Struggle

Have you ever noticed common themes in your life? I often find that these themes recur because there's still something God wants to teach us. When I think back on my life, a dominant theme for me is Struggle. 

My parents divorced when I was in second grade. Although they tried to keep peace in our family, there was plenty of the natural tension and strife that divorce brings - arguments, anxiety, attachment issues, parents dating other people and remarrying, etc. Thinking back on those years, it felt like I was always adjusting to something new - a new adult in the picture, a new house, a new neighborhood. There were a lot of changes. 

Additionally, my father developed Lupus and passed when I was the tender age of 16. Growing up with an ill parent is exceedingly complicated, and losing them at a young age is even more so. I try to focus on the happy memories I have of my father, but with those are lots of memories of visiting him in the hospital, him often not having the stamina to keep up with three young kids, and him spending every morning in the bathroom trying to clear his lungs for the day. I watched my mom struggle to make ends meet and I watched my dad struggle to make it through a day. 

With the divorce and my dad's illness came financial struggles, and I not only became aware of money at a young age but also became aware that we didn't have much of it. I'm so thankful for the kind and generous people who gave to our family during those tough years; at the same time, being an angry 7th grader whose teacher brings you bags of his grown daughter's clothes incites a lot of conflicting feelings in a middle schooler's heart. I've lived in the tension of thankfulness for others' generosity and frustration at my own lack for as long as I can remember. 

I got my first job at 15, as early as I could. I had to work if I wanted to participate in extra curricular activities. I haven't stopped working since. And, for the better part of the last 10 years I've worked more than one job. I worked my way through college and graduated in the middle of an economic recession. It took me a year and a half to get my first 'real world' job. 

I joined an agency with a small group of fellow newbies. The job was a steep learning curve for me. This was the year 2010 and modern technology was still trying to take off. I remember being in a college class a couple years prior and someone came in to speak and they predicted that in just a few years we'd have full access to the internet, calls, everything in one small handheld device. Our minds were blown. Some of us didn't even believe him.

At that time, it was still extremely rare for a student to even bring a laptop to class; most of us still brought notebooks and pencils. So, when I started my job at a digital marketing agency let's just say I wasn't overly tech savvy. None of us were yet, really. But you can bet I put my best foot forward. I gave that job everything I had and then some. I studied after work. I practiced. I asked questions. I did my absolute best. I didn't know how to do anything but that. 

A few months into the job, someone on the leadership team called me into their office and explained that my supervisor didn't think I was doing as well as the other newbies. He explained that unless I improved significantly in three months' time I'd be fired. I was completely shocked and completely crushed. I'd been working for eight years at that point and had never once come remotely close to being fired. 

Guess who would be leading me through my performance improvement plan? The same supervisor who said I wasn't hacking it. Can you feel how awkward this was? Lord have mercy. 

Upon hearing this news, first, I cried my eyes out. Then I called my mom. Then I started praying up a storm that God would help me be successful in this job that I had waited a year and a half to get. I remember God highlighting Psalm 25:1 to me: ...'No one whose hope is in you will ever be put to shame.' I asked God to not allow me to be put to shame by losing this job. 

I went through my trial period and improvement plan, I worked my butt off to keep that job, and I did. I also started praying specifically for my relationship with my supervisor, that God would work there too. Do you know what happened? She left the company about a year or so after that and in my final performance review she smiled and said she was proud of how far I had come and that she had recommended that our boss promote me. Only God could do this!

About two years later, in 2012, Joel and I moved down to Nashville for the first time. That year kicked off a really sweet, relatively easy season for us. Not too long after that, we moved back to Bloomington and had our precious daughter in 2017. During this season, when I had a newborn and all the challenges that come with that, God started to work on my heart regarding this Struggle theme in my life. You see, when you've had a rough go of it, it can be easy to start feeling like a victim. When difficult things happen to you that were no fault of your own, it can be easy to start blaming other people. Or blaming God. It can be easy to start feeling like a victim instead of like a beloved child of the King. 

I remember I was folding laundry one day and listening to music and a new song came up on YouTube by Kristene DiMarco called 'I Am No Victim.' The lyrics stopped me in my tracks:

"I am no victim, I live with a vision,

I'm covered by the force of love, covered in my Savior's blood

I am no orphan, I'm not a poor man,

The Kingdom's now become my own, and with the King I've found a home,

He's not just reviving, not simply restoring,

Greater things have yet to come, greater things have yet to come

He is my Father, I do not wonder

If His plans for me are good, if He'll come through like He should,

Cause He is provision, and enough wisdom

To usher in my brightest days, to turn my mourning into praise,

He's not just reviving, not simply restoring,

Greater things have yet to come, greater things have yet to come

I am who He says I am, He is who He says He is,

I'm defined by all His promises, shaped by every word He says."

What a powerful song. What a message. 

The Holy Spirit brought to light that I had started to develop a victim mentality. Through this lovely song, He reminded me that I was not a victim, I was not an orphan, and I was not poor because of what Christ did for me. 

So, how can we view our history and hardships through the lens of sonship/daughtership in God's Kingdom instead of through the lens of victimization?

Jesus is our beautiful example of how to love, persevere, hope and have victory through struggles and suffering. He is our example of how to believe in God's goodness and His promises despite trials. He is our example of how to forgive those who have wronged us. I could blame so many people or circumstances for the struggles in my life, but perspective is truly everything. If I look back through a lens of victimization, I will only see the struggles. But if I look back through a lens of God's love, I will see a victorious life - filled with divine moments of His loving hands guiding my steps and restoring my losses.