How to Survive Tough Times

Serving

Megan Breedlove July 18, 2011 No Comments

Right now, I have a lot of sympathy for Mary the mother of Jesus. I’m almost 8 weeks pregnant, and I feel crummy. In fact, I feel bad almost all day, every day. My first four pregnancies were easy; this one isn’t. And so, as I struggle with bloating and nausea, lack of sleep, dizziness, and fatigue, I sympathize with Mary.

She must have felt some of those same symptoms too. It’s possible that she had a nearly symptom-free pregnancy, but the odds are that she didn’t. At this stage of her pregnancy, she probably suffered from morning sickness, or fatigue, or something. Maybe even all of the above. Maybe she, too, felt like weeping when she was trying to replace the toilet paper roll and dropped it on the floor. Or maybe she simply wept at the shame she endured from bearing the scorn of her community, though she knew she’d done nothing wrong.

For nine months, she suffered—and then, of course, there was that donkey ride to Jerusalem that couldn’t have been comfortable under the best of circumstances and may even have caused her to go into labor. Somehow, riding in a car to the hospital to give birth seems a lot easier than riding on a donkey to a stable.

I think about what Mary endured during her pregnancy, and I identify with her. She seems more real to me. Yes, she was a woman of God chosen by God for the special purpose of bearing the Messiah—unlike me. Yet she was also a pregnant woman, so I know how she felt.

I wonder if one of the things that helped her make it through those long 9 months was knowing that she would bear a Son who would be Savior of His people. She was doing something incredible for the Lord Himself—something no one else could have done in quite the same way.

It comforts me to know that I, too, am serving the Lord through my pregnancy. So did you, through yours, or through everything you suffered on the road to adoption. No, we’re not called to bear the Messiah. But we’re called to suffer for Him just the same.

What I mean is this: Jesus said that whatever we do for “the least of these”, we do directly “for Him.” And who could be more “least of these” than a baby who’s barely the length of a blueberry? Than a baby who doesn’t even have fingers and toes yet, or even true arms and legs? Who could be more “least”?

So when you spend the morning, or even the whole day, throwing up…when you don’t have the energy to do even the things you want to do…when you feel bloated, or your head hurts, or your back hurts, or everything hurts, remember that you are serving your Lord. You are sacrificing your comfort to bring His precious creation into the world. Your suffering is more than something to be gotten through as quickly as possible (though we all wish for that). It’s service to Jesus.

When you went through those things in the past…when you suffered the pains of the adoption process…you were serving Jesus.

Mary served her son and Lord in a very real, tangible way. You and I are serving Him just as directly. That’s because Jesus granted dignity to our suffering by saying that when we serve “the least of these”, we serve Him. In other words, He takes our service personally.

So be encouraged, dear mom. Even your suffering is an act of service. Not only that, but it can be an act of worship, too, if you offer it to the Lord. Lying on the couch, too drained and exhausted to get up because you’re pregnant doesn’t mean you’re doing nothing. Oh, how Satan would love to have us believe that it’s nothing. But Jesus tells us otherwise. We’re doing something.

We’re serving Him.

Matthew 25:40—“The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’”

Being with Mommy

Megan Breedlove January 17, 2011 No Comments

For the past several days—almost a week now—we’ve been fighting sickness at our house. Lindsey came down with it first. Upon picking her up from preschool one afternoon, I found that what we had thought were allergy symptoms had been joined by a 101 fever. She’s been feeling ill since then, and my two other girls have come down with “it” as well.

I’ve written before about how when Lindsey’s sick, she likes to cuddle with Mommy. This most recent illness has been no different. She’s wanted to be with me nearly constantly—by my side or in my lap. She’ll even settle for sitting on the floor next to me when she has to, if I’m doing something like preparing dinner. “I just want to be with you,” she says.

But what I haven’t written about before is a thought that occurred to me this time. As I was bringing one of the girls a glass of water and urging her to drink it, I thought about how when kids are sick, they just want their mommies. And about how utterly ridiculous it would be for my kids to refuse to have anything to do with me when they are sick, because they blame me for their sickness.

