Sometimes it makes me feel so dishonest when people come to me and tell me they are inspired by my devotion and commitment as a woman of Christ. I am so conflicted on the inside – yes, the Lord is SO good and has worked in my life and my heart and redeemed me from my past brokenness. But I’m not perfect. Far from it – I resist and writhe in doubt and questions – I fall. And I mean it.
Here’s some good news – it’s not always sunshine and rainbows and furthermore, it shouldn’t be ! We’re not on this beautiful earth worshipping our Lord and Savior and having everything handed to us because of it.
I struggle. You struggle. I have doubts and wrestle with maintaining a passion and zeal for God that I’ve had on my mountain top moments. But life isn’t a constant augmentation of joy ! We have valleys and plateaus and mountains. Sudden drop-offs and extremely steep slopes. When I was going through the Celebrate Recovery 12-step program, I was given an image that in turn granted me hope : think of the rising and the falling as your heart beat. The ups and downs mean we’re alive.
The ones we all look up to endured and still endure such trials and persecution and we cannot forget that it is through these obstacles that we gain perseverance. God gives us the world and allows hardship to make us strong. Because everything we face with God on our side does three things :
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It shows us our weakness
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It shows us God’s strength
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It reinforces and grows our faith
So enough with the conspiracy theories that God uses us for entertainment and we are His play things. Enough thinking life is simply a series of events and then we die or that it’s a million trick questions in every instance and we’re always on the losing side. Remember Job when you think you have it hard. Remember how far he was pushed and how much he lost just to prove his faith. Remember his breaking point and all he had to endure to get there.
If it’s not a game, what’s going on ? Why doesn’t God just lay his hand over all of the hateful hearts and people and release us from their afflictions ? I’m sure we can all think of examples and our responses to different times we were given things versus when we had to fight for it. One of my simplest recollections of this is with my bike.
I’m the middle child, grew up with a younger sister and an older. That being said, I had myself convinced I always got the shaft – always got the hand-me-downs that had one more season in them before being renewed for Caity, my younger sister. I begged and pleaded and cried, because I was full of desire for materialistic measurements of love. I NEEDED something new, something of my own.
In my early adolescence, maybe even before I hit double digits in years, I got a bike of my own – how COOL. I was ecstatic and grateful…for about a week. I’m not sure how many times I rode that bike. It was the idea of getting what I wanted that had driven me to tantrums and juvenile feelings of resentment that I harbored against our financial situation as a family. I’m not sure what happened to that bike. Rusted, forgotten, unused.
That brings me to my fight. I was diagnosed for Adolescent Idiopathic Scoliosis when I was about 12. I wore a back brace for a little over two years to attempt to correct the spinal curves that caused me daily pain and would only get worse as I aged and finally hit my growth streak. The second semester of my freshman year of high school, after much progress and two braces, I went back to visit the doctors who had helped me [though you’d never know it based on my attitude] to be better. My back was worse than ever before. Somewhere along the process of growing and my body changing and the switchover with my back brace, my spine stopped responding to the treatment. I didn’t really have a choice – I would two intense surgeries where a rib and discs were removed and vertebrae fused and hardware installed. Complications and months of healing later, we visited for a check-up and to discuss my next steps in recovery.
After, I was presented with physical limitations – no running, no biking for at least a year. Never really having been physically active, one would think to see patience, apathy. But I wasn’t having it. So, after a year, when my grandma and mother presented me with a brand-new bike, I rode that thing like there was no tomorrow and am still today a dedicated commuter – whether it’s 1 mile or 25 to destination.
I had to fight for that right. I had to suffer – physically, mentally, emotionally and it wasn’t easy, it wasn’t short-lived. I still suffer from chronic pain today because of my surgery, but getting on my bike to ride – destination pre-decided or not – fills me with such a sense of breathtaking freedom and elation. I delight in my blessings that brought me to this point. After having years to simmer on and taste and season my response to my surgery and every part of it – I am content. I am so much more than content – I am in a state of bliss that has come from trials and suffering because I know it was the Lord bringing me closer to the strength of today, readying me for the strength required of tomorrow.
We are in a war. We are fighting to spread news of the victory our God has already won for us. We did nothing and can do nothing to earn it or deserve it, but you better believe we have to release ourselves from anxiety and shame and guilt if we want to receive it. And why wouldn’t we ? If only it were so black and white! Some days it seems natural, effortless to accept the joy of victory. Others we drag our feet and have to do everything to stop ourselves from cursing our situation or our day. There’s a season for everything and often times I ask myself why I can’t have more consistency.
Here’s the truth. It’s not easy. It’s not meant to be. You always hear “anything worth having isn’t easy.” I think that resonates with so much truth, especially in Christianity. The fact is that even the most prominent religious leaders struggle with faith. That doesn’t mean you’re not a good Christian. All it means is you are human and like all others, Satan is attacking you, desperate to make you fall. The enemy will feign friendship and an alliance to get you to slip, to get you to stumble. And he’ll leave you in the dust. And I want more consistency ? There it is. Evil will always watch you fall. God will always be there for you to lean on and will always love you, regardless of what you’ve done. He will pick you up when you’ve willingly dropped Him off your radar and He will do it eagerly and with more joy than we could ever imagine.
It’s okay to have questions. It’s okay to have doubts. We cannot control those thoughts of evil that penetrate our minds ; but we can guard our hearts and keep them clean. To accomplish this, to gain power over this negativity that pervades our every day, we must not give in to the doubt. Even when we are choking in despair and in anxiety and self-doubt, we must remember the truths we are given through the Gospel. Truth of redemption and freedom. Truth of an unrelenting love from our Father in Heaven. Truth of mercy that rains incessantly and of grace that is more plentiful than all of the atoms in the universe.
When I’m struggling, I know it. I don’t want to admit it, want to take on my own burdens. It’s so hard to constantly give everything over to the Lord – the good and the bad. And I fight myself daily to give it all to Him. The simple point is just to not stop fighting. The positive side of this fight is that God is more unyielding than Satan is ruthless and he always will be.
