this season has been trying (haha as it always is, in some way or another). in this year alone i have crashed and burned, been absolutely torn and taken apart but rightfully so, i have known deep down in my spirit that this year wasn't going to be easy and it really hasn't been. i feel as though God has been doing so much but there is still so much left to be done. rock bottom should be anytime now but i feel like it could keep going. there is just so much darkness all around me and it's been this way for what feels like forever.

(i don't know how much i can adequately describe it but) the only thing that holds me together is this pulsing need for God in every day of my life. and it feels like, the more i am reduced to nothing, the more i acknowledge my need for God Himself to come through. i realise that ministry is not about me, missions is not about me, my relationships are not about me, even i am not about me. i could start out on a day relying completely on 'having good vibes' and i'd have ended the very same day feeling completely wrecked and snappy. joy comes from the Lord- and honestly, so does everything else. and that's a painful process to learn.. that no matter our acts of righteousness or confidence in our own flesh, it amounts to nothing because the truth is that we are all broken, sinful individuals. any attempts on relying on ourselves amounts to nothing. even as i am typing this, my soul aches inside of me- i have had to relearn so many painful lessons.

but of late, these couple of days actually, God has been showing me the stories of brothers and sisters that have braved through darker times and emerged, bloody and bruised, to praise God. and this is what i have realised: we can choose our attitude in the darkness. we will never understand the intentions of God and why He allows certain things to happen to us that wrecks us. but what i know is that the devil wants us to stay down. what God uses for good, the devil will use for evil. in storms especially, all he has to do is to get us to wallow in a pit and we will voluntarily stay there- discouraged, broken, empty.

but i have found that even through the darkness and emptiness, all we have to do is choose to get up. to choose to say, 'God i don't understand but i trust.' ; to choose to say, 'i know that i will keep falling short, but i choose to not be disappointed in myself because everyday Your Grace and Mercies are new.' / to choose to say, 'my failures don't define who i am, what You say about me matters.' / 'Lord even if i have to fall at Your feet every night to ask for forgiveness, I will choose to keep fighting.'

so i guess what i am trying to say is that, even though there is so much pain and confusion in this season, i won't stop fighting. even though some days i feel like i've hit my lowest and i don't believe in who i am anymore, i'll stand up again tomorrow. because this is what it means to have Jesus in my life: to rise again after every fall. to brave through storms. to love who i see everyday in the mirror- overwhelmingly sinful and broken but also beautifully crowned by grace. to have Jesus in the darkness means not to search for light but to know that i am light. i can choose to be light because He empowers me to. i am light because He says i am, He promises me i can be. i can overcome because He says so. and who is God that He should lie? therefore i can. therefore i am.

ending off with the post that sparked this one you have just read:

But God doesn’t always work in miracles; God doesn’t always take away hardships. Sometimes God allows our lives to become a bit cloudier, a bit more chaotic, so that we might look for Him a bit more carefully, a bit more closely. It’s through those frenetic and difficult times that we can truly see how close and faithful God really is to us. The mayhem of life but reveals the grace of our Savior all the more. God is there, He’s always there.

-walk the same devotional