Hardships along the way

**sigh** My dryer died a few days ago and let me tell you, I miss it alot. I never really thought about how dependent on something as simple as a dryer, until it quit working. Seemed like the day the dryer died, everything else stated happening too, and thus working the last good nerves I had for the weekend. I very quickly went into the whole "woe is me routine". You know.. this is not gonna work, how can I survive (yep, I actually thought survive) without this thing, WHY is this happening to me cause I am being "good". You know... all the stuff we think about when we go through things, like we are too good to have anything happen to us. And I am still working on attitude, cause see, when things happen to me, they tend to lead my whole day. If it starts out bad, then it pretty much is like that all day for me. Not something I am proud of.

Then I started talking to a friend who pretty much laughed at me and was like " Are you serious?" "You really need to get a grip and man (or woman up)". She tends to talk to me like that when I start feeling sorry for myself. But she was right. If a dryer can make or break my whole day, imagine what would happen if something "major" went on.

I reread a chapter in a book I am trying to finish now "To Live is Christ by my favorite ..Beth Moore. She talked about Paul and Barnabas going back to Lystra, Iconium and Antioch even after they left the cities the first time under severe circumstances. I mean they tried to stone Paul Iconium, persecuted them in Antioch and actually stoned and left Paul for dead in Lystra. And even after all of that, they chose to go back to those very cities to strengthen and encourage the disciples. They both faced a great risk to tell everyone that we must all go through hardships if we are going to enter the kingdom of heaven.

We (and I am talking to ME today) must realize that we ARE going to go through hardships (its gonna happen whether you like it or not) because one, "Satan is who he is and is trying to defeat us by causing us to struggle and fall and two, God wants to give us eternal victory by working His glory in and through them." God loves us and Satan wants us to suffer.. and for those reasons, we will have struggles. Seems odd huh?

I also had to come to grips with (and this one is the hard one for me) that I am gonna struggle because "hardships come as a direct result of sin and disobedience." Yep... I messed up, well sinned (and yes I know we are all sinners) and even if nothing happened to me right then, it doesn't mean that I will not have to suffer the consequences for it later on. And thus, I get really tired. So much so that I really don't want or feel like doing much of anything..... and Satan wins.

I guess that maybe I need to realize that hardships are inevitable and instead of letting it get me down as it does most of the time, it should encourage me in faith as she says in the book. As believers, we are going to suffer many hardships. Things are going to happen and there is no way to stop it and nothing you can do. When Paul and Barnabas went back to the cities after all the bad things had happened to them, it should great strength and courage and it said Yep, some bad stuff happened to me, but guess what, we are still here and we are not gonna stop!

My favorite song by Mary Mary has a verse in it that says: " I just can't give up now. Come to far from where I started from. Nobody told me, the road would be easy and I don't believe He brought me this far, to leave me."

Yep, life is difficult, dryer will break (especially after 14 years... lol), but God is true to His Word and as long as we don't give up or give in, none of our struggles will be in vain!

I hope you all have a great Tuesday. lord willing , we will talk again tomorrow!