July 10, 2022 When the darkness feels like it will consume me, I give myself permission to FEEL. Sometimes I fear that I might die or go insane from the weight of it all, but something inside me keeps holding on. I take a rest and I fight again the next day. I don’t give up because as many times as I’ve asked God to hold me, cried out desperately for Him to show me that He is God. He keeps right on proving it to me. I need tangibility; at times I have only the faith of a mustard seed. He doesn’t shame me. He knows exactly where I’ve been.

My brain doesn’t comprehend why He doesn’t stop the pain or always rescue or perform a miracle when He can. We all know He can. I think most of us who “lose our faith” believe that He can and that’s why we ache inside/ We push the pain down to survive and “turn away from God” in order to hold it all together by ourselves because this is what we thought would help us continue life at the time.

If God is real, if He is as great a creator and majestic and loving (which He has proven to me so many times over), then this life is not all there is. Life here wasn’t meant to be free of suffering. We are humans. We are messy, complex, abstract, all different yet all the same. When I remember that He has already proven Himself to me, I remind myself that this life isn’t even a fragment of what is to come. I can live another hour, another day, and then the next. Because what is an hour to mere humans, but a speck to God? Nature bows down to Him, the never-ending sky proclaims His infinite majesty, and every living thing that has breath praises His name simply by BEING. When I remember this, there is a stirring inside my soul and I decide with all my heart that I WANT to live another day.