The Fight

Here we go... early morning again. I keep waking up with anxiety in all shapes. I helped facilitate a college girl's retreat this weekend that was called "UNVEILED." We unveiled the truth about lies Satan tells us and equipped ourselves with the way to combat them, Scripture being the main weapon of defense. Funny how attacked I feel after such a powerful weekend... God must have moved because I can feel the enemy pressing in all around me.

In the heart of "ministry," whatever that vague word means, I feel ragged and worn. I am weighed down when I think about the many girls I have encountered who have been abandoned and abused. I feel helpless when it comes to offering the cup of cold water I so desperately want to give, because sometimes I honestly just don't know what they need. I know they need Jesus. It is so crushingly clear to me that I am not the Healer- He is. But how can I deliver Him to them? How can I lift up their weary heads, or open their blind eyes to behold the only saving hope they have? Some need professional counseling beyond what I am capable of offering. What happens if they never go? I see answers to problems, and I ache to fix them, but I cannot be the decision maker either.

A wave of hopelessness crashes down, and the lies with it. Oppression. Why did he choose me for this? I feel so inadequate and empty. I keep trying to hold all the pieces together in my short arms, but the pieces seem to tumble everywhere. The problem is, the pieces aren't just objects, they are people. And all of them already broken in some way. I just don't want to bruise them further. Oh yes. It is so crushingly clear that I am not the healer.

And then there is me... I am just so messed up myself. Craving acceptance. Wanting to find worth in that. Apathetic. Insecure about dumb things. I drag myself to His Word. I must find clarity and truth. I must battle through these lies.

"Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in your weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calameties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." -2 Corinthians 12:8-10

"...that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." Philippians 3:10-14

"He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
He restores my soul." -Psalm 23:2

"The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness." -Lamentations 3:22-23

"If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.'" -John 4:10

Tetelestai- It is finished. The picture is complete. The battle has been won. I am among the broken being healed. I am not supposed to carry the weight alone. He has done it. For me. For the girls. For all the broken, hurting, and captured. Tetelestai.