It was the end of the day.. A Wednesday in fact.. I laid my head down on my pillow and sighed…

It had been a long day.. Only it was like every other day these past few months.

I had plenty of reasons to whine, cry and sulk.. I was maybe even justified to list in my head all of the reasons I was tired of being tired..

I won’t go into all of the reasons or even all of the pain because it does not matter. I could have curled up in a ball and cried myself to sleep..

or I could have lashed out at my loved ones as if they were to blame.

I could have even melted away, resolved that it would never go away and it would always be this way. There were so many options.

I was tempted… Tempted to do it all.. To give up and stop fighting, stop striving for better. Just to melt against the pressure.

Have you ever been there? Does it ever feel like it’s too much? Too much stress, too much work, too much money…. And the list goes on.

Guess what? You aren’t alone.. God sees your pain, your struggles and even your desire to make it all go away.

Did you know that a pearl would not be a pearl without irritation and pain? The irritation of the sand coupled with the pain in the muscle are what turns a piece of ugliness into something beautiful.

I share this with you not to debate why bad things happen to good people but to give you hope and strength:

Hope that you are not alone.

Hope that you can trust God and His plans.

Strength to make it thru this trial..

And even strength to make it thru today.

Now that you have the hope and the strength, I want to encourage you to find a mentor, a friend or family member who you can trust to pray for you when it’s dark all around you…to hug you when you are stressing out and to shower you with memories of when good things happened.. You will overcome as long as you continue on.