If my girls had lain there on the couch and turned their faces away from me when I entered the room…if they had refused my ministrations, like bringing medicine or a glass of water…if they had shouted angrily at me that it was my fault they were sick, then refused to talk to me otherwise…not only would they have missed out on my companionship and healing help (thereby causing themselves to suffer more than was necessary in the first place), but I would have felt awful.

Yet we do the same thing to God that would be ridiculous for our children to do to us. We turn from Him in our moments of need. We refuse to have anything to do with Him because we blame Him for the fact that we suffer—or at least for not stopping it.

God, it’s Your fault. You could have prevented this, and you didn’t. I’m angry. Yes, God could prevent anything He wants to prevent. I’ve had terrible things happen in my life that I dearly wish He would have prevented. But it just doesn’t make sense for us to turn away from Him just because He didn’t stop something from occurring. The reason why sin, death, and even illness occur in this world is because of sin. When Adam and Eve first sinned, suffering entered the world. We didn’t live in paradise anymore. We got kicked out, and began suffering all the things that go along with living in a way and in a place God never designed for us to live. The Bible clearly teaches that things won’t be completely right ever again until we reach heaven. We usually don’t have a problem accepting this until suffering impacts us. Then we turn against God for not making everything okay now. We know in advance that there’s suffering in this world. Do we choose to follow God only as long as he keeps suffering away from us? Do we say, in effect, God, it’s fine if you don’t make everything right at this point in time. It’s okay if You wait until heaven. Just make sure that this suffering only applies to other people, or I’m going to be really mad at You.

Precious mom, I’m not trying to make light of your suffering. You may be going through something right now that’s absolutely agonizing. I’ve been through times like that too. And that’s how I can say this, not just because I read it in the Bible somewhere, but because I’ve lived it: turning away from God because He allowed suffering in your life will only make your suffering worse. It will not help you feel better. You will not feel less betrayed, or less angry. You won’t grieve less. Instead, you’ll be lying on the couch suffering worse and longer than you really have to, because you’re turning away from the only source of comfort that truly matters.

You may wonder how you can turn to God when you hurt so badly. How can you accept His loving embrace and open your heart to Him when it seems that doing so will only leave you vulnerable to more hurt in the future? I’ll tell you my answer. It’s the one I’ve learned in my times of suffering. I share it with you not as some expert in how you should feel, but as a fellow sufferer who has at times been deeply grieved by the results of sin in this world. What I’ve learned is that in times of pain, it’s more vital than ever that I remain close to God. And the way to do it is to bring all my pain to Him, sob it out into His lap, and keep doing that every day, and sometimes all day, for as long as you need to. He’s a really big God. He can handle your emotions. Don’t make the mistake I’ve made and think that you have to arrive at a place of accepting your suffering and being okay with it before you can come to God. Nothing could be further from the truth. You need to do exactly the opposite. You should come when you’re not okay, when you hurt so badly you don’t know how you can survive, and when you don’t even know if you want to. Dump everything into His lap and cry. It’s okay to tell Him you don’t understand why He allowed something to happen. He’s not going to zap you with lightning for saying that. He won’t even condemn you for being angry. Yes, if some of your emotions are sinful, He will lovingly help you correct them. But He won’t get offended and walk out on you. He won’t speak harshly to you and kick you out of His presence. No, He’ll do something far different, and far more valuable—something I think most of us don’t realize that He does.

He grieves with us. Precious mom, our God is not some impersonal God Who is unmoved by what happens to us. He doesn’t say, “Good grief, what are you crying about?” He grieves at the consequences of sin, far more even than you and I do. Can you imagine that? God grieves at what happens to you even more than you grieve about it. I’m going to say that again, so it can soak into our hearts and minds:

God grieves over what happens to us even more than you and I grieve about it.

Did you realize that? I didn’t either, until relatively recently. I knew God would comfort me when I grieved, but I never thought about how He grieves with me. And I sure never realized that God’s heart is even more broken about it than mine is.

No, God doesn’t wonder what He’s going to do now, in the aftermath of tragedy, like you and I sometimes do. And no, he doesn’t ever wonder how He’s going to go on, as is perfectly natural for us. But He grieves in a way you and I can’t even begin to understand.

