A Letter of Encouragement

Life is really difficult sometimes. 

It can be extremely easy to write this off and tell someone to suck it up. We acknowledge that life is hard because of sin’s grip on humanity. Many hardened veteran Christians know the verses promising that life is going to be difficult. Trials are meant to grow us. Sanctification is a messy process. 

But that doesn’t make it any less hard. 

The tears still fall in the middle of the long weeks of waiting and hoping and praying. The heart wounds are fresh when we are mocked and ridiculed. It is difficult to have someone cut us off because we are holding a healthy, spiritual boundary. Putting it there doesn’t mean that the process of gatekeeping becomes a breeze. 

We can acknowledge that in tough times, we need to create a genuine and healthy safespace for us to be refreshed and refilled. God designed us this way– to want a place of protection and rest. He provides that for us, if we only listen to Him. 

He himself will rescue you from the bird trap,

from the destructive plague.

He will cover you with his feathers;

you will take refuge under his wings.

His faithfulness will be a protective shield.

You will not fear the terror of the night,

the arrow that flies by day,

the plague that stalks in darkness,

or the pestilence that ravages at noon.

Psalm 91:4-6

We need the encouragement from God and the encouragement from His body during these times. While Paul was a discerning father who disciplined many of the churches that he discipled, he still wrote the book of Philippians. This entire book focuses on encouraging a church to keep going. Paul recognizes that the hardship could lead to burnout and exhaustion, that it is just as important for us to push each other on as it is  to call each other out. Paul’s writing came from God’s prompting. God wants you to be encouraged in the midst of your difficult run toward Him. 

There are difficult things we go through in life. Yes, they are usually a part of our betterment, but they also require that we  to pour ourselves out. Many of us are aware of the phrase “you can’t pour from an empty cup”. But how many of us have taken the time to stop, slow down, and find restoration by Living Water and the people around us before driving through the difficulties of life? 

I am learning this lesson second hand as I am watching my mother-in-law go through some of the hardest moments of her life. 

My mother-in-law is one of the godliest women I know, who has a heart and desire for God. She is a fierce prayer warrior, her first answer to crisis usually being one of prayer and turning to God for answers. I am blessed that her son decided to marry me, because I received as much of a blessing through a relationship with her as I do my husband. My mother-in-law has been the answer to the prayer I’ve sent up to God for years, wanting counseling on how to mother in a loving and graceful way because I had a mother who has taught me the painful lesson on how not to parent. I adore my mother in law, and I know from being in my husband’s family that she is the woman whose husband and children rise up and praise her. She is deserving of it. 

But even prayer warriors go through difficult seasons, and my heart breaks for her as she walks this one. Her mother (my grandmother-in-law – I don’t even know if that’s the term) suffered a stroke mid spring that left her partially paralyzed and extremely disoriented. My mother-in-law has an autoimmune condition that greatly affects her body, so she is not able to care for her mother at home. Instead, she faithfully visits her mother in a long term care facility. She has dealt with her mother not remembering what year it is, she has dealt with walking through family scars and traumas all over again, and she has dealt with having to be the functioning adult when her mother cannot be. All the while, still being my grandmother’s child. Due to distance and differences in processing of the reality by other family members, my mother in law is on her own caring for her mother. My father-in-law is available to help and support, my brother-in-law is close by and does his best. My husband and I relocated further away, but we try to be supportive. 

But I know that in the midst of this, it is her mother. A unique relationship forged by biology and history, and that I am sure on many days my mother-in-law feels all alone. Parenting your parent, whether in childhood or old age, is not an easy journey to grow through. It is difficult and it is tiring, because that was never meant to be your role. Yet, so many people walk through this, especially when parents succumb to the human condition and grow old, dependent on others as they draw closer to God. 

Nothing on this road is easy. I recognize that despite all of our platitudes, none of them can reach the soul. That this place can feel like the loneliest desert. 

That maybe, the encouragement that we all need to hear every once in awhile, as we are walking these difficult roads with agonizing choices, is this: 

“I see how hard you are fighting. I know that you probably feel like you are all alone. I may never know what you are going through, I may never understand. But I know that God does. I know that as you lean into Him, He is going to give you the answers that are correct. That if you are listening to His voice, you are doing the right thing. This season is hard. This season may seem unending. All of that is okay to feel. It is okay to be tired. It is okay to throw in the towel some days and take a break. It is okay to rest.”

