Maybe my last post made this evident, but yesterday was a rough day. Looking back on it, I felt up against all kinds of spiritual things that sort of pummeled my morale all day long, and I went to bed both exhausted and resolute. There’s something about sensing that it’s a spiritual battle that gives me a kind of gusto for getting back at things the next day.

Then last night, my night’s sleep was short, and I didn’t necessarily expect that I’d wake up feeling upbeat. But grace flooded in, because my feet hit the ground with promises running through my head, and I felt like I had a new lease on things from the day before. It’s really true that God’s mercies are new every morning. As I drove H to school, that was the first thing I could think to pray…”Thank you, God, that your mercies are new again today and that we can experience them again.” I love that this isn’t as complicated as we might try to make it sometimes in our bent as humans. When we wake up, the promise is there. New mercies. They don’t run out or expire.

I’ve learned that I can walk in my own temporary truths, or I can press into the ones that are really there for me–the Word and what God has to offer to my spirit, even and especially when I’m feeling wrung out. When I can find my way through the hard or the voice in my head or the moment that left me discouraged, there is freedom waiting on the other side. How I ever lived without it, I’m not sure, but with God’s promises at hand I can expect a different result. Coming to rely on that has released so much consternation and striving over time.

Some things aren’t going to right themselves overnight. Certain battles feel harder won than others, or maybe not won at all. I can’t assume that I’ll wake up in the morning and the problems left behind from yesterday will have disappeared. What I do know, though, is that my capacity to handle things is greater after I’ve slept on them. Greater still, when I’ve released them to God before my eyes close on the day. I don’t feel called anymore to resolve everything as I once did. I only feel called to hand things to God and ask for help (or even to just acknowledge my limitations). When I do, I experience those mercies that only God can offer me, and I know more fully that He is there and willing to extend himself to me again and again.

This life is such a gift. Each day, a gift. When I feel like I’m missing it, I only have to wake up and trust for the blurred lines to become clearer.

MM