I Can Do Hard Things

It seems fitting that this would be what Abba would lay on my heart today, the Friday before Father’s Day.  My dad taught me and my sisters about working hard.  One of my last, longer conversations with my dad, ended with his encouragement to do the right thing, even when it’s the hard thing.  I miss my dad.  His life lessons are still echoing from Heaven.

Hiking a long trail, riddled with spider webs, not knowing exactly where I was, caused mild fear to rise within me and the question of whether to turn back, to be at the forefront of my mind.  I was leading the way, my girl right behind.  I said, “We can do hard things, Bella!”  I think it was more encouragement to myself than to her.  It dawned on me halfway through, as I waved a long stick in front of me to hopefully get the spider webs BEFORE walking through them, that this hike seemed to be a call to look back and a prophecy in motion about what lay ahead. 

The last 3 years have been hard.  Harder than hard.  A kind of hard that you wish wasn’t yours but wouldn’t wish on anyone else.  It was hard….and beautiful. There is beauty in the love that calls you to the side of a dying one. Beauty, as you hold a hand after a life-saving surgery, praying for pain to cease.  Beauty in being able to be love poured out.  I have learned more about the One who poured out ultimate love, love that stained red, in this season, than I think in my lifetime.  THAT, is beautiful.  That, I wouldn’t trade.  Easy doesn’t get you to where deep calls to deep.  Following God head on into the circumstances in which He has put you, does. 

God longs to know you.  That sounds wrong right?  The God who knows everything, longs to know you?  It’s true.  He does know everything. All your thoughts and fears, and yet He longs for you to come and tell him anyway.  It’s intimacy and relationship He desires.  He longs to love you and be loved by you.  He uses the hard to reveal more and more of Himself, that you would otherwise never know. 

The enemy wants to keep you from this love.  He will do anything to stop you from experiencing the revelation of a love that rips wide and covers all.  We don’t fight against flesh and blood, he knows this, but do we?  We look with our fleshly eyes at the here and now.  Distracted by everything thrown our way.  We listen to the whispers of your not enough, you need to be alone, no one really gets you, you deserve what your getting…..the list goes on and on.  Sometimes it’s not whispers in your ear, but yells from a loved one, co-worker or friend.  Sometimes it’s an unspoken understanding.  And even sometimes, it’s a trial like cancer that the enemy tries to use to take us out.  To deafen our ears to the One who brings life and love. 

I have been challenged by the verse found in Romans 8:28. 

               And we know that God causes EVERYTHING to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose for them.

Since we are ALL called by God, this applies to us all.  I have had to ask myself do I really believe this?  Do I believe it even when the hard gets harder?  Do I believe it when the hard ends in tragedy according to earths standards?  I can honestly say….I do.  Yes, sometimes it takes effort on my part to resist the enemy so that he will flee.  I have to stand up and stand out.  But when I do and even sometimes, when I don’t, as long as I fix my eyes on Him, Love poured out, He comes.    He is breath.  He is life.  He is everything.  I can honestly say that when I stop fighting, fighting for something to appease my flesh, He comes every. Single. Time.  His ways are better.

 

Romans 8:28 NLT

²⁸ And we know that God causes everything to work together^[a] for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.

Psalm 23

A psalm of David.

¹ The Lord is my shepherd;
    I have all that I need.
² He lets me rest in green meadows;
    he leads me beside peaceful streams.
³     He renews my strength.
He guides me along right paths,
    bringing honor to his name.
⁴ Even when I walk
    through the darkest valley,^[a]
I will not be afraid,
    for you are close beside me.
Your rod and your staff
    protect and comfort me.
⁵ You prepare a feast for me
    in the presence of my enemies.
You honor me by anointing my head with oil.
    My cup overflows with blessings.
⁶ Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me
    all the days of my life,
and I will live in the house of the Lord
    forever.

 

Ephesians 6:12

¹² For we^[d] are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.