When you can’t….

I’m tired. I’m confused. I can’t do it.

Too often, we beat ourselves with these statements because we think we can’t do what is good and what we ought to do.

It even gets harder to think that we can do anything better when we are going through a trial.

When my late father left my mother and all of us seven children when we were still young, I thought we wouldn’t be able to finish our schooling. Worse, with constant begging for funds from relatives, how could  our family  survive with a jobless mother?

When my husband died, it was difficult for me to imagine life  alone and raising three young children. Why did God take him away from us?

When I resigned from a well-paying job to preserve industrial harmony and keep my own peace from a very harassed environment, I didn’t know where I could  find another job that could provide for two college boys in Manila and a  daughter finishing high school. Was it a foolish decision on my part as a single mother?

But what the Bible says is true: “With God all things are possible.”(Matthew 19:26). If we work out things on our own, either you’ll think it’s hard to do or if it does work out , it wouldn’t be as good as it can be.

The secret is to “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths. (Proverbs 3:5-6)

And He did straighten the path for me and my family.

My mom is still with us and all seven of us have our own families and well-placed careers. When before we were homeless and at the mercy of dole-outs, today we all have houses of our own and for the glory of God, we are the ones helping people in need.  We did survive.

I have not remarried and still miss my husband but by God’s grace, all the hardships just passed. My three children  grew up respectful, secure and with high self esteem. God took my husband but He continued to be the lover of my soul and that is not making me lonely at all.

My resignation from my former company six years ago gave me two months of rest but after that I was offered a job that gave me back what I used to earn in two months and even more now. I am still with this new company  after six years.  My  sons have great work in Manila and my daughter is  charting her own career here in Cebu. Resigning wasn’t a foolish decision.

What are you facing today that you think you can’t hurdle? What desert are you in?  It’s not only you, if that give you a little comfort.  Everyone goes through seasons of emptiness, dryness and hopelessness. It could be a desert we need to walk through or a mountain we need to climb.

And too often we want to get out of the desert quickly or go down the mountains fast. But we can’t do it. And the knee-jerk reaction is to blame God. I know. I went through this when I lost my husband.

For two months, I didn’t think I can do anything good anymore. I felt the rain coming down on me and my innocent children just waited for me to recover. I didn’t know then that the rain that poured was God’s way of making me grow. Without rain, nothing grows.

When I focused so much on myself and what I think I can’t do anymore, I was actually isolating myself from running more to the open arms of God.

He is near, He is our Father and we can trust that He is good. Instead of praying that God would take us out of the desert or bring us down our mountains, we should pray that God would teach us while in the desert…to grow while the rain pours on us.

You think God doesn’t love you?

God is a God of the turnaround. No matter what we are facing, no matter what we need—rest assured, when we can’t, God can. He is willing and able to turn our situation around if we will depend on Him, trust in Him, and wait on Him.

“With God all things are possible.”