In the Ring

     The bells are ding ding dinging, but I can't stand up. There's not any more fight left in me. No drink of water or toweling off renews the strength I need to keep going. The boxing ring of life takes it's toll at times, doesn't it? Part of me wants to jump over the rope and go have a massage...to scrap this whole mess and quit. Lately, it's difficult to roll with the circumstances coming at me like one upper cut after another. How about we declare a total knockout, I lose, and the fighting ends?

     I keep repeating JJ Heller's song "I Know Who You Are" . Just because I can't see why circumstances are mine to deal with doesn't mean they don't fit in to God's grand purposes for my life and the lives of those around me. I know He is still here with me and has plans to use all of the lessons I learn in times of trial.


     Why fight against the turmoil, which only exhausts my strength? Instead I will ask God for strength and grace to weather the battles threatening to take me out. He brings me through every heartache, and the result at the end of each dark tunnel has been for the benefit of many people.


     Our hope:

• God's power is perfected in my weakness. ~2 Corinthians 12:9
• He has already overcome this world. We just have to wait for it to play out.~John 16:33
• The struggles of this current life are nothing compared to the glory we will enter into when it's over.~Romans 8:18
• God is good. Therefore, if we love Him, everything we endure will work together for the best.~Romans 8:28
• We can trust that God is continually working in our lives and the lives of those around us, and plans greater outcomes for life's situations than we would ever imagine.~Habakkuk 1:5

     Do you ever wish you could return to the Garden of Eden, yank the fruit from Eve's hand, and yell "NO! Don't do it!" She had no idea what she was setting in motion.