When all of the lights aren’t shining, what should we do?  When the dryer breaks.  When the kitchen table falls apart.  When the building you are marketing for, seems to never open.  When one of the children you are raising and loving as your own, faces hardships.  When life feels like it is destroying you, what do you do?  Do we turn our back on The Lord because He isn’t protecting us the way we think He should?  Do we say He isn’t trustworthy because our lives are not flowing the way we think they should?  How do we trust Him?  How do we trust Him in our daily, practical lives?  What does it look like?  How is Christianity put into real practice?  Not the pretend smile that everything is okay.  Not the fake, superficial “faith” that makes Christianity look easy.  Not the forced answer of “I’m fine, how are you?”

There are seasons in life.  Each season contains its own struggles.  Childhood, you are always looking at being an adult, wanting adult things without the adult responsibilities.  Childhood also brings difficulties like not getting what you want for Christmas, not making the cheerleading team, not feeling accepting and loved or not making the grade you thought you deserved.  Teenage years is a constant struggle to fight for your independence.  Every day, counting down the days to grow up, move on to college and kiss your childhood goodbye.  And don’t you remember thinking that you knew everything!  Your twenties, many search for their spouse, beginning their careers and seek the path that the Lord has in store for you.  The days of your twenties focus on “when will I have a baby” or “when will I get to be married” or “I wish we could have a house all our own” or how about “when will I get the chance to shine in this office?”  Now, I have only just entered my thirties, but I have a blessed career that allows me to see those in their later years in life.  I see every day how those in their eighties and nineties desire their twenties again.  Even their childhood again.  Or, the desire to go on home to be with their Lord.  Very few desire the exact age, the exact season they are currently in.  And very few means I have never seen it.

A gentleman I had met is 100 years old.  This precious aged saint reflects on the beauty of life.  Recently, we had seen a school bus of children killed in a fatal accident in our state.  As I spoke with this amazing man of God, he questioned how His Lord chose to take these small children from the world and leave his 100 year old aged body here.  These questions made me sit and reflect.  Dear Sovereign Lord, how do you determine when and how you do the things that you do?  When and how do you choose what you allow and what you ordain in the lives of those on this earth?

There are days when life’s struggles get you low.  How do we combat this lowness?  There are days that it feels too difficult to pray, too difficult to smile, too difficult to pick up the burden off of your own shoulders and lay them down for someone else to carry.  In those days, your Bible feels like it is written in a foreign language and that He is a million miles away.  These are the days, you rally behind the cross with your forever family holding you there.  These are the days, you eat your pride and ask your “iron” to pray.  Beg them to pray.  Cry out to them for prayer.  To fight for you.  To fight for your mind.  To fight for your sanity.  These are the days, when you let others fight on your behalf.  And then…. watch and wait.  The clouds will open up.  The sun begins to shine again.  And the burden is significantly lighter, almost invisible.  Why?  Because your forever family is carrying the burden on your behalf.

Today, ask your “iron” to pray.  Today, swallow your pride and ask them to pray.  And then you will have the strength to fix the other half of the light bulbs to allow them to shine brightly again in the darkness.

Psalm 91