When things get hard in life we all tend to react!!
Most often we desire to stop doing that “hard thing”. We want to just give up, walk away, shut down or eat a few too many bowls of cereal (my husband told me to write this part, haha)!
There are so many people in the Bible who were amazing examples of perseverance!
Joseph persevered through temptation, through being thrown in prison, through being overlooked and forgotten as well as being betrayed by his own brothers. Job showed great perseverance when God allowed his health to fail, his family to die, and his wealth to be stripped! He even persevered while everyone around him encouraged him to turn his eyes away from God. Even then he persevered and trusted His heavenly Father. David showed perseverance throughout constant conflict with king Saul and even after multiple personal failures. Through perseverance and humility, he finished his life well! While these people in the Bible can be great people to learn from and admire, it's important to see and understand that Christ is the ONLY one who lived perfectly and the ONLY one who truly persevered perfectly! We have had 5 children now for 6 months! Our 5th child was placed in our home right before Christmas! The honeymoon stage is over and the struggles, defiance, misbehavior and hardships are in full swing! Our 5th child's adoption should be finalized by Christmas time and while we are thrilled about this Satan has also whispered lies into our ears over the last month or so .... Lies that come with temptations ....Lies that are, in fact, clearly lies but often easier to take as truth when we are in the middle of the hardship!
Lies like....
His behaviors will only get worse from here.
Turn back now, before it's too late.
Healing will never come.
He will have to be medicated his whole life.
You will never have peace in your family again.
It says in 1 Peter 5:8 to "be sober minded and watchful. Satan prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour."
I have never believed this more than I do in this season of my life! Satan IS trying to literally take our lives! He is trying to take our children's lives too! I feel it's actually very important for us to believe this wholeheartedly and yet often, we walk around this life thinking we don't have an enemy that seeks to devour us! What's worse is that he disguises himself as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14). We have to be watching and on guard!!
The encouraging thing is that God has given us all the tools to overcome Satan! Ephesians 6:11 tells us to put on the armor of God so that we will be ABLE to stand against the schemes of the devil.
If you are in the foster care world, you know that it is hard! That is no surprise! But, maybe you are in a season where you feel it's too hard! Maybe you feel God is putting too much on you!
The truth: He is!
And thats exactly where you want to be! God perfects me in my weakness and I see that time and time again in my parenting and in my life!
I see that time and time again when I literally fall to my knees and beg God to tell me how to fix it, how to change it, how to have peace, how to bring healing to these precious children who have so much pain bottled up inside!
When I realize how weak and limited I am outside of Christ, my dependence on Him grows! I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that His yoke is light and that when I try to accomplish things on my own, I'm unable to have any lasting impact!
What God has been teaching me in this season is that endurance looks different when I ask for more of Jesus and not less of a problem!
Endure well. Persevere well. It will be worth it! God is using it! Heaven will be so great!
Let’s put on that armor and face this battle with our mighty heavenly father!