This morning, well, actually for many mornings lately I have awakened to that “oh my gosh is this really my life and how it’s going to be from  now on?” feeling, not the “Thank you Jesus for allowing me to wake up” mode I so prefer to believe I feel and act upon most days.  This fall there have been more struggles than my usual blessed life has to deal with. They are the same struggles many many of us face each day….how to wife, parent, step parent, work, play, and worship in appropriate amounts of each while somehow, someway managing to defeat the ugly dirty laundry monster from taking over and making time to be a family while making sure the bills get covered too.  We all face those times, whether its because we’re facing morning sickness every day for 9 months, endless days without sleep over newborns or teenagers….or facing the unknowns and fears that come with economy changes, health changes, or divorce…

Struggling to Stay Connected to God

Each of us struggle. Most of all I struggle when I am using my apron and arms to try to hold and contain my daily life as my own instead of God’s.  I start innocently enough, thinking I can control this or that if I’d just try harder, work smarter, or create this or that….usually in the excitement of a “solution” I push right past the part of asking God his opinion of my idea….I begin not doing what I know to do…I stop taking time for God…I stop taking time to listen…I stop doing the things I know to do in the name of “I don’t have time for that.” After all, my desk is full, my kitchen is needing attention and there’s not much that doesn’t need doing in the house….

We are given so many opportunities to do this or that…there are so many false teachings out there….a world that tell us if we only try harder,  organize more finely, if we only make more money, busy this or that,  if we only do this or that ….well, the promises are empty and results are often hollow.  The God of Abraham provides us with true promises, the ones that promises peace, abundance, and a plan for our lives for good?    God calls each of us to our own calling….and not one of us will be called to be who someone else is….yet we continue to often compare ourselves and our lives to someone else’s….instead of allowing God to shape us into His image of us…the imagine that he created just for us….

Strength for the Asking

When I am seeking strength and feeling like the whole world is caving in on me (well, supported slightly above my head by Mt. Washmore’s stealth of dirty clothes that is slowly closing in on me) I realize that the strength I need is waiting for me to ask Him to help me find peace again, to help navigate the choices before me, to relinquish my burdens to Him in my weakness God has been waiting all along to be strong….to take my burdens and to give me His unrelenting peace even in the storms of my life.

Once again, finding strength in the struggle to live my life, is to turn to Jesus and let Him be in control once again. To do the things I know to do…to slow down, do what is before me to do, and wait for God to show me the next step after that…

This time of year wears many of us down as wife,  mom, step mom, worker, and friend.  Take time to find strength in Christ…take time to revel in His presence, His strength, His glory, His provision….and His peace.

Trust in Him at all times, you people; Pour out your heart before Him; God is our refuge for us  Psalm 62:8