The hard days just come. Suddenly, you realize you’re going to have one, when you thought everything was going just fine. When what was going along suddenly careens off course.
And the soup you made tastes like fish, and sour.
And the bread in the breadmaker is a flop, something went horribly wrong, and its barely cooked or edible (and how can you mess that up?)
And its a small failure but it wipes you out.
And you cry and your husband holds and says he’ll make dinner.
And you hear the news that the car is dead.
And the numbers in the budget won’t crunch down any further.
And you’re clinging hard to Jesus, to that simple sentence that is packed with power, that “perfect love casts out fear” {1 Jn. 4:18}
And you’re not feeling power at all. And it doesn’t feel like perfect love at all.
And you realize for all your clinging, you are not so much holding on as you are held.
And there comes rushing in the hope: nothing can shake this one truth. Nothing can change it. The mountains might crumble and fall into the sea, but this one truth will remain: I am His, and He is mine.
Forever and for all eternity.
And if by faith, and by quiet surrender, I let it be, it can be, enough.
In this life I will have trouble… but He has overcome the world.
I will suffer, but I don’t have to fear suffering, because I will survive it to glory and I know the sure end.
I know my sure end.
And it can be enough.
There’s nothing as effective as pain and need to wake one up, and I want to live awake.
I want to live awake to the reality that my tight-fisted grasping for control isn’t possible. And in knowing that comes rest because I cannot hold onto my life, but I am HELD. My life and all that concerns me is held in the hands of another–and He is good. He is love. He is out to give me ultimate joy and life. And He says, “Do not fear for I am with you” (Isa.41:10) and He promises that His presence with me is enough.
everything He gives 