When you give yourself 2 hours to write something, anything and you spend the first hour looking at social media. The struggle is real.
Speaking of struggles, I’m going to be real with ya’ll (well, I usually am) but real real. And I’m just talking today. I’m not writing devotionals.
I haven’t written anything public or posted on IG in almost a month because I started writing a 5-day devotional on TRIALS. Need I say more? Ha. (crying inside)
Man, all I have to say is the enemy is real.
I thought my life had already pretty much unraveled, but whatever little I had left threatened to come crumbling down. In one month. Head on collision (literal car accident). The source of my income. Collapsed. Income cut in half of the half that had already been cut in half. My Mom who is my main daily support suddenly contracting a rare, deadly bacterial infection putting her in the hospital, unable to respond for 24 hours (she’s okay now, thank the Lord!) The kind of bad broken coming out, personal failure. I’ve spent at least the last half of this month crying myself to sleep every night.
But I have something to say. The enemy is real, but so is God. Throughout this past month, a month that reminded me of how much I really do still have, I saw God remain faithful in my faithlessness. You guys, He does not leave us when we leave him. When we give up. When we give in. He is still here, always. His grace and forgiveness, his love never ever leaves us. He will still provide, he will hold us, he will carry us through.
I feel wrung out. But I now recognize this pattern. The trials and the setbacks come after I start doing the work. The enemy wants us to stay down in the pit. Constantly telling ourselves that we need to recover. Just a week to relax, de-stress, sleep in. But I think the recovery is going to come, not in rest, but in running. Running to Jesus, running towards his purpose for us, and running towards the things he’s put in our heart to do.
I know we need our sabbaths, but we also need to know when to get back up again. We need to stop sleeping (hiding in the corner stress eating chocolate to be specific) and learn how to stand up and fight. Fight for our families, our relationships, our ministries, and our lives.
That’s it. I’m not giving up and neither should you.
“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38)
