Turn Your Head

Direct me in the path of your commands, for there I find delight. Psalm 119:35 NIV

“Come on, sweet girl. Turn your head this way,” I coaxed my newborn baby. As I tried to gently turn her soft head to the left, she tensed up and held her head in the opposite direction. I sighed, envisioning her head forming in the lumpy shape it currently held.

The doctor told me to encourage her to look left as much as possible. She favored lying with her head to the right. “Lay her in the bed so when she turns right, she faces the wall,” she told me. “That way she’ll turn her head left to look out into the room.”

It wasn’t her fault. While in the Neonatal Intensive Care after birth, she was strapped with her head to the right most of the time.

It became comfortable to her because it was familiar.

Unfortunately, her head was starting to look a little flat on that side. She needed to lay with her head in the other direction so it would develop its typical round shape. But no amount of coaxing would turn her head. When I tried using force, she fought back. She didn’t realize I was only trying to help.

I should understand. I’m the same way. While I don’t lie in bed in the same position each night, I do have my mind set on the way I want to go and what I want to do. My Heavenly Father speaks to me and tries to gently coax me in the other direction. Sometimes, He even uses my circumstances to force me in the right direction, and I fight back.

Perhaps you’ve done the same. Maybe you are headed in the wrong direction. Due to past experiences you, too, are comfortable with the familiar and don’t want to try something new. Are you fighting the circumstances in your life? Realize our Heavenly Father is trying to help us fully develop into all He intended us to be. So, what do you say? Want to give it a try?

Turn your head.