Broken, frail me can smile at the future

I was with two dear friends this week.  Each of us have gone through great agonies, we are still going through them, with some of the great agonies becoming great victories.  Each of us know pain and sufferings of long standing.

As we chatted, laughed, cried through our Bible Study one of these precious ladies turned towards me and asked,

"How do you do it?"

I didn't understand what she meant.  We had not been speaking of my agonies at all and I didn't want to~~~ but she was wondering how I was able to smile, to continue, to look to the future....  

Certainly, she knows!  She has been through so much, and yet, she has relied on the LORD throughout!  

But that day she saw me, and she needed to ask, she needed to know.  Her agonies through her life had drawn her close to the LORD, but that day, these last weeks, she had been grieving anew after losing a precious son to a car crash where the other person had been texting while driving.

I looked at her with such compassion.  This precious woman has given me hope every single time I have ever seen her~~~even at her treasured son's funeral.  Her faithfulness is a beautiful example which we all look to achieve, and yet, here she was asking me how I do it.  

We all need to be reminded of the LORD even when we know Him!

Of course, the LORD is how I do it.  This is not of me, I rely on the LORD.  The agony is in me, sometimes right on the surface, and other times so deep inside.  I live every moment remembering the agony, but giving it to Him, allowing Him to take it, to handle it, to work in me, to work in them.  

It is an all the time thing.  I live and breathe relying on Him.  Part of my testimony is that these have been the worst years of my life, and yet the very best years of my life, because I have drawn closer, and closer to the LORD in my agony~~~and isn't this our greatest desire to be closer to Him?

"I get up and do next things" for Him, because of Him.  Sometimes I do them with great gusto, praising His name, and other times I do not want to do them at all, but I do them, and I praise His Holy name.  Sometimes I can smile to the world easily, even though my agony is right there hurting so badly, and other times I smile when I do not feel like it at all, and I do not want to~~~but others need to be loved and encouraged ~~~so I smile and love on them.

I am not a super-Christian. I am broken, frail me.  I live in the moment with Him, for Him.  If you ask me what I did yesterday, I probably won't remember, and usually I do not even try to remember.  I am living right then and thinking of what comes next.  My life is for Him, and I want to have Him shining through me so others will see it. I don't have time for yesterdays.  

Because of Him, even in my agonies, I can smile and laugh at the future.

Proverbs 31:25
"Strength and dignity are her clothing, and she smiles [laughs] at the future."
NAS/NIV