“Do not fear anything, for I am with you. Do not be afraid, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, be assured I will help you. I will certainly take hold of you with My righteous right hand.”  Isaiah 41:10

I’m starting to realize that life has been a little overwhelming and scary lately. I mean, I’ve moved twice so far this year. I got married. My job has changed. So have my friendships. And on top of all of that, I have to share a bathroom with a boy now.

There are days where I handle it all just fine and it’s fun, but there are also days where I think there is no way I can handle one more new thing or one more thing being completely out of my control. I beat myself up for not being better at it and I start to believe that life is always going to be this hard.

What this one little verse reminds me of is that God never tried to hide from us that life would be scary and too much for us to handle. It also reminds me that God never expected me to just toughen up and figure it all out on my own. Instead, he promises to be with me when the scary things come. He promises to make me stronger. And what’s even more comforting is he promises he will be there to help me and he will grab hold of me.

I don’t have a great lesson to share here, other than I needed to be reminded of that today. And I’d be willing to bet that I’m not alone here.

What is life like for you right now? Is there something that feels too much to handle or something that scares you? If nothing comes to mind, just go read the news real quick. Can I encourage you to take a few minutes right now and hand that over to God? Let’s all remember today that he is with us. He is strengthening us and he will help us. And he promises to hold onto us. If we’ve got that, I think we’re going to be ok.

A RIGHT MIND

When I was little, I loved going on car rides, day or night.

I’m a middle school teacher. I have been for 12 years. When most people find out that I teach middle schoolers I usually receive a few responses: “Wow, that’s a hard age,” “Bless your heart,” “Someone’s gotta do it.”

The truth is, I love teaching middle schoolers. Yes, I have dealt with my share of irrationally emotional moments and lots of ‘what were you thinking?’ situations. But the truth is, I feel like junior high is kind of a sweet spot for me because of the stage of life my students are in. They are old enough to be independent (“You lost your pencil? Figure out a way to solve that problem.”) but still young enough to be impressionable, receptive, and, for the most part, want to be loyal to the teacher.

You want to know who I never want to teach?