This Is For The Days When You Want To Quit

So maybe your days have been hard lately.

Maybe just breathing seems hard.  Like your lungs can't seem to fill fully.

Maybe you wake up every day and just...try...to...survive.

Yeah, I know you.

I've been there.
Lately.  I've been there.

Stressed out, crushed by life, drowning.

Because last school year I thought I just might have a nervous breakdown.  And my only hope was that something, somewhere would change. 

And one day into this school year I was a crying mess.  After one day.  Because everything bad about last year had followed me here. 

Maybe you've been there?

And the thing that you hoped in seems crushed?  The hope of easier is abandoned?

Maybe you're not a homeschooling mother of six like me.  Maybe you don't have kids with learning struggles, processing problems and attention deficit. A toddler that screams nonstop and two other small boys that think wrestling is actually a school subject.  A teenager with a busy sports schedule and tween girls that...are just... tween girls.

Maybe you can't relate.  But maybe you have a difficult marriage.  A wayward child.  A challenging job.  Maybe you are drowning in financial trouble.  Maybe you are struggling with sin and you don't know how to break free. Maybe you are just deeply broken today.  Then we are not so different.  Yeah, I know you.

When you have tried to change your circumstances but after all your planning and struggle you realize that for now, you just have to walk through the fire. 

Listen friend, when you walk through the fire, He is there.  And He says you will not be burned.

And He says, when you go through the rivers, they will not sweep over you.

When you pass through the waters, He is with you.  Isaiah 43:2

He is with you.

Not all of our days are easy, God doesn't always take us out of the trouble. 

Sometimes He says, go through it.  But know that when you go, I go with you.

We are never alone, in Christ. 

We are never alone.

When you get to the end of your rope, look up and see the One holding the other end.

He will never let you fall.

And this is what I remember when I feel like I just can't take one more breath,

I remember that it is not about me.

This life I have been given, these breaths, they don't belong to me.  They belong to the One who gave them, and my goal is glorify this God who gave me all that I have.

And I remember that I don't deserve anything more than hell and yet He has given me heaven and the hope of eternal life.  And is anything else needed?

And I surrender, I rejoice that my broken life has been swallowed up in His fullness.

And even in the broken days, in the hard days, these too were given with a purpose.

To glorify our God.  To tell the story of His grace.

"And as God's grace reaches more and more people, there will be great thanksgiving, and God will receive more and more glory.  That is why we never give up.  Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed day by day.  For our present troubles are small and won't last very long.  Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever!  So we don't look at the troubles we can see now; rather we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen.  For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever."  2 Corinthians 4:15-18

The good news is that Jesus came to make all our broken into beauty in His time.  He came to save us from our sin and make a way for us to have the life that never ends. 

In the light of eternity, all our troubles seem smaller.

In the light of His redemption, all our darkness is brighter.

May His grace find you today.  May it fill you with the hope that comes from trusting in Jesus.

May you find His strength to go through your fire and find that you are not burned. 

His grace is enough.