I was reading an article about Michelle Payne, the jockey from the biopic movie, Ride Like a Girl, and I was surprised to read how challenging her life was. Her mother was killed when Michelle was a baby, leaving 10 children motherless. Another sibling died not long after birth and her sister also died after falling from off a horse; and the challenge of her brother’s Down Syndrome diagnosis. How she and her family overcame such adversity is really remarkable and I’m not surprised that a movie has been about her.
I was thinking about her father and thought that I wouldn’t have been able to cope. But I recalled something I’ve read - God gives us graces enough for now. Not for tomorrow, next week, or even for 5 minutes time. Just enough for this very moment. I think we look at our challenges as a whole and find this overwhelming. Do you know someone that finds it hard to face school, work or just cope with day to day life? Someone struggling with anxiety or depression may find simple tasks in life a challenge. But almost always, they do it, don’t they? They just cope despite the struggle and pain. That’s God’s grace giving them what they need for that moment. Not for the next day or for a weeks time. And not by necessarily just taking it all away either. I’ve been guilty of expecting the big sudden change, and wondered at times where God was. He was always there, giving me the strength to move forward, literally minute by minute. Not making it painless but giving me ability to walk on despite pain. God is not past nor future. He is always now. Meeting us in our need, NOW. Our loss of peace now, is not so much our challenge or adversity, it is our preoccupation with ourselves in this challenge, and our lack of acceptance of ourselves. We fight it...why me, this is not me, I can’t do this...instead of surrendering to God now, and trusting in His grace to get us through the next moment. And His grace is sufficient for now only. Sometimes He gives us just enough to get us moving, not a whole lot extra. But when we need a whole lot extra, that will come then too. Find peace in not seeing or knowing too far ahead. Find peace in being blindly lead 🌺
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I want to talk to you... you who are feeling constant agitation, your mind cloudy, and you who feel that you’re drowning in the deepest and darkest ocean, finding it difficult to lift your head above the enormous waves. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
I want to talk to you... you who fights their reality. Who cannot accept their emotions, and their pain. You, who can comfort another person with a genuine empathetic heart, and who can accept other people’s challenges but cannot give an inch of compassion to themselves. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ I want to talk to you... you who thinks “this is not me. I’m better/stronger/more capable than this.” You who are so preoccupied with perfection of self, trying so hard to be in control, and who closely monitors their feelings with frustration and fear. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ I want to talk to you... you who puts a smile on their face although they feel a tornado inside. You who feels like a fraud when someone pays them a compliment because “if only they knew how flawed I really am...” right? ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ I want to talk to you...you who compares themselves to everyone else through a distorted idealistic lens ... “they know better/do better/are better than me.” ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ I want to talk to you...you who are trying, So... Damn...Hard. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ I know how you feel. I have felt it all. We’re all broken and we’re all humans. We all struggle in some way. If only you knew how many people do and how many people feel as you do. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Look at this as an opportunity to learn about yourself. To learn patience, gentleness and to abandon yourself to God. He does not permit unnecessary suffering, and his power manifests itself in our weakness. We need challenges because adversity breeds strength and strength breeds character. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Don’t listen to the lies, turn your back on your thoughts. Not once or twice, but every day. Talk to someone. Keep going and never give up. You are courageous because you’ve come this far. And carrying this takes enormous strength. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Above all... pray. That you may see yourself how God sees you. His beloved. As a Father sees his little child for whom his heart bleeds and for whom he wishes to carry to safety, if only they let Him talk to them🌺 I was in Church and a disturbing and anxious thought shot up in my brain. I was taken aback because prior to that moment I wasn’t stressed about anything; I was deeply into the mass, and feeling at one in communion. I became uncomfortable and tried to push the thought away...of course my mind took that as a cue to play around and it began to fish for more anxious thoughts that it knew would bother me. The more frustrated I became, the more that anxiety rose, and the more anxious thoughts it created. Annoyed, I barely heard the homily as I tried to gather myself back to the moment.
Just then I heard the priest talk about God wanting us to be strong...’ Put on your armour of Christ, there is nothing He can’t conquer.’ I’m a big believer in signs so when I heard that, I felt that God was telling me not to be swept by the negativity, but to draw on His strength. I pulled out some old tools, reminded myself that the thoughts are like passing clouds, they’re created from fear, and the more attention I paid them, the worse they’d be. I said quietly to my brain ‘not today, thanks.’ I gave space for the feelings to subside and peace came over me. Not everybody is vulnerable to this, and some of us may need to work a little harder at times. And that’s ok. We’re all broken in some way, struggling with pride, anger, impatience, jealousy to having addictions, anxiety or depression. Show me a perfect person, and I’ll show you Christ! So we don’t see our challenges or our humanity as flawed, rather when we can accept it all stems from our brokenness, the better we can handle them, and then we can be in a place of transformation. Allowing ourselves to be vulnerable is so important. It allows God to work in us and it allows us to feel the need for His strength. There is no shame in this. It saddens me when people see the struggle with their mind as being weak or that they’re not normal. I can tell you that yes, I’ve had moments of difficulty and struggle over the years, but I can’t tell you how I’ve come to realise my own strength, and my faith in God. I believe that once we can see our vulnerability as a gift, then we can truly see ourselves as perfectly as God sees us 🌺 |
Walking togetherTaking a journey, and a leap of faith. From my Instagram page Archives
April 2020
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