It’s Too Hard…

Tonight, I wanted to offer some food for thought from the pen of author Stasi Eldredge in her book Defiant Joy: Taking Hold of Hope, Beauty, and Life in a Hurting World. I hope it makes you pause like I did and reconsider which kind of hard I’m choosing every day:

“It’s hard to fight for a marriage. It’s hard to lose a marriage.

It’s hard to break an addiction. And it’s hard to be captive to one.

It’s hard to live under the cloak of depression. It’s also hard to step toward healing.

It’s hard to face the story of your life. And it’s hard to live in denial.

It’s hard to reject the pressure of other people’s demands. It’s hard as well to live under them.

It’s hard to set aside time every single day to press into the heart of God. Sometimes it’s even hard to pray. It’s hard to find the time. But it’s harder to live your day with strength, hope, and integrity if you don’t.

It’s hard to pursue Living Water. And it’s hard to live in a dry and thirsty land without it.

It’s hard to fight for and guard your heart. It’s hard to lose it.

We get to choose our hard, and the decision we make will either lead to cultivating our hearts with a hope-filled joy or deadening them with weariness and despair.

Every morning when I wake up, I can guess that there are going to be hard things in the day. But the hard I choose is to follow Christ wherever He leads, and that hard leads to life and joy. Always. Even in the midst of suffering. So I urge you to…

Choose life.

Choose thankfulness.

Choose to obey.

Choose the good.

Choose joy.

Choose Jesus.”