When I was younger I remember thinking that adults were so angry looking all the time. I wondered why they weren’t filled with joy like I felt like they should be. I mean, being an adult must be AWESOME, so, why be so blue? As an adult you can go wherever you want, do whatever you want, eat whatever you want and watch whatever you want. Pretty sweet to a 13 year old.
Now that I’m older, life is so much harder than I thought it would be.
Maybe that is because life ACTUALLY is harder and more dark than it used to be. Or maybe it’s just because I was young and naïve. Or maybe this is also just a season.
But the stuff we are dealing with now is so much heavier. We’re praying for healing for cancer, depression, family members we’ve lost, divorce, kids turning away from God, spiritual warfare, and the list goes on. It hurts my heart in so many ways.
Today at church, one of the teens had an grand mal seizure during the worship. They quickly called an ambulance and rushed her to the hospital. We invited the rest of the family over so they could be closer to the hospital where they had taken her. She’s doing fine now, and they’ve run tests–but there are not answers. This was totally out of the blue with no previous history.
As I watched them wheel her out on the gurney I broke down crying. It was like I was seeing Chloe being wheeled out and I could suddenly feel how helpless that Mom must feel at that moment.
But we serve a powerful God. And this was no surprise to Him. And even though we feel helpless and fearful and anxious–He does not. We can take all our worries and pain to him and He can handle it.
Do you see that? He will give our souls rest. Rest. We can stop hashing over the constant “what if?” scenarios. We can stop stress eating. We can stop lashing out at our family because we are tense. My other favorite verse this week is this:
The peace of God. I love that. The PEACE of God will guard your hearts and minds. And let me tell you, that is something I really needed today and will probably need every day now.
I choose to live a life of joy. Joy in a fallen world. But in order to do that, I need to fully rest in God and his promises. Join me in praying this week: I pray that you take the burdens that are suffocating me today and help me rest in your peace.
Amen.
I’m sorry life is weighing you down. I remember being your age and feeling as you do. The good news is that, as you get older, you experience God’s goodness and grace and provision more and more and it makes life a little easier. But I think you are in a stage of life that is just plain difficult, because you have kids that are becoming young adults, which means you have less actual control over their decisions and their views and their walk with God. And it is a very helpless feeling sometimes. But you have laid such a good foundation, that you can trust that they will turn out great. But they do need to explore differing ideas for a while, and that can be scary for a mother to sit back and watch. Just remember they are not your little people. They are God’s. You just get to watch over them for a short while.