![](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/75154e_33a6df9beb1c4ed28d84d82e9f369c42~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_480,h_640,al_c,q_80,enc_auto/75154e_33a6df9beb1c4ed28d84d82e9f369c42~mv2.jpg)
I write this coming off yet another sleepless night. By the time the clock read two Am. I had gone to the bathroom three times, listened to a podcast and scrolled through Instagram. By three Am, the severe dizziness extra strong migraine had calmed down and I was tired (see what I did there) of tossing and turning. I felt a small hunger pang and decided what better times for a snack then this hour. As I finished off my morsel I thought maybe movement would help make me tired enough, so I decided to attempt to work out, then showered, made myself some tea and sat down to pray for some people for about an hour. Yet I still come to you now, restless and yet in need of deep rest.
"It’s exhausting chasing after other’s approval. The fear is debilitating and leaves you wiped out and numb at the end of it all."
I’ve been advised to step back from work for a while to focus on my health and healing. In general, I stay surprisingly busy with a part time job, school, creating blog content, youth group, investing in relationships and keeping tabs on my body and how it’s feeling. As life continues to slow down, yet again, with the virus spreading, I still find ways to stay busy. Most of the time I don’t even realize I’ve walked through another day without so even opening my Bible. The highs and lows of my health seem to be just as much so as those in my daily walk with Christ. And the topic of this week’s stress is, yet again, what others are thinking and am I enough (shocker).
It’s exhausting chasing after other’s approval. The fear is debilitating and leaves you wiped out and numb at the end of it all. How do I know this? Because it’s the constant soundtrack that’s on repeat in my life right now. I cling to Christ’s truth for a while and then I falter. I falter into other’s opinions I’ve most likely made up in my mind. I falter into perfectionism and an urgent fix for my fear and pain. In my initial reaction to pain, I want to chop it off, slice it up, stick it in a box, and compartmentalize it so I can deal with one thing at a time in an attempt to reach this made up place in my mind where I finally have it all together, all figured out and everything is in it’s place.
If having my heart was worth the pain
What joy could You see beyond the grave
If love found my soul worth dying for
(Grace To Grace, Hillsong)
Yet, whenever I circle back to this imaginary time and space that I’ve created, (and trust me it happens quite often) I’m reminded that it is just that, imaginary. I’ll never equal the amount I want to add up to. I’ll never have it figured out. The compartmentalized boxes that I’ve placed people, pain and, God in will never be ordered just so. And my attempts to prove myself will never fully assure that others have a good opinion of me. If it ended there that would be a rather depressing story, but wait, there’s more.
In this inevitable cycle that I pass through on the regular, there’s another truth that I’ve found. It’s one that’s always there to embrace me when I finally recognize it’s the truth worth turning my focus towards. It’s one that reminds me it’s not even about me. This life, these struggles, the pain, the ups and downs, the health problems, it all tells a story. But it’s not mine, it’s His. I just have the amazing privilege of being the storyteller.
Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
The story I get to tell doesn’t end in heartache and pain. It ends with victory and an indescribable love. But that victory doesn’t come from me or anything I can do, anything I’ll amount to. It’s all Christ unraveling His story through me. So, when you see strength, when you see a huge smile, when you ask where all my laughter comes from, how I hold it together. Well, I don’t, and it is most definitely not me. It’s Christ in me, it’s other’s He’s placed around me, it’s the simple fact that my story no longer belongs to me. While this may make the chapters harder and the adventure slightly more exciting, I know I’m in better hands then I would ever be if left to my own attempts at greatness.
Who’s writing your story?
Comments