First of all, He’s holy. Sin grieves and offends Him in a way that we, in our sinfulness, will never fully grasp. God hates sin and its consequences far more than we do.

Second, God loves us. You know how you feel when someone else’s sin impacts your child? Well, magnify that by a million, and you get a glimpse of how God feels when someone’s sin impacts you, His child. I remember a time when another child bit my son, leaving teeth marks that lasted for weeks. I was angry. Very angry. I believe this was a righteous kind of anger. The child had sinned, and He had hurt my child. And if I feel this angry when something like this happens, how must God feel when someone’s sin—or simply the nature of a fallen, sinful world—impacts me far more seriously? How must He feel when we suffer serious illness, a friend’s betrayal, or—may He forbid—the loss of a child? I think these tragedies grieve His heart in a way we can only begin to understand.

Why doesn’t God stop certain sins, certain consequences, from happening? I don’t know. But I do know this—God takes no pleasure in sin, and He grieves over it more than I’ll ever know. He grieves with me when something happens to me. And instead of turning away from Him because He didn’t prevent a particular situation, I want to run to the arms of the One who grieves with me, and promises to make everything right one day, even if, for reasons I wouldn’t understand, it can’t be right yet. And I want to look forward to the day and the place where there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain. Because while I have no assurance that I won’t suffer in this life before Christ takes me home, I do know that one day, I will suffer no more. And I know that He’ll carry me toward that day, holding me in His arms all the way.

1 Peter 5:7—Cast all your cares on him because he cares for you.

Revelation 21:3-4—And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

Quitting

Megan Breedlove September 27, 2010 No Comments

Our family loves to play games. Some of our favorite times have come as we played together, laughing and loving and being silly. One particular night not long ago, we decided to play animal charades. It was Ellie’s first turn, and she was crawling on all fours across the living room floor. Or maybe “crawling” isn’t the right way to put it. This particular animal’s gait seemed to be a cross between a polar bear’s and a turtle’s. I was puzzled. But Lindsey was certain she knew the answer. “Cheetah!” she shouted.

“Nope,” Ellie said.

“I quit,” Lindsey said matter-of-factly.

“Already?” I said, at the same time as my husband said, “But you only guessed once!”

“But I didn’t get it right, so I quit,” Lindsey repeated.

“Well, okay, I guess you can,” I said.

Right then, Ellie began making squeaking noises, and somebody figured out that she was a mouse. “Good job,” my husband said. “Kenny, you can go next, and Lindsey, you can just sit there and watch.”

“I told you I quit,” Lindsey said politely.

“You don’t even want to watch?” we asked.

“Nope,” Lindsey said. “I’m getting them all wrong. So I don’t want to play.”

I couldn’t help but be amused. Maybe it was Lindsey’s amiable tone of voice, the abruptness of her decision, or some combination of factors. Whatever the reason, I found the situation funny.

But sometimes, quitting isn’t funny at all. When someone quits something that really matters, it can be tragic. At the very least, the person involved will miss out on the blessing God had for her in that endeavor, and maybe cause others to miss out, too. At the worst, quitting can cause a lifetime of suffering.

Yes, there are times when God clearly tells us to stop pursuing something. At those times, we must be obedient. But I’m talking about the times we should keep going, and don’t. Discouragement, fatigue, and grief can all be powerful factors that make us want to quit. But if we listen to them when they are contrary to God’s voice, we’re making a big mistake—sometimes a huge mistake.

A mom can’t get her child to behave, so she throws in the towel and stops trying. I just can’t do anything with him, she reasons.

A wife doesn’t have the kind of communication with her husband that she desires, so she gives up trying to talk to him at all, except to say things like, “Will you pick up some milk on your way home?”

A woman’s life feels empty, so she turns her back on God. If God really loved me, He’d be helping me out more than He is, she believes.

At times, it seems impossible to keep going even one more step. There’s just nothing more left in us. We’re physically exhausted and emotionally weary, and hope is gone. But even then, when we’re far past the limits of what we thought we could endure, we don’t have to quit. There is a way to keep going. And it doesn’t involve dredging up energy from somewhere to try just one more time.

It involves doing the same thing our children do when they’re tired of walking: letting Someone else carry us.

