Sucker Punched.......................

Sucker punched is my new word for the feeling that comes over me out of nowhere.  The last 48 hrs have been rough.  It has been a challenge to be a wife, mom, daughter, sister, friend, co-worker when I feel like I've lost my breathe and it is taking all my strength to step forward when I've been sucker punched.  The good news is that my husband, children, parents, sisters, friends and co-workers have been so understanding and patient.  I am blessed.

I've been thinking a lot about how to move forward knowing the sucker punches will continue to come for a while.  Perhaps lessening in intensity and frequency with time.  I can't avoid them, so how can I function through them?  Amazingly (but not really) in my "Jesus Calling" devotional this morning I read,

"If you encounter a problem with no immediate solution, your response to that situation will take you either up or down. You can lash out at the difficulty, resenting it and feeling sorry for yourself.  This will take you down into a pit of self-pity.  Alternatively, the problem can be a ladder, enabling you to climb up and see your life in God's perspective." 

AMAZING TRUTH!  This has been my thought process over the last 48 hrs.  How am I going to respond to the sucker punches that will certainly come?  I acknowledge the pain is real and justified.  But for me, what isn't justified is the self-pity that could consume me if I let it.  There have been many who have walked my journey before; and some even more tragic.  Just think of all the daily loss in other countries.  Death is a part of every day life, yet people are able to move forward.  So I can do this too.  But ONLY in God's strength.

2 Corinthians 4:16

"Therefore we do not lose heart.  Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.  For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.  So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen.  For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."

So, each day I am going to purpose to move up the ladder and not down.