When It's Too Much

You get bad news.
A short while later, something else hard happens.
Then that experience is followed with more heavy things.
And it  just   
feels     like    too     much.

Heavy thing after heavy thing after heavy thing, with barely any time to breathe in between.
Have you ever felt that way? Like it's too much? I have... I do.
"Battle weary" is how I described it to someone recently. When you are weary to the depths.


God clearly whispered to my heart four years ago to get ready, to get my Armor on, and be watchful.
God is good to us like that. He warns us. He prepares us. But He wants us to choose to use what He's prepared.
There have been times in the years since that warning that I have been strong and fought well. There have been times when I have been weak and tired. There have been times when I was victorious, and there have been times when I was distracted and got wounded.
I've been on the battlefield for awhile, under heavy and seemingly constant attacks from the enemy. And today, already weak and limping, this one more thing, the news from this phone call, was too much.
Too much.


On this "too much" day a few months ago I sat on the side of the road in my car and cried out to God with tears pouring, and told him brokenly, angrily, out loud, "God, this feels like too much. It's too much. It's too heavy. I can't take any more. It's too much."
With heartbreaking honesty, I told him it made me mad. I asked him why? Why now? Why more?
I pounded the steering wheel and screamed and railed at him...
I did.
And suddenly I was reminded of someone else who did that. Someone who probably felt like it was too much. A guy who lost pretty much everything in just one day. A guy named Job who reached a point and had a pity party much like I was, but also was a guy who ultimately said of God, "Even if he slay me, I will still trust him."
I sat in that thought for many moments while the tear streaks dried on my face. Could I step into that kind of trust? Did I want to? I felt like I had wasted my time for years trying to be good, trying to follow the rules and do the right things, and live the right way, and I thought life would be easier then. I thought when you do the right things, the wrong things don't happen.
This hard stuff didn't feel fair.
Job probably thought it wasn't fair either. The Bible says he was an "upright" person, which means he was honorable...he did what was right. God knew Job would be okay. He even knew Job would end up better than he was before. He knows the same about us, that He has good plans for us. Still that thought doesn't necessarily make the hard things hurt less. But it does still ask the question...Do I want to trust God like that? Can I?
I really wanted to crawl into a hole and shut the world out, shut the problems out, shut out the responsibilities and just everything. I wanted quiet for my soul. But then I realized what I really wanted, craved, was to fall into the security of safe arms that would hold me with strength and love and never let me down. In my mind's eye, I pictured God's open arms beckoning me, asking me, inviting me...
Did I trust Him? Even when things felt like too much and I didn't understand?
I closed my eyes and leaned slowly over to lie down on the seat. I pictured my head in Jesus' lap and his arms holding me. I felt a soft whisper to my weary soul of, It IS too much for you. But it's not too much for ME. Stop trying to do it on your own. It's mine. You're mine. You CAN'T do it. But I can."


I lie there for long moments. The sadness didn't go away. But the crushing weight of it did.
I admitted to myself that it's moments like this when I really learn what my faith is made of. I thought back to all the ways over my lifetime that God has proven to me that I definitely can trust Him with all of my "too-much" moments. It's never too much for Him. And it's only too much for us when we try to carry it, or fix it, without Him.


He begs us to come lay in His arms. Matthew 11:30 promises us that His yoke is easy and his burden is light because he bears the brunt of it on himself.
When we feel like it's too much, it's because it is. It's not ours to carry.
After all...Jesus carried the weight of the sin of the world. My little burden alone is not hard at all for Him!

The End of a Thing

My eyes opened after a restless night’s sleep and as I stared up into the intruding daylight, my first thought was: tomorrow is the last day of this year. I stuck my tongue out at the ceiling and thought, 2018, I am glad to see you go.

Photo by @sazzleb on Unsplash

My mind immediately flooded itself with all the painful and hard times I had walked through in the last twelve months. Sadness pressed in at the corners of my heart. 

Nothing had gone at all like I had planned or thought this year would go. 

I remembered feeling this same sadness at the end of 2017, and being glad when it was over too and thinking that, because I made it...I survived, that the next year, 2018, would be better and easier. 

And, yet, it wasn’t easier or better.

The sadness invaded and pushed a little deeper and I remembered another tough year in 2015, which had brought challenges and changes and struggles, and how glad I was to ring in 2016 and leave 2015 behind.

Suddenly, I realized I have basically spent the end of every year for at least the last 4 years mourning what I considered as lost instead of celebrating what was gained.

My word of the year from God for 2018 floated in big letters across my mind… 

C H O O S E.

