My friend, I just want to thank you for reading the thoughts I put into words on this blog. I try to be transparent and honest about how I experience life, both the blows and blessings, which come with it. I realize some of the circumstances probably don’t apply to you personally; however, my hope is that you may be able to take the applications which are always pointing us back to God and use them in your own life.
I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t always handle every situation correctly. You either? So glad I’m not alone! I mess up and sometimes it takes a minute (or longer) for me to realize what exactly is taking place. Usually, I realize that the struggles I might be dealing with are a result of not recognizing the tactics of my foe. More often than not, I might even be the main source of my problem. And, as it so happens for all of us, sometimes our hard days are just the results of living life. The blows and the blessings. No matter what, I know how to fight and win the battle. I know Who is with and for me. Sometimes, it just takes some waiting in the wilderness or valley before we have either fought, learned or rested enough for God to open our understanding and our testimony.
Nobody, and I mean nobody, looks forward to dry times and time spent in the wilderness with excitement. We usually want to run away from it! Yet, I’m learning that I can rest in those moments when the blows seems to just keep coming. (I’m just a slow learner!) I don’t have to try harder, prove myself, or put on any false front. While going through those times that feel like more like hopelessness and despair, I simply need wait on the Lord and learn. It’s not a matter of us failing or falling; the dry times are for our betterment. Always.
Oftentimes, shame beats our brains out when we’re not basking in blessings upon the mountaintop or can’t see our way out of the valley. There’s good news for all of us though, when we find ourselves at the bottom looking up, God still sees us and we can still be victorious. He can turn the worst blows into our best blessings!
The enemy would like nothing more than for us to fold up and go home.
Even he knows the value of a successful wilderness experience — and he doesn’t want us to stay around for the lesson. He uses his schemes and tactics in our weakest places and waits snidely by for us to roll over and quit. He is such a coward! If only we can remember that and recognize where the battle is coming from.
So, although you and I might not have the exact issues or circumstances, I’m glad you’ve joined me here today. No matter what each of us are facing, every blow and blessing have the same answer - our Heavenly Father.
There is no blow too big that He cannot help us conquer and no blessing too big that He can’t pour it out on us.
We just keep on turning to Him, keep running our race, and all will be well with our soul. Maybe not now, maybe not tomorrow, but it will happen. My God can turn mourning into dancing, sadness into joy, brokenness into something whole again, darkness to light — and blows into blessings.
It’s sure a beautiful day here in Georgia. Thanks for joining me for some porch time. Be encouraged. Let’s go and grow beautifully~