Nurturing moms in their walk with God
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On February 13, 2009, I wrote My Very First Post on Girls to Grow.
Our daughters were eight and six years old, in the middle of their second grade and K5 years of school. I’d recently started reading blogs, and since I’ve always enjoyed writing, I decided I’d give blogging a try.
1,286 posts later, I’m sifting through the memories and boxing up the words as I bring an end to Girls to Grow.
Our daughters are 24 and 22 years old now, married to wonderful young men, working and learning and making their mom and dad proud on a daily basis.
By God’s grace, those girls we wanted to grow have grown. We homeschooled and Christian-schooled, depending on the year. We sat through soccer games, basketball games, cheer competitions, piano recitals, choir and band concerts, fine arts festivals, plays, and graduations.
From Sunday morning services to Wednesday night youth group, we were blessed to be a part of a church family. We had a junior year of high school and a freshman year of college cut short because of COVID-19. We’ve sent them off to summer camps and enjoyed family vacations, smiled through tears at college drop-offs, engagements, and weddings.
In looking back, there’s heartfelt gratitude for the people who poured into our kids. The Sunday School teachers, the coaches, the pastors, the Christian school teachers, the parents of their friends – they’re part of who our girls are today.
Then there’s my husband. He’s been the rock in our family, the no-nonsense and no-drama guy the three of us girls need, the one with great wisdom and faith who led – and continues to lead – us so well.
If I’ve learned anything while writing here, it’s that God, His Word, and prayer are the hope and strength we need when it comes to parenting our children. There were rocky teen years, moments of self-doubt and “are we doing this right?” and “will she make it through this?”
It’s not great parenting that makes great kids. Yes, we try our best to follow Biblical principles and love and invest in our precious children. But ultimately, it’s a great God who is gracious in spite of our mistakes, who hears and answers prayers, and who loves those girls more than we do.
Our nest is now officially empty. We’re enjoying this season of life together as husband and wife, grateful that our daughters and son-in-laws live nearby and we can see them often.
And now, as I close the doors here, I’m opening another one. I still want to write, to hopefully encourage and walk alongside other women who want to flourish in faith and family.
So very soon I’ll begin blogging at TraceyBrewer.com. I hope you’ll join me there. (If you pop over there any time soon, it’s a hot mess, aka a work in progress 🙂
In the meantime, if you’d like to sign up for my emails, I’ll be sharing more details on how you can receive regular updates when I begin publishing posts on my new site.
And just to be clear, Girls to Grow will continue to live here on the Internet for a while; you can still read and share old posts. I just won’t be adding any new content after today.
Finally, I’m very thankful for all of those who’ve read and commented here over the years. I’ve gotten sweet encouragement from many of you, and I’m so grateful. Wherever you are in growing your girls, your boys, your family, may God richly bless you.
And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment;
That ye may approve things that are excellent; that ye may be sincere and without offence till the day of Christ.
Being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God. ~Philippians 1:9-11
There’s nothing like having children to make us realize how little we know about parenting!
You can probably relate. We thought we knew the type of parent we’d be. We may have mentally planned out exactly how we’d handle certain situations. However, once we actually had children and were parenting them in real time, things probably looked quite different!
As much as I’ve learned about our children through the years, I’ve learned just as much about myself. Each new age and stage has its own blessings as well as its challenges. And each one gives us and our children the chance to grow and mature as people.
Below are seven things I’ve learned (and continue to learn!) about myself on this parenting journey. There are certainly others I could list, but these are some of the most meaningful ones.
Before becoming a mom, I taught classrooms full of kindergarteners and first graders. I would have said my patience level was fairly high.
And then I had my own children. Living with them was totally different. My true self was revealed, and it wasn’t pretty. I was a lot more self-centered and short-tempered than I’d realized. Dealing with a strong-willed two-year-old or managing sibling squabbles didn’t always bring out the best in me.
The good news is that in 24 years of parenting, I’ve had plenty of opportunities to grow in this area!
I’m an introvert so I’m fine spending large chunks of time alone. However, throughout these mom years, I’ve found I definitely need time with other moms who are in a similar life stage. There’s nothing like bonding with others over shared joys or trials in parenting. We can celebrate and commiserate.
I remember meeting several mom friends for dinner as our children were finishing up high school. We had a great discussion about the transition between parenting children and young adults. I left so encouraged over finding common ground with others who related to what I was going through.
