I Can Do Hard Things

Have you seen this sign? It seems to be everywhere!

For the past 7 days I have been fighting the feriocious beast that has ravaged my family. A flu like none I’ve ever seen has claimed 4 out of 5 in my family – me being the lone survivor… thus far! It was kind of the beast to space out it’s attacks every 2 days, just giving me a moment to catch my breath before hitting the front lines once again. Of course the beast decided to attack while my husband was on a 4 day stretch at work, leaving me alone to wage war. Upon his return, he became the 4th and final victim – yes, I’m saying final because I WILL NOT GET THIS!
No, I won’t.

I’ve been fighting a personal enemy for a few months, one that I will talk more about in future posts. But my enemy has left me almost powerless in many areas of my life as of late and has left me afraid that it will attack when I need to care for my children and will be unable to do so. I’ve almost felt paralyzed on many fronts. But in the last 7 days, as I’ve had to care for sick children like never before, run on perhaps 1-2 hours of sleep a night, alone while my husband was at work, I stared my personal enemy in the face and said, “I can do hard things.” As I sat in urgent care with my daughter last night, I felt my enemy start to creep over me and I thought, “please not now. please. she needs me.” I found myself, in a somewhat angry tone, say to God, “certainly if you can raise your son from the dead you can calm my body and mind so that I can take care of my daughter.” Almost immediately I felt at peace and thought again, “I can do hard things.”

After we got home with the necessary meds to kill the beast, I put her to bed and called my mother (a distant warrior who was fighting along side me through prayer). She said that with all I’ve been going through personally, this flu was the last thing I needed to deal with. I then told her about the sign – “Mom, it’s like these last 7 days have shown me that I can do hard things and my current struggles are not going to beat me. I can do hard things.” “No Raeanne,” my mom said, “you can do all things through Christ.”

Amen

PS - I know I haven't put up a new recipe this week on What's For Dinner - food hasn't been on my mind this week with the flu flying around!