Endless Possibilities

Do you ever have times where you feel like the possibilities are endless and the opportunities are amazing? That’s where I am right now. God has been opening some doors, and I can’t wait to see what happens. My mind is going a million miles per hour lately, and my dreams are getting bigger by the minute. Maybe that’s jumping the gun a little bit, but I don’t care! I’m hoping to share all these developments with all of you soon, but for right now, I’m just going to sit here and take it all in. I can’t believe everything that God has been doing!

As most of you know, the last couple years have been pretty rough for my family and I. We have had some pretty serious struggles physically, financially, spiritually, and emotionally, but God has given grace in all these situations. The timing was definitely not what my husband and I were hoping for, but our timing was obviously not God’s plan. God’s plan is always better than our plan. I must not have learned this lesson well enough, because I keep having to relearn it. Imagine that! ME?! That was major sarcasm in case you missed it. Moving on!

These last few weeks have completely turned around our outlook on things. I’m not going to lie or sugar-coat this. We had given up. On everything. We truly didn’t know what we could do or where to even start. We still aren’t out of the woods. We may not even be close to getting out of the woods, but we are seeing a glimmer of light coming through the treetops. And that glimmer is so very welcome and needed!

I’m going to bring up a very sobering topic right now. When I said in the previous paragraph that we had given up, I’m being completely serious. We were at the very end of our figurative rope and were only hanging on by our fingernails. God knew we were about to lose it, and lose it in so many ways. I still am surprised all the time by how God waits to work until we have finally given up. We may not have voluntarily given up, but we had given up. There was absolutely nothing else that we could do. We had no hope. We had run out of options. We are still currently out of options, but we finally let go of our situation and stopped trying to “correct” what we screwed up. Guess what happened? God stepped in. He knew. He still knows. He will ALWAYS know.

Over these last few months especially, my husband and I have been so stressed out and depressed. We are struggling with our living situation. We are struggling with our finances. We are struggling with life in general. We know that our struggles are directly related to the dumb decisions we have made. We understand that, and we are doing our best to own those decisions and to ask for forgiveness. And God has been gracious. And, even though prayer has not come easily for many months, God has heard the prayers that have gone before Him. He has seen our struggles and has not turned a blind eye to them. He has not turned a deaf ear to our prayers. All He was waiting for was us to stop trying to “fix” our situations. We had finally run out of options. And that is exactly where God wanted us. We have hit rock bottom and now we will fully be able to see how God works.

I am always amazed by how big God is. I’m amazed by how strong He is. I’m amazed by how gracious He is. God is so forgiving and loving. We have truly and completely messed up so many things, and yet He is loving enough to help us and care for us. Even though my faith and my obedience are so lacking, He has never once left me. He has never left us. I have such an amazing God! I can’t sing His praises enough. I don’t deserve His love and care. He is so much more than I could ever deserve!

Yes, things have not been rosy for a LONG time, but God is still in control. I know I say that a lot, but I’ve never felt it to be more true than recently. God has supplied every need we have had. He may not have covered all our wants, but that’s just it. They were wants. They weren’t needs. There is a massive difference between those two things.

For those of you who are in that dark hole right now, hang on. God is waiting for you to let Him carry you through it. My husband and I have been in that dark place for a very long time. Depression is a real thing, people. Try not to let it control you. I know how hard that is to do. I’ve been there. I’m still there some days. It’s one of the worst feelings I’ve ever felt. But, I saw God work through my depression. My husband has also been dealing with it. It has been a horrible few years. But God used the depression to bring my husband and I even closer than we were. I know that sounds weird, but it’s so true. There were very few days where we were both down at the same time. Most days it would be one of us having trouble. God used each of us to help our spouse through the rough days. We each knew how the other person was feeling. We knew what it felt like and what was needed to get through that day. And, by God’s grace, we have mostly come out on the other side. I’m sure we haven’t seen the absolute end of it, but the days are getting better and the stretches of good days are getting longer. For each of us.

If you are having trouble with depression, please don’t be afraid to ask for help. You need to have someone to help you. You deserve to help yourself. Don’t feel like you have to take on the world by yourself. I’ve been there. I thought I was fine. I thought I could handle it all. I thought I was strong enough to handle all the things. Guess what? I was WRONG. Completely wrong. And it’s ok to be wrong! It’s ok to need help. It’s ok to ask for it. It’s ok to keep looking until you find the help you need. Please don’t ever forget that. Don’t ever forget your value. God values YOU.

I guess my whole point today is that things will look up. Things are finally starting to turn a little bit for our family. God knows we needed this now. God knows that we have been barely hanging on for a while now. I’m so thankful that God has allowed us to have these troubles. I know that sounds crazy, but it’s really not. If we wouldn’t have had these struggles and troubles, we wouldn’t know how to appreciate the good days and the good things that happen. All the good things would just go right over our heads, and we wouldn’t even know how to be thankful for them. So, yes, I am very thankful for everything that God has allowed us to experience. Good and bad. And I know God will carry us through each and every one of them.