It’s not easy to be steady in our discipline or in setting boundaries. A hard day of parenting can make us want to just give up on it all.
But we need to remember that our children are always watching and learning from what we do. They tend to respond better when we are predictable in how we interact with them and in how we conduct our own lives.
I learned to do life with another adult for nine years before we had children. I’m not saying I did it perfectly (and I still don’t). But marriage was just the first step in stripping away my selfishness.
Once children came on the scene, it leveled up! There’s often some personal sacrifice involved when it comes to our kids, even basic things like getting up with them in the middle of the night or having very little time to ourselves. And while we wouldn’t have it any other way, these moments reveal more of who we really are.
I have to trust God because ultimately, I have no control over my children. From health to safety to relationships to choices they make, God is the one who’s in control.
The more time our children spend away from us – at school, summer camp, then college, and living independently – the more we realize the importance of praying for them. We can’t constantly be close to them in distance, but God is always with them.
I never knew how much I needed God’s wisdom daily until I had teenagers. Whether they’re asking for guidance or we’re establishing boundaries and meeting out consequences, wisdom is invaluable.
We even need wisdom in how to pray for them. They may be dealing with issues they’ve not shared with us, but God knows each one and can lay them on our hearts.
In case the first six lessons made it sound like parenting is only hard, this one makes it all worth it!
It’s amazing how much love and joy we get from parenting our children. It’s such a pleasure to have a front-row seat to watch them become the incredible young people God designed them to be.
What valuable lessons are you learning about yourself as you’re parenting your kids?
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Welcome to the first blog post of 2025! I hope you had a sweet season celebrating Christmas and ringing in a new year.
In the last few days of 2024, the phrase “lay it down” kept coming to mind. It’s been a while since I’ve done something like choose a word for the year. But I felt like God was impressing that particular phrase on my heart, so I’ve adopted it as my theme for 2025.
I’m not sure what it’s going to mean, like what I might be asked to lay down in 2025. But this is the Bible passage that I thought of as I considered those three words.
Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. ~Matthew 11:28-30
Lay it down. That scares me a little because what I think of first is surrendering things I may hold dear. But I also know there are bad habits, maybe obligations or relationships, and definitely recurring sins that I need to lay down.
How about you? Could there be some things you might need to lay down in the coming months? I already have a list of five things it would be good for me to lay down. See if any of them resonate with you or come up with your own list of things to lay down in 2025.
Do we say “yes” to things just so that someone will like us? Are we seeking affirmation and acceptance from other people or do we allow God to meet those needs?
As we (meaning me 🙂 find our identity in who we are as children of God, we learn to live for His approval. We’re confident in who we are and don’t need to perform to gain other people’s favor.
However, we do want to be helpful and show empathy and kindness. But we do it as unto the Lord, following his command to love our neighbor, not with the motive for them to like us.
In this case, I mean expecting others to behave a certain way.
Here’s an example. We expect that our family will buy us a big, meaningful gift for Mother’s Day. We don’t mention it to anyone, kind of expecting them to read our minds. It’s not something that they do every year. We have no indication that they’ve even thought about the idea. But then we’re disappointed when Mother’s Day comes and goes without that happening.
I can have unrealistic expectations of other people and, at times, of myself. Laying those down will be a good goal for this year.
How often do we set out to accomplish a task, teach a class, or face a conflict without asking God for his help? This year, I want to be so much more mindful of asking God for his strength and assistance in whatever I’m doing.
I can get wrapped up in my head thinking about what that person said or how they treated me. I can run down that person who, in my opinion, doesn’t measure up to what I think they should be.
Let’s lay down any thoughts that are critical of other people. Let’s ask God (because we can’t do it in our own strength) to free us from that. And when those thoughts start – because they will – let’s pull out a Scripture or a praise song and change the narrative in our minds.
Many Bible verses encourage us to guard what we say. If we get going with those critical thoughts, it’s easy for them to turn into words that are critical of others.
Proverbs 13:10 says, “Only by pride cometh contention…” Arguments and disagreements have one single source. Our pride. Sometimes that’s a hard truth to hear!
Pride is a constant enemy of mine, but as much as possible, I’d like to lay it down in 2025.
It’s impossible to know all that God might ask us to lay down in 2025, but I pray that our hearts will be open and sensitive to his leading.
Each month I plan to update this post with what I’ve needed to lay down. Let me know if there’s anything you know you’d like to lay down this year!
