Pick Up Your Mat and Walk (Overcoming the Struggle)

You know, I used to kind of laugh in disbelief at those videos of people who were in very shallow water but thought they were drowning. I wondered to myself why they didn’t just stand up and save themselves.

But anxiety and depression can be described like that same scene. When you know that you are fine and could just stand up to save yourself, but instead your mind tells you that you are drowning and that everything is falling around you and you’ll never get out of it. 

You feel you’ll never be able to stand up out of the water. 

Fear, anxiety, depression… we all struggle with something. And whatever our something is, the devil fights to use that against us as often as he can. 

For some it’s porn, alcohol, atheism, denial, sexual immorality, abuse, or any number of struggles. Mine has always been fear. 

I didn’t realize it until I got older, but the devil has been working on using fear to bring me down my entire life. 

Little bits would pop up here and there, but with the grace of God, I kept trucking along. It was my divorce that almost broke me, though. 

I changed after my divorce. I looked at the world through the eyes of betrayal and hatred. I looked at myself that way too. I didn’t believe good could come after it. I didn’t believe I was worthy of God’s plan anymore. I wondered what was so wrong with me that my husband would betray me in the deepest manner and treat me like his worst enemy. 

The devil almost won. 

It has been four years and I still struggle. I still wonder what could have been. I am happily married with an amazing life full of so much grace. I have succeeded at everything I’ve put my mind to. I have conquered my hardest days. I have fought to be where I am today. 

And yet I sit here with the feeling that I am drowning and lost. I sit here like God isn’t still on the throne. Like all hope is lost. 

When I know better, I suffer in silence. 

In this world we will have trouble, but do not fear for I have overcome the world, the Lord says. 

Sometimes I get angry at God and the fact that He didn’t just stop Adam and Eve from sinning. That He didn’t just stop Satan from being Satan. I mean, He is God for goodness sake. He gave us free will and because of that, we experience turmoil and pain. 

We hear of unexplainable evils in this world. We are taught this is a BATTLE. We are instructed to put on our armor every single day. 

Satan will stop at nothing to destroy every glimmer of hope and joy in your life. Make no mistake — this IS a battle and there will be a time when you will have to choose this day whom you will serve. 

I struggle but I have hope in the one who saves. I hurt but I have a rescuer. I cry but I know a God who died to wipe my tears away. Who took on the pain for me, who took back the keys to hell, who is powerful enough to rescue me time and time again when I fall. Who is one day coming back again and who gives me hope and a future. Who keeps me going, who forgives me each day, and who loves me and you with a love I’ll never be able to understand. 

I know that God and I hope you do too because He is worth it. 

So go, pick up your mat and start walking towards Jesus… actually, RUN!!

It’s time to remind the devil who we are in Christ, and that we have the final say for our thoughts, actions, and healing. We do not have to remain defeated. Remind Satan we know the end of the story and it’s victory in Christ Jesus. 

We have already defeated our worst days and we don’t have to give in to the hopelessness and pain. We are more than conquerors and we have WON!! 

Reach out, ask for help, be honest with your struggle because I promise you that someone else out there has struggled with the very same things. 

The devil loves to tell us we are the only broken ones and that we are alone, but isolating is the worst thing you can do. People care so deeply about you and God really does have an amazing plan for your life. And when the devil tries to tell you that there’s no hope or that God has left you, hold onto the following verses. 

It’s okay to struggle, but it’s not okay to stop getting back up! You are never too broken or lost for God to rescue you. 

——— Romans 8:31-39 ———

31 What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 

32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 

35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?

 36 As it is written:

“For your sake we face death all day long;

we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”

37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 

38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

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