Encouragement shpeel.

It seems like a lot of people, just in the last week, have been going through a lot of, quite frankly, crap. Everyone's having issues, everyone's feeling down..it's like the dark rainclouds that have been hanging around all week have become personal rainclouds over everyone's heads.

Myself included. God is opening my eyes and showing me that He is good in every season, but when you're down, it's sometimes hard to see that. He's teaching and teaching me, and slowly pulling me out, and I just wanted to share some scriptures with you if you are (or were, or whatever) going through the same thing. It can be anything: for me, a lot of little depressing things happened and it amounted to one big cloud of depression, insecurity, and confusion - but in your life, it could be relationship drama, loss, plain dullness-of-life, whatevs. Fortunately, God's word isn't exclusive to one people group or one issue.

First of all, I want to encourage you that God places everything in our lives for a reason: for our good and His glory. He says in Isaiah that He "will not cause pain without something new being born". Good will always, always come out of this.

Secondly, this is all temporary. Like, super temporary. Honestly, I think that when we get to heaven, our lives on earth will just seem like a dream - like something that happened a long time ago that's so small in comparison to the present. 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 says, "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, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." The mindset of the agnostic world today is that if you cannot see something, it doesn't exist - but God says that the unseen things are the point. If something is unseen but it still exists, it takes more faith and more devotion to it to believe in it. The world says that believing in an unseen God is silly, but the Lord says that we will be rewarded if we keep that faith.


Thirdly, (this one really applied to me and what I've been dealing with personally), God promises to restore. He is a restorative God who wants to give us vibrant, abundant life. He will not let us be in pain forever and for no reason. He says in Jeremiah 30:13, "I will turn their mourning into joy. I will comfort them and exchange their sorrow for rejoicing." It's a full exchange. If, for example, at a store, I exchange a black shirt for a white shirt, I don't have the black shirt anymore, at all. The white shirt is mine now. God promises to fully exchange our sorrows for joy, and fully restore.


He's amazing, and He is unchanging. Praise Him for that. We are so fickle and all over the place, but He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. God is greater than our feelings (1 John 3:20). Wow. Even when I feel insecure, depressed, uncertain...God doesn't, and He isn't any of those. I love it. He is, forever, a God of peace, and joy, and mercy. So hang on.


Peace is coming.


Joy is coming.


Mercy is coming.