Don’t Stop in the Struggle

One of the things that we have seen in culture right now, if you’re on social media, is these posts of one picture of "How it started" and then another picture of "How It’s Going". What I want to talk about this weekend is not "How it Started" or "How it’s Going", I want to pay attention to the space in between, the struggle in between. If we want to go from “How it Started” to the fullness of what God has for us, we need to learn how to occupy the in between space fully. Some of us need to be reminded that the difficult struggles in our lives don't prove the absence of God, but rather exposes his nearness to us in them. I wonder for some of us who are struggling if I can just tell you that God is nearer than you think? And maybe, just maybe it’s his absolute kindness that he is allowing you to go through such painful situations, just to over communicate to you that he will never leave you, even when everyone else will. Don't Stop in the Struggle.

Josie Ballenger will join Noelle as our Guest Storyteller. Josie was an addict heavy in her addiction, and like most of us was running with the wrong crowd. "The universe kept giving me hints to get my life together. I was sitting in this dark basement room and from the deepest part of my soul, I was just screaming “help”. The next day I went to a traffic court date and I’m walking down the hall after the court date and I hear someone say, “Hey Josie, I am not going to embarrass you by arresting you in public but you’re under arrest for a federal inditement.” Josie was facing decades in a federal prison for drug charges, she knows about the space in between and walking through the fire with faith. "I had to surrender. I had to surrender to my addiction, to God, to everything. Today, I see it so clearly that all that was devised so I would get sober, and help others do the same."