Following the Leader: a Friday Freewrite

When I think back to being a child, following the leader often meant holding their hand as they led me. There were times I willingly slipped my little fingers into theirs and there were times I fought back and resisted and their hand felt like it was suffocating mine. There were times I lingered or got distracted and times my feet would drag and kick. Those were the times where their hand would hold mine a little tighter and gently tug me forward. There were times I skipped along happily and danced around gleefully and their hand swung in mine in simple bliss. There were times I darted ahead and out into danger and their hand yanked me back into safety. 

In all of those times, the hand holding mine was the hand of someone who knew better, who had a higher and clearer perspective of the world than I did at my little level, who loved me and wanted above all else to protect me from the risks and dangers all around.

Following my heavenly Father is a lot like following my parents as a child. My perspective of my world is so small. I don't know the dangers that lie ahead, I don't know the best or safest path to follow. I don't know how to blaze my own trail in this world I know so little of, this world that's so much bigger than me.

I want to follow my Leader with the trusting faith of a child. I want to slip my hand into His and joyfully skip along behind Him as He sets the path before me. I want to trust that when He pulls me back, it's because something was ahead of me that would have hurt me and His actions were to keep me safe. I want to believe that when He leads me in ways I didn't expect or didn't want, it's because those are the ways that lead to life.

My hands are small in comparison to the hands of my Creator. I try to hold all the pieces of my life together in my two hands, and things are constantly slipping through my fingers. My hands weren't designed to keep it all together. I can't keep all the plates spinning, can't hold all the ones I love close to me, can't fix all that's broken, heal all that's hurt and solve all the problems. 

My hands weren't meant to hold my life together, my hands were meant to hold my Father's. My hands were designed to slip perfectly into His as I follow where He leads. I can't do that if my hands are trying to hold all of my life together.

When I let those things go, free my hands of the heavy load, my hands can hold His so I can follow the Leader.