When It Feels Like You're Dying.

I step onto the pavement and close my eyes.  I've been here before, when I was seventeen and breathing felt like an inconvenience.  Years ago, in this place, my heart crumbling but my smile staying in tact.  I cried in this place, sobbed into my mother's back for hours and wondered how my swollen eyes and busted heart would ever recover.  

I thought it was going to kill me.

Fast forward a few years and I'm back, not for the first time, breathing and with a heart beating full of life.  That pain hurt like crazy and I wouldn't want to repeat the adventure by any means.  But, as it turns out, what I thought was going to be the death of me didn't end up killing me like I thought.

It's funny how sometimes the trick to getting through is to just keep going.

Some time ago, I listened as a woman I held in high regard spoke about how the enemy tried to tell her she was getting old and she needed to let the younger ones handle the ministry.  And I watched as she laughed her special laugh and said, "I got news for the devil.  I ain't dead yet!"

This year has been hard for me, for reasons I can't even understand.  Growth isn't easy, and it's definitely not painless.  I've had to remind myself numerous times that this is the deep end and it can feel like I am drowning, but I am also still breathing.  I'm still in this thing.  I ain't dead yet.

I don't know what you're facing right now.  I don't know the grief or misery that grips your heart.  I don't know the situation you find yourself buried in.  But I do know this: the situation you thought would kill you before didn't.  And the situation you think will kill you now won't.

Don't lay down and take a beating.  The enemy may whisper lies, trying to convince you that you're over.  He may try to convince you that you're dead, done, and down for the count.  But as long as you're still breathing, God still has a purpose for you.  God still has a reason for you.  And you're still in the fight.  You're still in the race.  You're still in this thing.

You're still alive.

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Day Ten.

You can find the rest of the series here.