We’ve all heard our child say, “Mommy, I’m tired. Will you carry me?” Sometimes, we grant the request, and sometimes, we don’t. But our heavenly Father is always ready and willing to carry us. He’ll never turn us down. Yes, He sometimes requires us to pass through the fire, but He doesn’t require us to do it in our own strength. He offers us His strength, which is constantly present and infinitely great.

We don’t have to make it through life in our own power. God is always ready to help us. He won’t always remove the circumstances that make things difficult for us (though He might!), but He will always lend us His strength to get us through what He has ordained for us to go through.

When we can’t take another step, He can. When we can’t face another day, He can. When we don’t know up from down, or how to move on, He does.

We don’t have to quit. He can keep us going, even when our strength is gone.

Deuteronomy 32:36—For the LORD will vindicate his people and have compassion on his servants, when he sees that their power is gone.

Daddy, I Can’t See!

Megan Breedlove July 5, 2010 No Comments

It seems that Jessica’s personality develops a little more every day. At almost two-and-a-half, she’s delightful, funny, and creative. She often thinks up new things to do and new games to play that I never would have thought of, partly because I’m…well…a lot older than two. She’s also gotten to the stage where she gets bored sitting in her car seat for very long. Combine these two factors, and you get some interesting games.

For example, the other day, my husband was taking the kids somewhere in the minivan so I could work on my contracted book. The way he describes it, it was a run-of-the-mill trip until Jessica cried out, “Daddy, I can’t see! I can’t see!”

He said her voice didn’t seem panicked, but he immediately glanced back at her anyway. And when he did, the cause of her “blindness” became obvious. She was covering her eyes with her hands.

“Silly girl,” he responded, and she grinned and uncovered her eyes.

Apparently, she loves this game, because she played it several more times during that trip and has played it many times since. She loves “fooling” us into thinking there’s a problem when there really isn’t.

Because she’s only two, the game is cute. But it isn’t so cute in the adult version, which we sometimes play.

We may not cover our eyes with our hands and pretend we’re blind. But, like Jessica, we sometimes cause our own problems and then complain about them. Instead of recognizing the part we’ve played in our circumstances and doing what we can to rectify it, we wait for God—or at least another human being—to rescue us.

Sometimes, it’s not a matter of creating our own mess, but of sustaining it beyond the point where it would have resolved naturally. When bad things happen to us, many of us feel more comfortable with continuing to receive sympathy than with moving on. But staying stuck isn’t going to bring us the emotional fulfillment we need.

Granted, there are situations in life that are hard—really hard—to move on from. There are times when needing long-term support is absolutely legitimate. But even during those times, it’s to our benefit not only to receive others’ support, but also to do all we can to help ourselves along the road to healing—even if all we can do is weep before the Lord with grief too deep for words.

Life can be hard. We’ve all suffered. But our suffering will be much less if we don’t cause it ourselves, and don’t prolong it any longer than necessary. When we’re in pain, it’s hard to face the possibility that maybe, we’re partly at fault. Not always, not even usually, but sometimes. And if we examine ourselves and find that there is something more we can do to help lessen our pain than what we’re doing, let’s do it. God will meet us there, and He’ll multiply our efforts toward healing.

Exodus 14:13-16—Moses answered the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the LORD will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still.” Then the LORD said to Moses, “Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on. Raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea to divide the water so that the Israelites can go through the sea on dry ground.”

Almost

Megan Breedlove April 12, 2010 No Comments

My precious daughter Lindsey turned four last week. One gift we got her for her birthday was a game she had really wanted. She was eager to play it, so we worked on setting up the game together.

Part of the setup involved making nets by threading the plastic net frame through the channel on the piece of netting. I sat on the floor, putting assembling one net. Lindsey chose a frame and a piece of netting and began trying to pass the curved frame through the netting. Finding it difficult to force the plastic through, Lindsey held the plastic steady and brought the netting down over it as far as she could, then reached up and threaded the next section on.

I watched her working diligently and bit back my offer of help. After awhile, though, the netting got all bunched up, and she couldn’t get it to go any further. “Will you please help me?” she asked.

“Oh, it’s almost done,” I said, making a minor adjustment and sliding the rest of the netting on. “You were so close. You almost had it.”

