I am learning so much about hardships lately. Not even just my own but hardships as a whole and how we deal with them as a result of the growth that springs forth from it. I press my face against the cold floor and my head spins with all of the hardships that people around me are facing. Barren women longing to hold life in their womb, single women longing to be held by a husband. Sick family members and friends needing healing, others who are in desperate need of deliverance from addictions. People who are close to living on the street, others who are trying to provide for babies who are low on diapers. It's so much and it's all around us and I'm learning that walking through hardships with the smile and the positivity is not what saves you from them.

There are many times that choosing joy and holding your head up is an answer but honestly I believe that majority of the time we will see the roots grow the deepest in our faith when we allow ourselves to be wracked with emotions and grieve our hardships. I truly believe that it's easy to look up and choose the joy, pressing forward and walking along. What I believe is the hardest thing is to allow the waves to crash over you. To allow yourself to be tossed around through the waters, barely breathing, angry and fighting, gasping for air until you give up and push your hand through the troubled waters, waiting for His hand to intertwine with yours. "He will never give you more than you can handle" is such a silly phrase. Of course He will. If it was easy and you could handle it and being positive was enough to get you through it then you would never need Him.

"For You, God, tested us;
You refined us as silver is refined. 
You lured us into a trap;
You placed burdens on our  backs.
You let men ride over our heads;
we went through fire and water,..."

Yep. That fire you're walking through, it's hot. And those waters are falling so hard you feel like you can't breathe. But wait, friends. Just wait and read this last verse.

"But you brought us out to ABUNDANCE."

He brought us out and into abundance nonetheless. He doesn't just pull us out from our hardships and then let us lay there...He pulls us out and then gives us the abundance. The abundance doesn't always look the way we think it should but it looks exactly how He knows it should. Maybe He brought you out of your financial struggles through the help of paying off your debt instead of handing you a job with a $50,000 salary. Maybe instead of giving life to a baby He fills your home with 7 or 8 adopted children. Maybe instead of your own house to live in, He gives you a room in someone else's home to call your own.

Life is hard, y'all. I don't care how good you have it with your perfect family and your perfect home. Life. Is. Hard. He even tells us in John 16:33 that the troubles will come. They will come over and over again. It will be hard but the good thing is-we can do hard things and the reason we can do hard things is because in that moment of fighting when we decide we're to weak and we give up...He gives us His strength. What a great trade off that is. When we're weak He's strong and so that mountain you're facing can and will be leveled out for you (Isaiah 45:2). You won't do it by yourself and that's ok because that's the point. He goes before us and knows whats ahead. He allows us to keep walking down the horrible path we've put ourselves on. He lets us feel the heat from the fire. He lets the waves crash over us. But we're never burned and we never drown. We never stay on the same path we start out on. Because He brings us out and He brings us to abundance.

Always.