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Do you remember what 2020 was like? Sometimes it seems like it was so long ago.
At the beginning of the year, none of us could have predicted how it would unfold. Who could have foreseen a worldwide pandemic that shut down schools and many businesses, confined us all to our homes for a long period of time, and emptied store shelves of toilet paper and cleaning products?
Throw in some major hurricanes, wildfires, protests, and a contentious election season, not to mention the personal ups and downs we all experienced. It was certainly a year we’ll talk about for a long time to come.
Yet we still had a Thanksgiving that year. Maybe the celebration of the season looked different for our families than in other years. Our expectations changed from the traditional to whatever we could manage. And could we give thanks in a year that caught us by surprise and delivered more than its share of disappointment and devastation? Yes. We could, and we did.
Four years later, some of us may be having a year that went sideways in a different way. It could have been a death in the family, an extended illness, a job loss, a move, or the end of a relationship. And Thanksgiving is here again.
So how do we give thanks in hard times? No matter what a year brings us, here are eight things we can be thankful for in this season of gratitude.
“Know therefore that the Lord thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations;” ~Deuteronomy 7:9
Our God still meets our needs and even gives us many of our wants. He has not left us to figure out our way through the mess alone. He is ever present and always acts according to His character.
We learned a little about change in 2020, didn’t we? And subsequent years continue to bring changes to our lives. Yet what the Bible said on January 1 is still true in November.
“The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand forever.” ~Isaiah 40:8
We may not have chosen this particular method of instruction, but we learned lessons nonetheless!
Perhaps we learned to trust God more or made an effort to reach out to others in new ways. Maybe we developed a positive new habit or grew closer in our family relationships. Even though they’re hard, challenging times can help us mature.
There are certain days during a year that we need a healthy dose of hope! I’m always encouraged when I remind myself of God’s promises. And praying those promises can bless our soul, too!
“It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.” ~Lamentation 3:22-23
We’ve been through some uncertain days, but His mercy hasn’t failed. We don’t know what tomorrow looks like, but He does, and will provide whatever mercy is needed.
When we know Jesus as our Savior, Heaven is our eternal home. That, my friends, is something to be thankful for!
“In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.” ~John 14:2-3
Have you prayed more this year than you did before? We all have plenty of things to talk to God about! How wonderful to know that our God hears and answers prayer.
“And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us: And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.” ~ 1 John 5:14-15
At Thanksgiving, can we always look back over the past nine months and say they were good? No, not in the sense we think of “good.” There were some good parts, but there were also hard, sad, disappointing, fearful parts.
But because God is good, I can trust that what He’s allowed to happen is part of His overall plan. And because God is incapable of doing anything else, His plan has to be good.
“The Lord is righteous in all his ways, and holy in all his works.” ~Psalm 145:17
Yes, we can give thanks in hard times. As we turn our hearts toward gratitude this Thanksgiving, let’s realize that no matter how crazy our year has been, we have much for which we can be thankful!
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As our daughters were growing up, there were many things I wanted them to learn. From practical skills like cooking and cleaning to character traits like honesty and initiative, I had the privilege of guiding them in many areas during those early years.
When we want to help our children develop spiritually, having them study and memorize Scripture is a helpful tool. The Bible has verses that give us instructions for how we’re to live as followers of Christ.
Our daughters will likely face new and sometimes challenging situations as they enter the tween and teen years. As parents, we can give them a head start on handling those situations by grounding them in truths from God’s Word.
Here are eight important Bible verses to share with our girls. These principles will be a great help to them as they grow and mature in the coming years.
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Kindness should be the basis for how they treat everyone, from siblings to teachers, friends to strangers. Being friendly and considerate of others is a wonderful way to move through the world, no matter what age you are!
Sadly, they may not always be treated kindly in return. That’s where forgiveness comes in. It’s okay to set boundaries and protect yourself from unhealthy relationships. But we don’t want to let bitterness creep in by refusing to forgive others just as God has forgiven us.
What a blessing they can be to others if our girls understand from an early age the spiritual value of a meek and quiet spirit. It’s that inner beauty, not their clothes or accessories or hairstyle that honors God and attracts others.
This doesn’t mean that our daughters don’t stand up for themselves and what they believe is right. But they do it calmly, with a sweet spirit, knowing that how they live speaks more loudly than their actual words.
