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I will not apologize

Speeding ticket. Traffic school. Parking violation. Insurance. Car loan. Tuition (for a school I dropped out of).

All of these finances loom over my head. What do you do when you have bill after bill after bill piling up while your hours at work are shrinking and shrinking? You get a second job? You find a new one all together? But what do you do when you feel God calling you to stay?

You stay.

At the beginning of this year, one of my pastors, Pastor Jessie, shared a message. She asked us to pray about a word that God would give us to be the theme and challenge of our year. God just wanted to make it rain on me and He gave me TWO words. Consistent expectation.

This year I've been challenged to consistently expect that God will take care of me, that God will transform me, and that my world will be rocked every single day.

So, as I sit with a day and a half left to pay my speeding ticket, being two hundred dollars short, and I await that school bill to come in and I see how open my work schedule is, I sit with my consistent expectation that God is going to take care of all of it.

I see that life can get hard sometimes, and I will not apologize for it. I will not apologize to myself or anyone for the hardships that can come, because that is life.

I've been reading through Job, even though I know the story like the back of my hand. Job was a blessed man who honored God greatly, and was blessed financially, with a large family, and pretty much the best life ever. Satan came to God and said that if God were to take it all away, Job would not praise Him the same, or at all. After losing all of his children, animals, home, and health, Job honored God. Job's own wife and his own friends told him to curse God and die, yet Job did not.

Finances will waver. Relationships are inconsistent and will fail you some days. Health is not always perfect. Life is messy. School isn't forever and neither are trials. But it is how you respond to the trials that leave an impact.

I can blame all the things around me. How dare that cop pull me over? How dare my manager over-staff the restaurant? How dare my school cost so much? How dare life get difficult?

But instead, I will learn and grow from all that is thrown at me.

Financial problems? I will learn to handle money and give it up to God. School problems? I will learn to stop running from God and surrender my future to Him. Relationship problems or lack of a relationship at all? I will learn to find my comfort and stability in Christ.

Every trial is a learning opportunity. Every struggle is a moment to give it to God and go deeper with Him. Every day is a new opportunity to let go of your old heart and old ways and walk closer with God.

So, if life is getting hard, I will not apologize. Because even in the midst of our chaos, God is still on the throne, calling us by name. Are you listening?


(P.S. Praise God for that direct deposit hitting just in time for that speeding ticket to get paid)

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