The Show Must Go On

Back in the summer, I was going through a very hard time.

I would do something almost every day that I've only done a few times in my life - I would lay in bed literally all day and watch TV (mainly The Kardashians).

I did that for a while. I wallowed in my misery. I indulged in my pain and suffering. I felt better when I saw the episodes where Kim and Reggie broke up and she was heartbroken and depressed and laid around the house all day like I was doing.

But you can only do that for so long. At some point, you have to get up and say, "I'm not going to let this hardship define my life and who I am and where I go from here.
The show must go on."


And so you pick the pieces up, even when nothing makes sense. And you keep going and smiling and "faking it til you make it" because you cannot stay in one place, lethargic, wallowing in self-pity, asking God "Why?"


Instead, you thank Him for what you have, because 9 times out of ten, the good outweighs the bad in life.
You decide that from here, you're going to move on in the best way possible, making the best of what you have and being GRATEFUL, looking for the good in every single circumstance.

I remember literally wondering how I was going to go on from where I was; how I was going to live the rest of my life with certain memories haunting me and beating myself up for decisions I'd made and wondering over and over if they were the right decisions and overthinking to the point that I was almost sick.

It took a while, but I finally snapped out of it because I came to my senses and remembered that living that way does nothing for you and I realized that I was doing nothing for the Kingdom of God just laying in my bed and rehashing the past four years of my life. God had allowed me to get to that point for a reason, and He was calling me back from it, asking me to trust Him and where He was taking me and it was almost as if I could hear Him saying,
"This next chapter is going be so hard that it's going to require that you trust in Me every minute of every day and don't ask 'why' and don't even think about anything; just follow Me and I will lead you to where I need you to be. You have to blindly trust Me."

Because "I know who goes before me; I know who stands behind. The God of angel armies is always by my side. The One who reigns forever, He is a friend of mine." .......and that's the most awesome thing ever. That's why the show can go on. Because the Creator of the Universe is my friend and has my best interest in mind and will help me act like nothing ever happened and go on with my life, reminding me every day that He holds me in His hands.

Sometimes we get so caught up in our own problems that we forget that other people have problems too. And more often than not, if we put our problems out of our mind and just give them to God and focus on serving someone else, our lives will miraculously start to seem more positive, making more sense, and our problems will seem smaller. Because focusing on the bigger picture always helps. The small picture may show wasted time and hurt and pain and tons of question marks but the bigger picture shows a beautiful life with beautiful events and beautiful people sprinkled with human imperfections and imperfect events that all string together to form God's perfect plan.

Just like messing up in a performance - like freezing up and forgetting your ONE LINE in a church play or forgetting the steps to your sixth grade jazz solo in the dance recital to Backstreet Boys "Larger Than Life" - YOU HAVE TO KEEP GOING, BECAUSE PEOPLE ARE WATCHING YOU!!!!!!! People are depending on you, and you cannot just give up and quit because you made a mistake or froze up and forgot everything you know about life. Keep going even if you have to fake it for a little while, because even when you aren't in control, God is.

And He will carry you through any storm.

When I think about it that way, this all makes sense. I cannot lay in bed all day, for days on end, ever again, wallowing in self-pity, knowing that there are people out there, in my city who are unsaved and have no inkling of the hope that I have, the hope that carries me. 
I have been commanded to lead people to the hope that is in me so that they may have it too, and that's what I need to do.
There are people who are seriously hurting and there is no excuse for me to ever say, "I'm too depressed to do anything today."

My struggles and hardships will give me that much more fuel to drive me and motivate me to keep going to better myself and grow, despite my mistakes. And to help and witness to others... and a way to say,
"I overcame this, and you can too. I'm stronger now than I was before. Let me tell you about my God."




2 Corinthians 12:10That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (NIV)







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