It wears you down, erodes your strength and undercuts your faith.
It's so very exhausting.
How do you renew yourself, to keep on when the days seem to darken around you?
I think the only way is a close focus.\
It's like running a marathon; if you think of the whole 26 miles, you'll never make it. But cut that down into smaller parts..."I can at least get there"...and you've got a chance.
We so often ask the Almighty for the strength to overcome our obstacles, but sometimes perhaps we need to start small.
Like asking for the strength to get out of bed in the morning.
Asking for the strength to smile when we want to cry.
And asking for the strength to hold on in faith for a single second longer.
It's the renewal the world needed, two thousand years ago. That chance to hold on in faith, one more time, before everything imploded into fanaticism and tyranny, a whirlpool of hate that would take everything good into Hell.
Renewal, to us in our hard days, comes as a whisper.
To the world, it came as a baby.
Music from Andrew Peterson, with You'll Find Your Way.
Today's keyword for Advent-Photo-A-Day is renew.
Previous posts in this series are
December 3 - The Meaning Of Christmas
December 4 - A Caregiving Home
December 5 - Caregiver, Please Wait For Me
December 6 - A Caregiver's Vision
December 7 - A Caregiver's Magnificat
Please pardon my slow response to comments. I'm doing my best, and your comments are really precious to me.
I'm really not doing well at all.
Thanks to Carol Ashby, Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart is back on Kindle, and will be available in paperback in a few days!
Friends are everything. I couldn't have done it.
I have another blog, "Starting The Day With Grace". The focus is a grace quote from someone you might not expect (like, say Mick Jagger) and a short commentary. I hope you'll join me.
Marley update... been moved to a sanctuary, and Bay County will revise their 'dangerous dog' codes.
WE MADE A DIFFERENCE!
And marley has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.
If you can, please do leave a comment. I am trying to answer all, and I am failing, but please know this - I read and treasure each one.
Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.
Wow!
ReplyDeleteYes, you are so right. There's a whole layer we can't see that's going on and it has a lot to do with that "itty bitty baby" in a manger. Thanks, Andrew.
ReplyDelete