Lindsey had been so close to success. Had she persevered just a little bit longer, she would have made it. But she quit, believing that she couldn’t do it.

You and I do the same thing.

We fail to realize how close we are to success, and we give up.

We’ve disciplined the same child for the same infraction a hundred times, and it hasn’t worked yet, so we quit.

We’ve given the same explanation a thousand times as to why we don’t hit each other or why we go to church, and our kids don’t seem to get it in our time frame, so we figure they never will.

Maybe we’ve tried multiple times to lose the baby weight, or establish a quiet time, or learn to like cooking, and we’ve failed every time, so we don’t try any more.

I wonder how many of these times we’ve quit right before success—when we “almost had it”? When if we’d just kept on a little longer, we would have achieved our goal?

The problem is, we often don’t know when we’re almost there. We can’t see the finish line, so we don’t know how close we are. We struggle on, getting more and more exhausted and discouraged. Finally, we give up.

If only we could see the finish line and realize that we’re almost there.

Precious mom, we can’t see the end, but there is Someone Who can. We don’t know whether our efforts are ever going to succeed, but there is Someone Who does.

Our Heavenly Father knows when we’re this close to success, and when we need to stop, reassess, and go at things a different way. He knows when the battle we’re fighting is about to be won, and when it’s the wrong battle entirely.

Even better, He’ll tell us. He’s promised in His Word that when we really need answers, He’ll give them to us. They may not be the answers we expect, and they may not come in our timing, but they will come.

So the next time we’ve had it up to here, or we’re exhausted, overwhelmed, and tempted to quit, let’s stop and ask the Father. He’ll tell us what to do. And if the answer is to keep going, He’ll give us the ability to do it, and He’ll cheer us on while we do it.

Let’s not quit early. Let’s not miss out on the blessings God has for us if we’ll only keep going. Let’s let Him tell us when to continue, and when to reverse course.

We may not be able to see the right decision in our own wisdom, but He can in His.

James 1:5—If any man lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives graciously to all without finding fault, and it will be given him.

1 Corinthians 15:58—Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.

2 Timothy 4:7—I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.

Backpack

Megan Breedlove November 9, 2009 No Comments

My three youngest children attend a Parents’ Day Out Program twice a week. Recently, when I took them to school, I overheard the director saying she would have to find someone to teach the two-year-olds class that day. It turned out that the regular teacher had a scheduled day off. The director was able to get a substitute, but shortly before I got to the school, the substitute’s son threw up in his class, so she had to leave and take him home. This left the two-year-olds class without a teacher.

I told the director I would be glad to teach the class that day. She has known our family through the school for three years, so she accepted. I went home, packed a backpack full of Ellie’s homeschool materials, which I planned to go over with her during the children’s naptime, and took Ellie with me back to the school.

I parked the van, and we got out. I was thinking about what a beautiful day it was when Ellie asked me if I would carry her backpack. “It’s heavy,” she said.

“Sure,” I said, and swung it up over one shoulder. Ellie was right; it was heavy with all the things I had packed. I thought about how she would be glad that I was carrying it for her, and how she had known it would be no trouble for me.

I was struck then with how perfect a spiritual analogy the situation was.

God, our Father, is far more able to carry our burdens than I am to carry Ellie’s backpack. Yet too often, we struggle along, trying to shoulder our load by ourselves, only calling out to God when we are exhausted.

Why? I can think of two primary reasons. Maybe you can think of more.

The first reason is that somehow, we’ve gotten the idea that we should be able to handle things ourselves. Granted, there are times God expects us to take action rather than sit around, hoping the situation will change. But He is well aware of how much or how little strength we have. He knows what’s too heavy for us, and He wouldn’t expect us to bear our own burdens any more than I would have expected Ellie to lug a backpack that was too heavy for her into the school.

The second reason is that we don’t want to admit we need help. Maybe the idea of needing help is so threatening to our sense of self that we’re in denial, not even realizing that we’re sinking. Or maybe we know we’re sinking, but we’d rather go under than admit we can’t tread water.

