While it’s welcome and appreciated, if you’re honest there are some days, most days maybe, you don’t feel like you deserve the praise or recognition that comes on Mother’s Day.  You feel like most days are a total crap shoot and in spite of your best laid plans, you have no idea what today is going to bring, and it makes you crazy sometimes.  And some days you look in the mirror and wonder what happened to the woman who used to know about fashion or business or politics and when did she disappear exactly and will you ever see her again?  And you look at the gifts and talents God has given you and this deep drive to be excellent at something, anything, all while feeling like you’re flailing through each day just hoping to raise children who don’t end up in prison.  And sometimes you wonder what on earth God was thinking when He gave you these children.

Do not resist or run from the difficulties in your life. These problems are not random mistakes; they are hand-tailored blessings designed for your benefit and growth. Embrace all the circumstances that I allow in your life, trusting Me to bring good out of them. View problems as opportunities to rely more fully on Me.

When you start to feel stressed, let those feelings alert you to your need for Me. Thus, your needs become doorways to deep dependence on Me and increasing intimacy between us. Although self-sufficiency is acclaimed in the world, reliance on Me produces abundant living in My kingdom. Thank Me for the difficulties in your life, since they provide protection from the idolatry of self-reliance.

from Jesus Calling, May 10

Oh, how great the temptation is to despair at times!  Our soul becomes depressed and disheartened and our faith staggers under the severe trials and testing that come into our lives… We may come to the place where we say, ‘I cannot bear this any longer.’

What have you done in the past when you felt weak physically?  You could not do anything.  You ceased from doing.  In your weakness, you leaned on the shoulder of a strong loved one.  You leaned completely on someone else and rested, becoming still, and trusting in another’s strength.

It is the same when you are tempted to despair under spiritual afflictions.  Once you have come close to the point of despair, God’s message is not, ‘Be strong and courageous.’ He knows your strength and courage have run away.  Instead, He says sweetly, ‘Be still and know that I am God.’

That is all God asks of you as His dear child.  When you become weak through the fierce fires of affliction, do not try to ‘be strong’.  Just ‘be still and know’ that He is God.  And know that He will sustain you and bring you through the fire.

from Streams in the Desert, May 10

And sometimes you fall on your face and you cry out and you realize that God often calls us to serve in obscurity and that He doesn’t always call the qualified, but He qualifies the called, and that all of this is a preparation for something else, something we can’t see yet, maybe even something eternal.  And so you put your head down and you push through, and you choose hope and you choose joy. And the labor pains continue long after the child is born, but it’s all becoming something glorious.

I would have despaired unless I had believed I would see the goodness of the Lord….Wait for the Lord; be strong and let your heart take courage.

~ Psalm 27:13-14

For His Glory ~