"But now, O Jacob, listen to the Lord who created you. O Israel, the one who formed you says,do not be afraid, for I have ransomed you. I have called you by name; you are mine. When you go through deep waters, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown. When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up; the flames will not consume you. For I am the Lord, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.” – Isaiah 43: 1
"Do not fear mistakes. You will know failure. Continue to reach out." - Benjamin Franklin
The thing about constant change that we tend to forget to think about is how we react to it. Some change is good, some change is bad, and how we react to the bad change is pivotal in showing the world who we are.
Imagine walking into a headstrong wind. Do you topple over? Or do you stand fast and trudge on?
Change is a lot like that. When good things happen we don't pay much attention. But when bad things happen, it's easy to let the wind blow us over and just keep rolling us over and over again until we give up and stop trying to stand. To call ourselves failures.
Don't be that guy.
Just because you have a lack of self-worth does not mean that you suddenly deserve being called a failure.
We all know someone who says that they have not just failed, but are and always will be failures. Maybe that's you. If so, that's okay!
BUT.
That is knowing a form of compromise that is a faintly disguised veil of self-torture.
And it doesn't have to be that way!
If you keep your eyes open then you will always have something beautiful to see and fight for. And if you just look in a mirror, you can see one of those things right now.
And the Lord knows that sometimes we hurt. He knows that we will also fail. And He knows that sometimes we'll forget who we are or try to force ourselves not to feel. Or both.
He says in Isaiah 43: 1: "But now, O Jacob, listen to the Lord who created you. O Israel, the one who formed you says,do not be afraid, for I have ransomed you. I have called you by name; you are mine. When you go through deep waters, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown. When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up; the flames will not consume you. For I am the Lord, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior."
He knows all about our pains as human, because He became a human to die on the cross to forgive us of all of our sins, so that we would always the ability to call upon His Name whenever we hurt and have failed and need His help, guidance and loving arms to embrace us.
And we will always be able to do that.
Sometimes we try not feel anymore hurt and pain because we've just become so tired, to tired to feel anymore so we just force ourselves to try not to feel either of those things.
But you can't teach yourself not to feel hurt or pain from someone who wounded you or not to love someone who doesn't love you anymore.
What you can do is beat yourself up until there's nothing left of you.
Peace is a byproduct. Closure is an end result. You cannot directly pursue either.
If you try, all that happens is another nightmare that you add to your list of the worst kind of monsters to visit you in your sleep.
And then you battle so much in your dreams that by the time you wake up your resilience is faded.
The thing about healing is that you have to actually try. It’s easier to maintain our status quo of daily humdrum. But the danger of that is that we get stuck in a holding pattern.
The Takeaway: Always keep pushing. Be one of the ones in life to hold on and to stay strong, not one of the ones in life who is an example of what not to be. If you do that, then you can be one of the ones to not only make a difference in your own life, but countless others!