Calling Up Sarah

"My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion forever."

-Psalm 73:26

Yesterday, I slept right through my alarm. This morning I hit snooze twice (progress). I'm on Day 9 of Whole30 and I was totally tired of all the healthy foods today (first world problems). I went to bed early instead of writing last night (no regrets). We got most of our school done every day this week. I went running three times.

I'm listing all of this out for my own benefit. After some very difficult days in this house, today I felt... deflated. Defeated. Discouraged. It's hard to keep up morale when it feels like there is no progress being made, so I needed to remind myself that a little progress is still progress. These things are all trivial, though. The real issue is much bigger than whether or not I can wake up at 7, but much harder to put into words. So I made a list of smaller things to give me a little pick-me-up.

I've been wondering today about keeping faith and trusting God during extremely difficult times. I thought I had lost my faith last year. Or maybe I was just angry at God. I remember sitting in church one day, listening to the sermon, just seething with anger because I didn't feel like any of it was true for me. I looked at Husband and I knew the sermon was speaking to him and that made me even angrier, that he could be getting filled with hope while I was just... dying inside.

Sometimes it's just downright hard to believe that all the things are working together for good. But if we don't put our hope in God, what hope is there???

I was immediately drawn to the verse above from Psalm 71. It connected to all the things I've been thinking about this week. On my own, I will give up. I will get tired. I will feel defeated and hopeless and quit. I am not enough, but He is. He gives power to the faint (is my new mantra). He is the strength of my heart because my heart alone is not strong enough.

"Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer;" - Romans 12:12