For those of you that seem to be finding yourself in a place where you think you are lost, and you don't know what to do ... where you think things are hopeless ... let me tell you ... I've been there. It doesn't matter what the situation is. Has a person most near and dear to your heart died? Have you lost the love of your life, for one reason or another? Do you feel like everyone that you ever trusted, or that everyone you SHOULD be able to trust, has betrayed you in one way or another? Do you find it difficult to open up your heart to anyone else, due to these circumstances? Have you been plagued with illness, and wondered how you were ever going to be able to get yourself out of bed each day? Do you feel so alone in this world, that you wonder if anyone will ever come along to fill that void in your heart? Have you ever lost your job, and done everything you could to make ends meet? Raking leaves, cutting coupons, and transferring perscriptions from one pharmacy to another, just to get a few dollars to spend at that store? Have you lived off of food stamps? Worked 2 or 3 jobs at a time, just to make ends meet? Friends ... I've been there. Everything I just said ... I've been in each and every one of those situations. Lived through every single one of them.
You know that they say that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. They say that God doesn't give us more than we can handle.
There's the story about the person who had the terrible day, and then later asks God why everything went wrong.
He says, "God, can I ask you a question?"
"Sure."
"Promise you won't get mad?"
"I promise."
"Why did you let so much stuff happen to me today? I mean ... I woke up late, my car took forever to start, at luch, they made my sandwich wrong and I had to wait ... On the way home, my phone went dead, just as I picked up a call, and on top of it all, when I got home, I just wanted to soak my feet in my new foot massager and relax. But it wouldn't work! Nothing went right today!! Why did you do that?"
God answered, "Let me see ... the death angel was at your bed this morning, so I had to send one of My Angels to battle him for your life. So I let you sleep through that. I didn't let your car start, because there was a drunk driver on your route, that would have hit you if you were on the road. The first person that made your sandwich today was sick, and I didn't want you to get whatever they had, because I knew you couldn't afford to miss work. Your phone went dead, because the person that was calling was going to give false witness about what you said on that call, so I didn't even let you talk to them, so that you would be covered. Oh ... and that foot massager ... it had a shortage that was going to throw out all of the power in your house tonight. I didn't think that you wanted to be in the dark."
He responded, "I'm sorry God."
"Don't be sorry. Just learn to trust me. In all things - the good times and in the bad."
"I will trust you."
"And don't doubt that my plan for your day is always better than your plan."
Now while everything said above is true ... and it's true, that God won't give us more than we can handle ... that doesn't mean that we won't struggle with it. And sometimes, we won't just automatically know what we are supposed to do. It doesn't mean that there won't be hard. There will be times that we have to fight tooth and nail. And even when we try SO hard to listen, and try to hear what God is telling us to do, or what the right thing is to do ... sometimes that voice is just a faint whisper. Sometimes we have to simply trust our instincts, and figure that out for ourselves. Sometimes we have to push ourselves to go outside of our comfort zone, and try something that maybe we don't know if we are ready for. Something we might not have done before. Sometimes we have to take a chance. And sometimes, we might fail. But sometimes ... taking that chance will be the greatest thing that ever happens to us. And if we don't ever take that chance, we would have never known what the world was like, on the other side of that mountain we had to climb. It's like a rainbow, after a stormy rain. Even though the sun hasn't quite come out from behind the clouds, the rain has stopped, and you begin to see the rainbow. And sometimes ... that one brave soul will follow that rainbow to the other end, to reach the pot of gold. And that's the person that reaps the biggest reward. That person that takes the biggest risk, is the one that gets the biggest benefit. But it's not without challeneges. It's not without facing fears. It's not without staring adversity in the face. But sometimes in life ... to get what we want, we have to stand up against what may seem uncomfortable. What may seem scary. What may seem different, or what we think could have the potential to hurt us. Because sometimes ... it just might be worth it.
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