We all struggle with controlling our speech. This verse describes what good speech looks like in our everyday lives. Learning to use wise, kind words during their teen years will help our daughters for the rest of their lives!
How I want my daughters to grasp the fact that, no matter their age, true beauty comes from within. Outward looks and attractive bodies will change. But a young woman who learns to walk with God and continues to grow in her faith will always radiate loveliness.
As women we often tend to worry, so it’s worthwhile to teach our daughters early on to take every care to God in prayer. They’ll be making lots of decisions during these teen years and can take each one to their Heavenly Father and ask for his help.
Even as young people, our children can have a real impact on others. One of the books we had our girls read as young teens was Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations by Alex and Brett Harris. Let’s not underestimate what our teens can accomplish.
Do every chore, complete all your school work, play on the sports team, practice that band instrument as if you were doing each one to honor God.
While our children may not always understand it, we as parents do truly want what’s best for them. God says they are wise if they listen to correction and instruction from their parents. And as parents, we need to pray for God’s wisdom as we walk with them through this season of life.
Let’s encourage our teen girls to dig into these eight Bible verses they can live by. And while we’re at it, we can make sure we’re seeking to live by these truths, too!
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Do you have any goals for your family?
I’m not talking about a bucket list of what you want to accomplish together, though that’s a great idea! The only list of that type we have at the moment is a general list in our heads of trips we’d like to take.
Let’s go deeper than that. How do you want your family members to feel when you’re all together? I know that I want each person to feel safe, loved, and accepted exactly as they are. Whether it’s a wacky sense of humor or a deep-seated fear of spiders, we all should feel comfortable being ourselves when we’re together.
I want us to enjoy spending time with each other, to create family memories, to have moments that we can all look back on with shared fondness. It’s fun to hear our daughters talk about memories from their younger years, though that often turns into retelling stories about when they got into trouble for something!
I think we all want to build this sense of love and security into our families. We need to actively look for ways to cultivate that spirit. So I wrote out a list of ten simple ways that we can strengthen family relationships.
Here’s a great foundation for the rest of the list! Our hearts are united as we pray for needs to be met, then rejoice when prayer is answered. We all know when someone in the family is going through a difficult time. It’s a comfort to know that the whole family is praying for you.
And beyond praying together, it’s a blessing to worship as a family. As a mom of older kids, my heart is full when we’re all in a church service together singing and praising the Lord.
Do this as much as you can when your children are small, even though it will be hard at times and all kinds of messy. 🙂 Speaking from experience, it gets much harder when your kids are teenagers and have practices, games, part-time jobs, and other activities in the evening.
There were seasons when we had our family Bible time right after supper, still seated at the table. And as our children hit their teen years and on into young adulthood, we’ve had some great conversations around the table.
As much as possible, we would all go to the girls’ piano recitals, basketball games, and school concerts. It’s fun to rehash the highlights together afterward! It also helps us be able to encourage each other in our interests. My parents were wonderful examples of this when I was growing up.
Whether at church or in the community, take advantage of every opportunity to serve others as a group. I liked to have the girls help me when I worked in children’s church, vacation Bible school, or the church nursery.
It’s fun to experience the story together and discuss what might happen next. We might also listen to radio series like Adventures in Odyssey in the car when we’re on long trips. Audiobooks work well for traveling together, too.
You could choose long-term or short-term goals to strive for. Even manual labor can be fun, if you’re working together towards a goal, like cleaning out the garage so you can have a yard sale to make money for a family trip. You could also choose a fun project, like putting together a large puzzle. (Okay, so that’s fun for some people 😉
Each March, we all fill out NCAA basketball tournament brackets. The person who gets the most points chooses a restaurant for our next dinner out. Even if a couple of us aren’t that knowledgeable about which teams are the best, we still have fun competing.
While an actual vacation is nice, this could also just be a visit to the local zoo or a bike ride at a park you’ve never checked out. Once they’re old enough, involve your children in the planning of trips and activities when possible.
This is a valuable skill both inside and outside of our families! We need to listen to each other and really hear what the other person is saying instead of just forming our answers and sharing our opinions.
If you’ve read here long, you know this is one of my favorite ideas! For example, each of our girls always got heart-shaped boxes of candy from their dad on Valentine’s Day. You don’t age out of that one until you’re married! And so far, Easter baskets have continued on into married life.
I tried to create a certain tradition around every holiday. But small, simple traditions are fun, too, like always having pizza on Friday nights.