I sat up in bed. 

I felt a shift occurring inside me… the Holy Spirit inviting me into action.

I choose.

I can choose to commiserate, or I can choose to celebrate.

I choose.

I can choose to commiserate the hard things, or I can choose to celebrate how God used the hard things to soften me.

I choose.

I can choose to commiserate prayers not answered my way, or I can celebrate how I heard God speaking to my heart more clearly in this season than I ever have before.

I choose.

I can choose to commiserate what I felt forced to change about myself, or I can celebrate that those yucky not-so-God-like parts of me were sloughed out.

I choose.

I can choose to commiserate the exhaustion and numerous tears, or I can celebrate the new strength I found and the faith that grew. 

I choose.

I physically felt joy come into my spirit and my heart and push all the invading sadness of the pondering thoughts away!

I thought about how the enemy wants to steal so many things from me, from us. And I’ve let him steal my celebratory thoughts for the last several years. 

Yes, 2018 just MAY be one of the hardest years I’ve experienced...so far. But I thought the same thing in prior years. And I’ll probably think the same thing about future years.

Hard doesn’t mean bad. It doesn’t have to, anyway.

There are always victories in the hard places. If it wasn’t hard, we wouldn’t have as much of a reason to celebrate when it’s over. 

When a person runs a marathon and they finish, I doubt they stop at the end and cry and think about how hard it was and how they wish they had never experienced it and how unfair some of the hills and rocky places were. I don’t know for sure because...well, I don’t run! But I imagine, no matter what place they finish in, when they get to the end and cross that line and are gasping for breath and are exhausted and bruised and sore, I bet they look back and smile. 

They made it!

Whether limping across or running full out, they made it! And now they know more what it’s like and what it takes and how to train better. They have experience for the next one. 

I’ve said before that when God placed on my heart my theme verse for 2018, I first freaked out a little. The “end of a thing” sounds ominous! The verse, Ecclesiastes 7:8, says, “Better is the end of a thing than the beginning, and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.”  I spent several months wondering and worrying about what 2018 might cost me? What would end? That’s pride talking. Pride says it doesn’t want things to end. Pride says it knows better. Pride says it wants what it wants. I didn’t understand the connection between the first and second part of that verse until late in the year…like, super late. Like maybe yesterday?! 

I have a post it on my computer that says, “You can’t fully cast your anxieties on God and keep your pride too.” For one to really end, the other has to end, too.

The end. 

Endings are not bad. 

Actually, endings are never bad when I am truly walking with God. 

Endings just make way for new beginnings. 

Finally, on the next to last morning of 2018, I slid from my bed down onto my knees on the floor and prayed and apologized to God for choosing to let myself commiserate the endings instead of celebrating the finish line, and stepping into the new beginning He has spent the year preparing me for. 

I’m not the same person I was a year ago. 

Some things in me had to go. 

They had to end in order for the new me to begin. 

This has been a process my whole entire life! It’s called maturity. The Bible also calls it “sanctification.” 

I’m not the same person I was 10 years ago, because some things in me had to end back then, too. And I’m glad they did! I’m so glad God didn’t leave me in my 29 year old spiritual and emotional position! Can you imagine? Honestly, it would be like running the same race year after year after year, time after time after time. How boring! No new scenery, no new challenges, no new victories.

God doesn’t want that for me. And He doesn’t want it for you. 

He wants us to look back, and celebrate how far we’ve run, and smile, and then look ahead with excitement and determination for the next race ahead. 

Don’t be deceived though…

There WILL be tough hills, and rocky spots. It will be hard going and exhausting. We may trip and fall sometimes, or get a pebble in our shoe. But we will also get stronger, and faster, and more determined as we realize we never, ever, ever run it alone. 

And it’s exhilarating and empowering to think of each year, not as new hardships to overcome, but as new preparation and conditioning for our next race. I know God used my 2015 to help me maneuver through my 2018. And he’ll use my 2018 to make me stronger for another year. 

There’s hope and some deep love in that. Endings of anything when dropped into God’s hands are always better.

So, I look back on the tough marathon that was 2018, and though it went nothing like what I had thought or planned, I smile. I made it. I learned a lot. I grew a lot. A lot of things ended that needed to end. It was better than my plan.

Now it’s time to turn and look at the 2019 marathon ahead. It’ll bring new challenges, some new hills and valleys, some beautiful scenery and peaceful moments, some chaos and some quiet, some bruises and some stronger muscles. And some more things will likely end, and other things will begin...and it’s better that way.

Isaiah 43:19 “Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”