Whether you are in a season of having to care for an elderly or disabled parent, a season of financial difficulty or uncertainty, a season where your marriage may or may not make it, a season where you are grieving a loss, a season where you are feeling a little purposeless: 

“I see you struggling. I see you doing what you can in your frail humanity. And I know that God sees you. I know the answers may seem far away, I know that there is nothing I can say to explain why God does not seem to be answering. Why He is not bringing the healing or the hope your heart has been longing for. But I know that despite all of that, He cares. And so do I.” 

All I can say to you in this journey is that I am sorry that life is hard right now. I am sorry that things are not going the way you had hoped for them. I am sorry that you are dealing with such heavy emotions. 

Heed this warning: do not go the way of the world and throw out the idea of “thoughts and prayers”. Both of these are very powerful things– even if you are not getting the results that you had hoped for in the time you had willed them to be solved by. 

There is a reason why God told us to take every thought captive in Christ (2 Corinthians 10:9). Paul addresses this reality when talking about the spiritual plane in which we wrestle with real evil in the world. What you think can be powerful over what you believe about yourself. If you consistently have a thought life that doubts yourself and doubts God’s power, you are going to have a prayer and action life that reflects that. If you take a moment to stop the thoughts the enemy is whispering into your ear, to hold what you are thinking against the truth of God’s Word, you can begin to fight back against the feeling that you are alone. That God does not care. The devil wants to distance you in times of grief and hardship so that you cannot know God’s peace and you can doubt His goodness. The enemy wants you to feel like you are completely alone; that Christ’s suffering on earth was not like the suffering you are going through, that He can never understand. 

My friend, just because I am not capable of understanding your hurt, does not mean that the Lord does not. The One who sent His child to die on a cross for others – a death He didn’t deserve. The One who lived a human life and saw people He loved rejected, murdered, die of natural causes. Who was spat on, sent away from His hometown, run out of the religious centers He only wanted to see God’s glory magnified in. The One who still has His people reject Him. God has suffered much, and He deeply knows your pain. Especially your righteous pain. 

Finally, do not let the enemy hijack your prayers. Do not let him trick you into thinking that because they are not being answered on your time table, in your way, that God is not listening. Do not fall into the trap that you have to say a nice pretty prayer with a lot of “Heavenly Fathers” thrown in. That you must pray some recipe prayer given to you by some order in a church. Jesus Himself cried out to God asking why He had forsaken (or abandoned!) Him on the cross (Matthew 27:46). You can cry out to God anything that is on your heart. He is not looking for perfection to enter His throne room– He is looking for contrite hearts and broken spirits (Psalm 51:17). 

There is not a moment in your gnashing of teeth about your pain where God is going to throw up His hands and say “Yeah, this is too difficult, you’re on your own there, kiddo.” He is not our imperfect parent. He is not our fair weather friend. He is the moment in the book of Job that the main character needed – someone to sit with you in the grief as you process it out. He’s looking to be found in those quiet and heartbreaking moments. 

Take heart in knowing that there is no emotion that is going to run God off. There is no amount of anger or wailing or line of questioning that is going to make Him give up on you. These are things you must choose to believe, because you cannot base your understanding of God off your experience of humans. He is not going to fail you in the thousands of ways that people will. 

Hold fast to Him. Even in the hurt. Cry out to Him in the depths of despair. He is listening. And He is sending rescue in one form or another. He wants to deliver you from the miry pits. 

As you wait, reflect on the promises He has made you as you sit in the very real hurt. Tell your heart over and over that God is a God of promises that are always fulfilled:

He heals the brokenhearted

and bandages their wounds.

Psalm 147:3 

You yourself have recorded my wanderings.

Put my tears in your bottle.

Are they not in your book?

Psalm 56:8 

So I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten,

The crawling locust,

The consuming locust

And the chewing locust,

My great army which I sent among you.

You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied,

And praise the name of the Lord your God,

Who has dealt wondrously with you;

And My people shall never be put to shame.

Then you shall know that I am in the midst of Israel:

I am the Lord your God

And there is no other.

My people shall never be put to shame.

Joel 2:25-27

I know that there is nothing better for them than to rejoice and enjoy the good life. It is also the gift of God whenever anyone eats, drinks, and enjoys all his efforts. I know that everything God does will last forever; there is no adding to it or taking from it. God works so that people will be in awe of him. Whatever is, has already been, and whatever will be, already is. However, God seeks justice for the persecuted.

Ecclesiastes 3:12-15

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort. He comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any kind of affliction, through the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ overflow to us, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation. If we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings that we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that as you share in the sufferings, so you will also share in the comfort.

2 Corinthians 1:3-7 

God sees your pain. I see your pain. It is all real. It is all important. Do not let the devil discourage you in the midst of this. Seek out the protection under God’s wings. Find hope there. Find rest.