I know many of our amazing and supportive readers have been following along on our personal page with the many things our family has gone through this year.

From a state to state move after a job loss, to my mother’s crash in health and moving in with us, and now lately to my oldest daughter having serious health issues and needing a shunt revision..

Well, lets just say Spring has pretty much passed me by and we are on the brink of summer, with no recollection of how we got here! I am very thankful to say it seems the crisis with our house, the job, my Mom’s health, and now my daughter seems to have passed, which leaves me, really, in many ways, deeply exhausted as I try to recover.

As many of you know, and understand, though, this is the time of year when things get busy for us.

I have a garden to plant, and design, since we are in a new house.

I have a new house to organize and make work for my family, especially since much of my needed items are still sitting over at the old house and will need to be brought over so I can finish making this house into a home. We are behind in schooling for my oldest because of her many hospital stays.

And all of that could really get me down and discourage me, but I refuse to let it.

In all of the things we have been handed this year that were over the top stressful, or challenging, I have also seen a measure of grace and strength to walk us through it. We had many folks praying for us as we faced each new challenge, and knowing that really helped us keep focused.

We were able to see things resolve over and over again in a much quicker fashion than was anticipated. I know that was in response to many who were praying and lifting us up as we walked through those trials and tribulations.

Life IS messy.

So often we want to put it in a box, try to control and organize it, decorate it to make it pretty, and show it off to the world, don’t we? We forget that to feed a family well means there are dirty dishes, and everyone puts dirty underwear in a hamper at the end of the day, right?

We gloss over what life really IS, messy in every way, because it makes us acknowledge that Life is not something that can be controlled, but something to be lived.

And how you live it, in those messy, nasty, discouraging and dark times, will determine how  you live in the good times as well. It will determine how you choose to view life, and through what lenses.

It will impact those around you for good or for bad.

I have had to come to a point many times this Spring that I find myself far beyond my own abilities to handle the mess I am confronted with. From facing a job loss and watching my strong and capable husband despair as he looked at how he would feed and house his family with a Minnesota winter coming on……and I could do little to help him. To sitting in a doctor’s office only a few weeks ago and find out my daughter’s shunt fluid is no longer working in her stomach and now the tubing needs to be moved to her heart…and I could do nothing about it.

Those are the times that I clearly saw the Lord was allowing those circumstances to stretch us, and teach us that control really is an illusion, and faith is not. Learning to stand strong because the fight over all of these things was not ours to make, and that we simply needed to trust it was something that we would learn from.

Living in the messy is hard.

But the lessons you walk away with, the confidence in both the provision of God for your life, and in realizing that your own ability to get through something (or a lot of somethings all in a row) is a lot bigger than you thought it was, is inspiring and helps build a stronger foundation.

So if you are going through tough times too, if you feel like a bug pinned to a screen and helpless to change your circumstances…..if you feel like the trials you are going through are never going to end….seriously, comment. Let me pray for you, as one broken friend for another. Let me encourage you. Let me help you make sense of it all and find a foundation to stand on that the waves will break against and leave you still standing.

For those of you who have been through it, share this with someone who needs to read they are not alone…that trials and challenges happen to everyone. Send them a love note that encourages them to keep walking, that you haven’t forgotten and are praying for them, that you are there.

I am thankful for the many dear friends who have done that for us. Sometimes those were the only bright spots in some really dark days.

Blessings to you and yours,

~Heather

sunflower boquet

“I can do all things through Christ who gives me Strength.”

Philippians 4:13