships.  The bridge is noticeably banked; it was constructed at an angle.  As you drive South, you feel the bridge begin to bank downward.  And if you're headed North, it banks up.  I made a remark that it seemed so dumb--why didn't the bridge stay flat like all the other roads?  He told me "It's to keep you from flying off the edge."  The speed of the interstate at that particular area is so fast that if the road was flat, your car would fly right off the side of the bridge.  So the engineers of the bridge constructed it at an angle so the force on your car would keep you on the road as you made the turns on the bridge at the high speed limit.

The other day I got to thinking as I was driving on the Pierce Elevated.  I remembered that day so long ago that he explained those Physics to me.  And then I began to wonder, what keeps me from flying off the edge?  In my life.  What centrifugal force keeps me pinned down on the road that is my life?

I spend a lot of time on the edge.  Most of my days lately are pretty good, but I have this keen awareness that I am just one rude comment, one unexpected bill, one questioning text, one surprising email......from flying off the edge.  And some days, it almost happens.  One minute I'm totally fine, and the next I'm a ball of snot and tears and I have NO idea how it happened.  I mean for real--should that comment or that little tiny bit of bad news really send me into a tailspin like it can on my weak days?  And if I do find myself tipping off the edge, about to disappear out of sight.........how do I get myself back?  How do I manage, whether it be quickly or over the course of several hours, to shake it off and make it back into myself?  The single answer to that question is my faith and trust in my God.  That's it.  If it wasn't for the relationship I have with Him, if it wasn't for how I always know that He will save me when I call out to him, I would be lost.  Out of sight and gone forever.  

I have a long way to go.  I have realized in the last few weeks that I have some significant scars from slamming into the guardrail on my Pierce Elevated.  My life and experience have caused some lies to take root deep in me, and it is time for me to begin to dig down to the roots of those lies and burn them up.  Because it's not acceptable.  It's simply not acceptable for a girl who has been rescued by the grace and mercy of such a loving and perfect God to feel about herself as I do sometimes.  If I was friends with me, I would want so desperately for me to see myself in the perfect way Christ does.  Well.....consider this me shaking myself.  And consider me a girl who is sick of slamming into the guardrail.