As Gretchen Rubin says, “The days are long, but the years are short.” Let’s gather our families around us and build strong ties that will give us great companions as we walk through life, those who will celebrate our victories and walk with us through our struggles.
(And if you’re having a particularly hard day today, go read The Best Response to ‘The Days Are Long, But the Years Are Short.‘ Because I do remember those days, and they can be really, really long.)
What are other ways we can strengthen family relationships?
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A few weeks ago, I had a day full of a long list of errands to accomplish.
My final stop was the grocery store. I’d made a list of ten to fifteen items I needed. I’ve learned the hard way that if I don’t have a list when I go to the grocery store – even if it’s for five things – there’s a huge chance I’ll get home and realize I forgot the key ingredient I need to make supper.
Excited that I was almost ready to go home, I grabbed a grocery cart and headed to the back of the store. About halfway to the dairy section, I realized I’d left my list in the car. At this point, I was too focused on just getting done to walk all the way back to the car to retrieve my list.
I decided to rely on my memory – a risky proposition, for sure! I checked out and put my bags in the car. Then I looked over at my list still lying on the front seat. Thankfully, I actually remembered the most important items and only forgot stuff I didn’t need till later. I have to admit to being pretty proud of myself that day!
The reason I’m talking about remembering things today is because of a verse I noticed recently. I was studying Gideon, and in Judges 8:34, we read what happened right after he died.
“And the children of Israel remembered not the LORD their God, who had delivered them out of the hands of all their enemies on every side.”
One of God’s frequent commands to the Israelites in the Old Testament was to remember what He’d done for them. Remember means to bring something to mind, or to think about it again.
In the book of Deuteronomy alone, God specifically told His people at least nine times to remember what He did in bringing them out of Egypt. (If you’d like to look those up on your own, here are the references. Deuteronomy 5:15, 7:18, 8:2, 8:18, 15:15, 16:3, 16:12, 24:18, 24:22)
Surely if God was so insistent on the Israelites remembering what He’d done for them, He would want us to do the same. I found five verses in Psalms to encourage us in this area.
God is my rock and my redeemer. He is firm and unchanging, and I can always depend on Him. Reflecting on any of God’s character traits will lead me to praise Him.
Reflecting on His works and His wonders also causes me to praise Him. Whether I study the miracles of the Bible or look back at the wonderful ways He’s shown Himself mighty in my own life, I can recognize that whatever I’m currently facing is no match for an all-powerful God.
I love how this verse mentions remembering the Lord’s name in the night. If, like me, you sometimes have trouble sleeping, a great way to comfort yourself is to meditate on the names of God.
This type of remembering isn’t just a passing thought. No, we think on His works carefully, thoroughly, and seriously.
We serve a great God. He alone is God. No one else can do what He can. Only our God can keep His every promise
So why all the commands to remember? Why was it important for the Israelites to remember how God delivered them? What might it mean if you make it a practice to remember God’s work in your life?
I think this quote from Ann Voskamp in her book, One Thousand Gifts, says it well.
“Remembering is an act of thanksgiving, this turn of the heart over time’s shoulder to see all the long way His arms have carried.”
How can we help but be grateful when we spend time remembering all that God has done for us? In big ways and small, He has been faithful to love, guide, and watch over us.
A God who has brought us through trials in the past can be trusted to carry us through whatever is ahead. Even if we’ve never faced this particular situation before, we can have faith that God will meet this need also.
Martin Luther said this. “Faith is a living, daring confidence in God’s grace, so sure and certain that a man could stake his life on it a thousand times.“
It was only when the children of Israel forgot what God had done that they left off worshiping Him, and followed after Baal and other idols. Then God’s judgment came as punishment for their sin. How much better if they (and we!) could stop the cycle by keeping God’s greatness always before us.
Remembering keeps us humble. We realize that God is the one who’s accomplished everything good and productive in our lives. If it had been left up to us, what a mess we would have made of things! Yet God in His goodness and grace redeems our mistakes and continues to love and guide us.
So let’s work on our memories today! Take a few minutes to reflect on how God has worked in your life, maybe just recently. As you remember God’s work in your life, you can be confident in your future. We know, based on the past, that our God will continue to perform His will faithfully in our lives.
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“Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.” ~Philippians 4:6
We know the importance of prayer. I talk about it a lot here on the blog, from how to pray a prayer of praise to prayers for our homes and families to journaling our prayers.