Whichever your reason, it’s nothing but pride. Our pride tells us we can be sufficient on our own, if we try hard enough. But why is self-sufficiency even a desirable goal, anyway? For one thing, it’s completely impossible to attain. We are not self-sufficient apart from our Father, and we never will be. If we didn’t need God, we would be God, and we most certainly are not. We can do nothing apart from God, and it’s time we put our pride to death and acknowledge the fact.

Where are you struggling today? Where do you need God’s help, whether you want to admit it or not?

Let your pride go. Throw it away from you and beg the Father’s forgiveness, confessing His sufficiency and your insufficiency, asking Him to shoulder the burden for you.

Then, watch as He lifts it up, swinging it onto His shoulder as if it were weightless (which, to Him, it is). Let Him carry it for you. It’s what He longs to do. It’s what you long for Him to do. Will you let Him?

1 Peter 5:7—Cast all your anxieties on him, because He cares for you.

The Heart of a Lindsey

Megan Breedlove October 5, 2009 No Comments

You’ve heard it said that a brave person has “the heart of a lion”. This phrase describes someone who exhibits ultimate courage in the face of even the fiercest enemy, and who doesn’t give up, no matter what.

It’s true that lions are brave. They aren’t called “King of the Jungle” for nothing.

But I submit to you that not even a lion has a heart like my Lindsey.

Lindsey is an incredible kid in many ways. She’s delightful, quirky, funny, creative, compassionate…I could go on for hours. But today, the precious aspect of her that I want to share with you is her can-do, never-say-die spirit.

Lindsey has exhibited this quality hundreds of times. One of the most recent was less than two weeks ago. All four kids and I were outside. Kenny and Jessica were playing together, and Ellie and Lindsey were riding their bikes (both have training wheels) with me close by.

Lindsey has learned to ride without help, for the most part. She still falls down occasionally, but she gets up and gets going again. On this day, she fell, and she said, “I fall down a lot.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “Everyone falls down when they’re learning to ride.”

“I fell down again,” she said a few minutes later, when the same thing happened.

“You’re doing great,” I said. “You can do it. I know you can.”

A few minutes later, Lindsey fell down a third time.

This time, she stayed where she had fallen, propped up and looking at me, her legs still wrapped around the bike. Her beautiful brown eyes looked especially large, her face serious. “I’m not going to give up, no matter what,” she said.

That, my friend, is the heart of a Lindsey.

It would have been much easier for Lindsey to say, “I didn’t know learning to ride a bike was going to mean falling down. Forget it. I quit.” But she didn’t. Instead, she realized that bumps and bruises were a part of the process, and she was willing to accept that. They weren’t going to make her quit.

I won’t give up, no matter what.

Do you and I give up? When start down a path we believe God has for us, only to encounter road bumps that throw us off the seat and pitch us into the dirt, how do we respond?

Granted, there may be times when God places obstacles in our path because we are riding in a direction He doesn’t want us to go. It requires prayer and discernment through the wisdom of the Holy Spirit to discern whether the roadblocks are meant to warn us, or are simply the result of living in a fallen world, where things don’t always go perfectly even when the course is right.

If they are the latter, we dare not give up. Why? Because we’ll miss out on the incredible blessings God has for us. Not only will we never reach God’s intended goal if we give up, but we’ll miss out on learning from the complications.

Why do we expect everything to be smooth sailing, anyway? More often than not in this life, there are difficulties. Why are we surprised, as if something strange is happening to us?

There are much better things in life even than pain-free roads. Lindsey is going to be a better person for having persevered through her difficulties to the day when she finally learns to ride a bike with no training wheels. She’ll be free as the wind, and it will all be because she was willing to undergo the training process.

You and I can be better people, too, for having endured the loose gravel (or even boulders) on our road. I don’t say that we will be better people, because it all depends on our response, on what we let God do in our lives with our difficult experiences. It could be that we wind up bitter and disappointed, angry at God and at the world.

Or it could be that we become beautiful, because by learning perseverance through suffering, we are becoming more like the Lord Jesus.

The obstacles you encounter may not be your choice. But the kind of person you become because of them, is.

I know that getting up and getting back on the bike hurts. Sometimes, getting spilled into the dirt leaves us with wounds that don’t heal easily, or maybe ever. But because of the beautiful, gracious mercy of God, we don’t have to get up in our own strength.

