When Life Is Too Hard
The phone buzzed with an incoming email. I was sitting in our minivan out in my parents’ garage hiding and crying – a full on ugly cry with gasping sobs. We were coming to the end of our visit to the Midwest where both of our families lived. It was only a couple of days until we needed to go “home.” Eleven hundred miles away from help and our support system. I was feeling the crushing weight of the non-stop caregiving for a 4-year-old and special needs two-year-old piling directly onto me again and I didn’t have enough strength or energy to bear it.
During this full-on ugly cry, I was also crying out to God. I wasn’t asking anything or listening to what He might say, or focusing on Him. I was just unloading my soul. My soul thoughts were pretty straightforward, “I can’t do it. I can’t do it. God, it’s so much. It’s too much. It’s beyond my ability to bear. I can’t do it.”
With tears running down my face, I checked my email. A sweet friend back in Texas had been praying for me and felt God wanted her to share a few things with me. She had no idea what was going on. We hadn’t had any contact in weeks. Specifically, she shared three verses or things drawn from three verses. All three were exactly what I needed to hear, but the one that stood out the most was, “I can move mountains.” This was taken from Matthew 17:20 (NLT), “You don’t have enough faith,” Jesus told them. “I tell you the truth, if you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it would move. Nothing would be impossible.”
One of the things I love most about the message from God through my friend, it focused on Him and what He can do “I can move mountains,” not on my lack of faith.
God knew I was already so discouraged. I didn’t need to have one more area of failure pointed out. I needed to change my focus, get it off of what I can and cannot do and focus on Him and what He can do.
It’s a decade later, and I still get overwhelmed by life circumstances. I often need to get my eyes off of me and my circumstances and look at God and who He is. Two of my all-time favorite chapters of the Bible are Isaiah 40-41, especially 40:12-28 because this section illustrates how He is amazing, mighty, and without equal. Here are a few of my favorites (40:12, 25-26), “Who has held the oceans in his hand? Who has measured off the heavens with his fingers? Who else knows the weight of the earth or has weighted the mountains and hills on a scale?” “ ‘To whom will you compare me? Who is my equal?’ asks the Holy One. Look up into the heavens. Who created all the stars? He brings them out like an army, one after another, calling each by its name. Because of His great power and incomparable strength, not a single one is missing.”
When life is too hard and you are overwhelmed, remember He can move mountains. He’s in the business of impossible, and your problem is not too big for Him.
Written by Sarah McGuire
