This is my cry

A summary of my life in the past year: "The Lord gives...and the Lord takes away, may the name of the Lord be praised."

I have lost a lot in the past year, months and even week...
And I have been tempted to want to give up.
In fact, I have given up...multiple times.
I've thrown my hands in the air and fallen to the ground, unable to even cry.
And I've waited for someone to come help me up.
But the only response I've received is silence.
Maybe you've heard the saying, 'nothing speaks louder than silence' 
And you know what? It's true. It's really true.

And it's that silence that terrifies me. Makes me feel unable to go on. Makes me feel as if I am unable to ever stand again.

But isn't that how it is so often?
We let ourselves feel as if we cannot go on. We give up hope.

We forget that God will never give us anything we cannot get through on HIS strength.
Not ours.

It was a few days ago, and I was really hurting...I took a walk outside with my two lil bros...when I realized how much I had failed.
How much I had been trying to depend upon my own strength.

I'd hit rock bottom, and I hadn't looked up to where I should have been looking.  
A little while ago I wrote a blog post entitled 'rock bottom' (You can read it here)...
And now that I look back at it, it's so true...

Seeking Christ isn't a one-day thing.
It's continual.
Always seeking Him, always calling out to Him.

And when we come to the feet of Jesus, humble and repentant, He won't ignore us.
And that alone is reason to feel extremely humbled.
We have the AMAZING privilege and honor of being able to cry out to Christ with our hurt, with our pain...with our praise... and that...wow.

When life hurts, we are tempted to despair. But it is when life hurts the most that we are given the most opportunity to rely on Christ and shine His light in a dark world.