So often when I talk to people and they learn of the schedule of my daily life, and they see how smart my children are, and how well they are taken care of, they ask me in astonishment, "How do you do it!!?"
I was just asked that question yesterday while on an interview to add a second job, outside the home, to my already crammed, daily life. I am sometimes at a loss for words when that question is posed, and I truthfully have to begin by saying, "I don't know."
I then speak the only thing I do know, "God gives me the strength." By myself, I can do nothing. But with God, I can.
When I collapse in bed at midnight, after getting up at 5am, going to work, homeschooling 3 children, grocery shopping, cooking dinner, washing dishes, baths, brushed teeth, bedtime and hugs & kisses, I often marvel, at what was squeezed into my 17 hour day. I spend a few moments thinking, "How long will this go on??? I'm only human."
My favorite scripture for many years now has been, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." (Philippians 4.13). I hand wrote it and taped it to a wall in the house of pain that I used to share with my abusive husband. Days when I didn't think I could go on because of what the violence was doing to my soul, I'd see that scripture on the wall, amongst the children's drawings, scribbles and words I hung everywhere to teach them to read, and I knew I could make it.
I didn't know how, but I knew I would. I didn't know when, but I knew someday, the suffering I lived with day in and day out, would come to an end.
Today, I would like to encourage you, as I encourage me. God can and He will bring you through anything, if you trust Him and depend on Him to do it. He sees your pain and He wants to help you and trade His life of peace, for your life of war. He will heal your pain.
Christ gave me the strength to survive 10 years of abuse and He continues to give me the strength to recover from it. He is giving me the strength to raise my children on my own. And He will give me the strength to work a second job to provide for them if that's what it takes, as their abusive, cold & unloving father, has decided he will not.
One day all five of my children will have all graduated from college, be married, and have families and children of their own. They will rise up and call me blessed (Proverbs 31.28), and they will love me more than words can say, the way I love them everyday. Not for being a perfect mother, not for always getting it right, but for being a good mother.
For loving them by never giving up, even when the going was really, really tough.
For loving them by never abandoning them or casting aside my responsibility to them.
For loving them by putting them and their needs first and far above mine.
For loving them by not ever choosing a man over them.
They will totally understand and fully appreciate all of the sacrifice, blood, sweat and tears that it took to do what I am doing now and will continue to do for years to come. From their good lives, I will receive, "the sweet reward of all my labor." (Proverbs 31.31)
And one day, my soul will look back and wonder.....how I got over.
"God Can"
by James Fortune & FIYA