What do you think I would have done if Lindsey had lain in the road, crying piteously, “Mommy, help”? I would have done the same thing you would have—gone to her, picked her up, set her on her feet, wiped her tears, and helped her get going again. And if I, being evil, can love my child like that, how much more will our heavenly Father pick us up when we fall, wipe our tears, and help us get going again?

When you have no strength left, and no will even to rise, if you call out to God, His strength will be enough for you. He will do for you what you can’t do for yourself.

That’s what He did when He raised you from spiritual death to spiritual life.

And that’s what He’ll do in raising you from the side of the road.

Will you let Him?

I won’t give up, no matter what.

What do you choose?

1 Peter 4:12—Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you.

Psalm 61:2—From the ends of the earth I call to you, I call as my heart grows faint; lead me to the rock that is higher than I.

Moving Away

Megan Breedlove June 22, 2009 No Comments

My 6-year-old, Ellie, has beautiful curly hair. She loves it, and I think it looks pretty on her. The only problem is that she doesn’t like to wear barrettes in it or wear it pulled back. That means it sometimes gets really, really tangled.

Combing Ellie’s hair (actually, we use a Hello Kitty brush, which she insists hurts less than an actual comb) isn’t a pleasant event for anybody. Ellie certainly doesn’t enjoy the pain of having the tangles coaxed from her hair, and I don’t enjoy her screaming and crying. I can be gently removing a tangle from her hair, and she will suddenly, shrilly scream as if I am ripping her hair out by the roots. The tears flow quickly and copiously.

One day, I was brushing Ellie’s hair as we stood by her dresser. She kept moving her head around, trying to escape the brush. Instead of helping, this actually made the whole thing worse. I wasn’t able to remove the tangles gently because I couldn’t ever tell where her head was going to be next.

“If you keep moving your head away from me, it makes it harder for me to comb your hair without hurting you,” I said.

But Ellie was convinced that if she held still and submitted to what I was doing, it would hurt worse. She didn’t believe me when I told her that if she did what I asked, it would actually hurt less.

We respond to God the same way, don’t we? He begins to orchestrate something in our lives, and we fear it will be painful, so we move away. Hold still, He tells us. But fearing the pain, we continue to squirm, hoping that somehow, we can make the pain bearable if we can avoid it in some measure.

The truth is, refusing to submit only makes our circumstances more painful, not less. If Ellie had cooperated with me, the pain would have been lesser, and it would have been over sooner. But because she didn’t trust me enough to believe that it was in her best interests to do what I was telling her to do, she resisted, and she wound up causing herself more pain than necessary.

The same is sometimes true with us and God.

Trying to squirm out from under the circumstances God has caused or allowed into our lives never helps. In fact, it always makes things worse. True, there are times when He lets us sin and go our own ways, but there are also times when He is determined that we must comply. And if God has ordained that He will accomplish a certain part of His will in our lives, we cannot avoid it.

Our choice, then, is not whether or not we will have to go through the circumstances, but whether we will accept God’s will without fighting Him. Will we believe Him that submitting is in our best interests, or will we choose to rely on our own wisdom that says that trying to avoid the pain might result in actually doing so?

God never causes us any more pain than absolutely necessary. Sometimes, however, we cause our own pain when we keep trying to move away from Him. Resisting God never produces the outcomes we hope it will. It never ultimately satisfies us. Sometimes, it even results in more hurt, because when we keep trying to move away from Him, it’s harder for Him to accomplish His will in our lives without hurting us.

Oh, friend, is there some area in your life in which you need to accept His will and stop fighting it? I know that your circumstances may be agonizingly painful. But do you need to stop fighting God? To stop causing yourself additional pain by struggling against what you cannot avoid?

Resisting God will not help you avoid the pain. It won’t make Him change His mind and remove the circumstances from you. It will only cause you to miss out on His comfort in your circumstances.

So stop fighting. Stop struggling against Him, and let Him hold you. Feel His strong, loving arms draw you close to His chest and hold you securely. Let His peace and His comfort flow over you. Let Him carry you through.

John 14:27—Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

Matthew 23:37—O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.

Psalm 91:4—He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.