declaration of dependence

These last few weeks have been exhausting. Every day is a battle. It seems like everything is kind of coming to a head now and I'm not sure what to do with it all. I'm being attacked with negativity and I'm letting it sneak back in to myself. I'm overwhelmed. I want to curl up in a ball and ride out the storm. To escape. To escape to a beach house on a small island far away with a hammock out front where it's perpetually dusk under the coconut palm trees. Sunset. Sea salt in the air, and the sweet smell of flowers blooming not far away. And my hair is sticking together because of the salt and sand. Sounds nice.

But that's my old nature. The Bible says I have been given a new nature, a new life, a new existence, and one day I'll be given a new body that can handle all those other things. But for now I'm stuck trying to live out this new nature in my present imperfect body with my imperfect mind incapable of thinking rationally and my imperfect heart incapable of loving completely and I just have to deal with it. I heard a saying a while back that has helped me and it has been getting me through this last week. It goes like this: "When the persecuted Christians in China pray, they don't pray that God will make their load lighter, they pray that He will make their backs stronger, and then they rejoice." I want some of that. I have prayed that prayer many times already. The rejoicing part hasn't quite hit me yet. But I'm surviving. I'm doing my best to encourage my wife who is under the weather and 8-1/2 months pregnant, counsel friends who need serious help, stay afloat with bills and insurance nightmares, grocery shopping, keeping the house liveable as far as hygeine goes (I'm not doing a very good job of this), keeping myself awake enough to go to work every day, and doing my best to prepare for bombardment at every turn. And this operation could never be successful without a strength that I in myself do not possess. A supernatural strength is what I'm holding on to and if I let go I will drown in this ocean of trials. But as the Lord lives, I will push on, because I know that's what He wants from me. This is character building time. It's not fun. It seems pointless. But it's not. Because when I come out of this, I will be that much wiser, that much stronger, and that much more dependent on the grace of the only Living God.