I’m learning…
in the midst of my struggles…
That sometimes God will allow us to remain
in these kinds of places for a little while…
And it’s not fun.
It’s not comfortable.
It’s not painless.
But when we find ourselves in these times
we can know…
That He has already gone ahead…
to plant and prepare a beautiful lesson. 🌷
A hidden lesson for us there “within the struggle”…
within the trial,
within the pain,
within the lack of understanding,
in the midst of the unknown…
He’s planted and prepared something so valuable and so life-giving for us to discover.
And He’s already placed Himself there,
“in the middle”
of whatever it is that we are facing…
…and He has good plans for us to run right into Him. 💝
And we run ourselves right into His love,
right into His rest,
right into His goodness.
No matter how it seems, He’s already doing a work. 💖✨
I have been learning so much in this season that I’ve found myself in…
And I can see now, how God allowed me to run into some of the hard, painful things I’ve ran into.
And as I’ve come into a little bit of a clearing, I’ve been able to see these intense “striving” ways of mine.
Ways that are not in alignment with His ways…
I found it in my ways of thinking…
in the attempting SO HARD
to “figure it all out” for myself
“What if this, what if that? Could it be this? Could it be that?”
Desperately grasping for answers
desperately grasping for understanding
desperately trying to do things “perfectly.”
And honestly,
after I felt like I had done everything I could do
after I searched out everything I knew to search out
after obsessively trying to “fix it all myself” after honestly—I felt like “God wasn’t fixing me…”
Asking questions like,
“Why aren’t you fixing me, God? What’s wrong with me? Help me, help me, help me!”
…it kind of felt like I ran myself into “a wall”…
But really…
I was really running right into God. 💝
And do you know what a big part of the lesson has been?
Learning to press pause in my mind, and finding rest in His love…exactly where I am—”right here and right now”—right in the middle of the struggle.
And I’m finding stillness, and soundness, safety and peace, in the place of simply being loved by my Heavenly Father, even when I’m “not feeling like things are okay and ‘just right'”…
Even when I’m not “doing all of the things I think I need to do in order for things to be ‘perfectly in order’ so that I’ll keep moving forward, making good progress…”
He’s teaching me about finding rest in my soul in times of waiting in the unknown.
And He’s showing me how to calm the storms of thoughts that rage into and through my mind.
He’s showing me how to “press pause” on the intensive, obsessive attempts of “figuring it all out in my mind” so that I can just “fix it myself.”
And I’m learning…
that God has these ways of doing things…
that we sometimes think
would be the opposite of the way we should go about them.
And as hard as I have tried and strived to do things so “perfectly” in my mind…
The truth is, it wasn’t producing “good fruit.”
But in God’s grace and faithfulness and GOODNESS…
He is leading me through this place,
and I’ve run right into this beautiful, life-giving lesson…
…of taking “His perfect way.”
My mind has felt “heavy” with burden, but His yoke is “light.”
His way, is the only way that is truly perfect.
And I know that He is ordering my steps.
Even in the times that I feel like I’m not making progress “quick enough.”
I do not need to fear that He might leave me where I am, or that He might leave me behind in my mess…
He sees us through, in His most perfect way.
And as He’s renewing my mind, I can feel my thoughts slowly untangling, settling, calming, becoming less chaotic, and I already feel so much lighter in the place of my mind.
I’ve got a lot to learn, but I know I’ll be learning this kind of lesson for the rest of my life. And that’s okay… ☀️
So if you’ve found yourself right in the middle of something
and you don’t understand why God hasn’t just “taken it away”
or why you haven’t experienced “your healing yet”…
why the “intensity of the pain in your heart hasn’t eased up yet”…
Take heart!
And know…
He’s leading you into a good place, no matter how it feels right now!
He’s taking you into something good, in HIS PERFECT WAY!
And in “this”—whatever “this” is for you—He is going to lead you right into His loving arms, and you are about to “crash into” His rest.
He’s about to take you into the beautiful, life-giving lesson that He has had waiting for you to discover, within this hard situation.
A “loving lesson” that He is using to heal your heart,
renew your mind,
and transform your life.
A life lesson that He is using to set you up
for something so much GREATER.
He’s got His perfect “building plans” for your life!
He’s using all of these things that He’s taking us through.
Nothing goes to waste!
And it’s all worth it. ☀️
Thank You, Father. 💝
“…in my distress I cried out to you, the delivering God,
and from your temple-throne you heard my troubled cry,
and my sobs went right into your heart.”—Psalm 18:6 TPT
-Heather 🌺