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The Struggle is Real




Since my writing journey began, I find myself journaling and taking notes constantly.  I have a notebook for personal thoughts, unfinished blogs that I don't feel are fully developed, and the notes app on my phone is full of ideas and phrases that I feel are or will be relevant.  In looking back over some of my personal notes in my journal, I found one that I titled "Struggle Day."  The next entry is "Struggle Day Becomes Struggle Week."

We have bad days.  Some people have bad days when they don't get their coffee.  Joking aside, there are moments that we are tired physically, emotionally, and spiritually.  Maybe circumstances around us are not what we hoped.  Perhaps a horrific situation has thrust us into a raging battle. I believe that these moments are when God does His best work in us.

In my journal entry, I wrote down "using what I know to push past what I feel."  The fact remains that your heart will break sometimes.  Your emotions, and your heart, cannot be trusted to give you relief in these moments.  This is why I don't like the phrase "follow your heart."  Your heart, and emotions, can change on a dime.  Especially if you are a very passionate person, such as a theatre nerd...like me. In the moments of my struggle, I have to rely on my logic.  What have I been taught and what has God said about me to counteract these feelings that are raw, painful, and untrustworthy?

This particular "struggle day," I had received disappointing news about my finger.  Yes, my struggle became another "Finger Revelation."  Since this journal entry, I am happy to report that there is a ray of hope that my finger will be more functional than it was at the time.  However, on the drive back to work, it was all I could do to hold myself together.  I was frustrated.  Such a small thing had wreaked so much havoc on my routine, my schedule, my life.  My mom always knows what to say and how to pray for me.  When she called, I began crying and giving her the doctor's report.  She gently reminded me that nothing is too small to God.  Just as my small finger has affected my whole body, so does every member in the body of Christ matter.  Nothing happens to one part without the whole being affected.

And then, after praying for comfort, God used my younger son to remind me that it isn't the outside that matters but what is in me which is the Holy Spirit. So I may have begun the day in defeat, but I refused to end the day in it.  There will be struggle days. Be encouraged, friend, because "greater is He that is in you" than whatever is going on around you.  Small things make a lasting impact.  What kind of impact are you making?  It doesn't have to be a huge achievement.  Every little thing matters.  What can you do better?

Remember, God hasn't brought you this far to abandon you.  When the struggle days come, get ready to find God in the struggle with you.

© Jill Cook and Unbroken & Undone Ministries. All rights reserved.

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