Strength

First off...thank you all for the comments. I never quite know if I'm supposed to respond to them, but I do appreciate them. So many of your blogs are such an encouragement to me.

And now, for this one...

About two years ago I received the clearest calling from God I have ever received in my life. My marriage had disintegrated, my mind was in turmoil, and I was sick every morning with the nausea that accompanied my third pregnancy.

God called me in that moment to keep going with my marriage. Literally everything about the situation was calling me to give in. Everything. There were so many times when I just wanted to end it, feeling that if I ended it I would also end the pain that met me nearly every moment of every day.

In spite of this temptation to just be done, with the strength of God and the knowledge of his calling on my life, I kept going. And eventually, after much, much waiting, God showed me why He had called me to stick with it. Chris and I found a reconciliation, a resurrection, and a new calling in our redeemed marriage.

I've written about this experience before, but today God struck me with a new truth. The calling is not over. There are still days, weeks when it feels like the easiest thing to do would just not be to work on my marriage; days when I feel that things are just getting too hard, or days when ghosts of the past rear their ugly heads long enough to make me doubt this calling.

But God's calling in our lives is always going to be fought by the temptations in this life for a quick fix. Ending my pain by ending my marriage, or worse, my life, was a temptation that I know I am not alone in feeling. But of course, the truth of the matter is that it would not have ended my pain, or made life easier...the price Satan exacts for the sin he brings you into is your ultimate destruction and death, and with a far greater amount of pain, for both you and the people around you.

I guess I'm just reminded that we each have a calling on our life, one placed by God, and one that will sometimes seem harder than it should be and its' importance blurred by the constant distractions and issues of life. But I amazed at how knowing what my calling was and is helped me to continue the journey, even when light or hope was unable to be seen or felt. My calling has taken me to places I had not imagined, and never would have been able to do without going on the journey I've been on. I always have to suppress a smile when people arrogantly say that they would never be or put themselves into certain situations. God knows us so much better than we know ourselves, and has an ultimate plan for our lives that is generally far outside of our small realm of thinking.

And in my life, God has used the past and present hardships to grow me, painful though it is sometimes, and to help me draw closer to Him.

God, grant me the strength and vision to continue in Your calling on my life.