Recently I was blessed to see God answer a prayer that’s been on my heart for months. In His goodness and faithfulness, He granted the request.
As I thanked Him for His answer, I realized that certain blessings come along with having our prayers answered. Yes, we get an answer to our request, the granting of what we prayed for. But there are other benefits to answered prayer.
Here are five amazing blessings of answered prayer.
I already know this in my head. God sent His Son to earth to die for me so that my sins could be forgiven. When I trust Jesus as my Savior, I get to live with Him forever in Heaven. Yet prayer adds another layer to us grasping that love.
God hears our prayers and understands our concerns. Nothing happens in our lives that’s not allowed by Him. And just as a loving earthly father answers the requests of his child, so our Heavenly Father loves us and wants to give us good gifts.
When we see a prayer answered, it reminds us that God is listening. He heard us asking for something, and He responded.
Maybe there’s something we’ve prayed about for years. Think of Zacharias and Elisabeth in Luke 1. How long had they been praying for a child? Likely for many years. They were living righteously, the Bible says, yet their prayer went unanswered…until it didn’t.
Having a prayer answered encourages us to continue praying about other needs.
If it seems that He’s not answering our prayer, we can trust that He will work in His own way and in His own time to bring His will to pass. We pray with the limited knowledge that we have. Thank God for his Holy Spirit that intercedes for us and helps us when we don’t know what to pray. [Romans 8:26-27]
We know the Bible verses that say that nothing is impossible with God. Yet how exciting it is when we see God do something in answer to our prayer that seemed beyond what could be accomplished. There are times when it is especially evident that God has worked in ways that man cannot explain.
While we already have so much for which to be thankful, answered prayer is yet another reason to praise God. It also allows us to bring honor and glory to Him by telling others what He has done for us.
If you keep a prayer list, make sure to note when specific prayers are answered. Or maybe keep a separate list of answered prayers that you can review from time to time and use the list to praise God for all that He’s done.
May God grant us all the blessings of seeing answered prayer in our lives!
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Have you experienced times in your life when you felt alone in a trial? Did you struggle to have faith even though you know God’s Word tells us that He is always faithful? Was it hard to trust God’s grace?
I remember a time when my “worst-case-scenario” self made an appearance. That’s the version of me that takes a minor medical issue and turns it into a terrible diagnosis.
My older daughter mentioned one evening that her eye was hurting a little bit. The next morning, she said it was really bothering her. She willingly took a couple of ibuprofen, which was a sure sign that she was in pain. I started searching for an eye doctor and got her an appointment for the next afternoon.
However, when I picked her up from school that day, she said her eye felt better. After hearing other symptoms she experienced, I decided it was probably a migraine. Thankfully, she was still feeling better the following morning. I canceled the doctor’s appointment and put my fears about this being the initial symptom of some terrible disease to rest.
We all have days when we’re not feeling well. We get run down and struggle to find enough energy to get through the day. And just like in our physical lives, we often experience ups and downs in our spiritual lives.
Sometimes I feel like things are going so well. I’m experiencing victory over sin (as in I kept my temper when a certain teenager didn’t respond the way I would have liked). Perhaps I stepped out of my comfort zone and spoke to someone about Christ. Maybe I’ve seen a specific answer to prayer, or have been consistent with my morning devotional time all week.
Then there are the days when it feels like nothing is going right. I’ve given in to an old familiar sin. I’m letting discouragement about a situation steal my hope. Or maybe I’ve been neglecting my Bible again.
I try taking it all to God, but I don’t seem to get any relief or find an answer for my problem. It can feel like I’m just stumbling along on my own. The words of Edward Mote’s hymn, “The Solid Rock,” comfort me in those times.
“When darkness veils His lovely face,
I rest on His unchanging grace.”
When I can’t feel God’s presence or I’m overwhelmed by circumstances or grief seems to have a permanent grip on my heart, I know that God is still there. He is present in my life.
No matter what my feelings are in the moment, they don’t change the fact that God is good and is always with me. I trust in His faithfulness because I’ve read about it in His Word and seen it evidenced in my life in the past.
I can ask God to reveal any sin in my life that might be hindering my fellowship with Him. Then I can rest in His grace, waiting and hoping through those dark seasons, knowing that He is there for me.
And they that know thy name will put their trust in thee: for thou, Lord, hast not forsaken them that seek thee. ~Psalm 9:10
Let’s learn to trust God’s grace even when we can’t see his face.
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