When Hard Things Drop On You Uninvited

Friend, what hard thing are you facing this week? Have you noticed how hard things get dropped in your lap without warning or invitation?

The doctor delivers an unpromising health diagnosis. Another wall gets erected between you and that person you love. You bury someone so precious to you. Another bill demands money you don’t have. Your spouse leaves or your child gets sick.

Although hard things get dropped in our lap, we tend to pick them up and tuck them deep within us, don’t we? There, in the darkness, we water it with worry. We spend energy growing the worry into fear or overwhelming grief. Fear and grief blossom and further block our view of the light we once enjoyed. Their fruit becomes so heavy that our heart, mind and limbs can barely sustain its weight.

Oh, sweet friend, lift up your weary head. As a Chosen and Crowned daughter of the King, what you see is not your reality. Will you do something for me? You know that hard thing? Take it out from where you’ve tucked it inside. Put it back in your hands. Hold it out in front of you so you can see it.  Now open your hands.

This is where you must make a choice.

You can either release it into the hands of the One who has authority over the hard thing? Or you can close your fingers back around it and tuck it deep inside?

I wish I could see your hands right now. It’s scary right?! If you tuck it back inside, strangely, it somehow feels safer… like you have some control over it. And if you let it go, you feel vulnerable…like you’re opening yourself up to further disappointment or more hurt.

Let me ask you this? Will you trust God with your hard thing today? When you get brave enough to release it, you are placing it in the hands of Someone who loves you endlessly, Someone who has promised you a bright future, Someone who died so you could live free.

So I’m asking you to get your brave on today. What would happen if you stopped coddling your fear and instead made room for faith? What would happen if you fixed your eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen?

You’d begin breathing again. You’d begin living again. That hard thing doesn’t get the final word. God does. Press yourself into his heart today instead of allowing that hard thing to press on you. You are precious to him! Now open your hand and declare these words:

“I am hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. Therefore I will not lose heart. Though outwardly I am wasting away, inwardly I am being renewed day by day. For my light and momentary troubles are achieving for me an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So I fix my eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:7-9; 16-18).

Anna Frye is a speaker, author, television host and founder of the Chosen and Crowned tribe. She invites moms and wives to celebrate imperfect progress fueled by the grace of a perfect God. She helps women bravely talk about the messy places of life, instead of hiding shamefully under them. She believes that lasting beauty comes when women courageously surrender their ashes to God and allow him to do something mind-blowingly amazing with them. If this resonates with you, then you belong with the Chosen and Crowned tribe. Connect at www.ChosenAndCrowned.com/blog