Won't Back Down

Yesterday at church, I was really stuck by the message. It was all about "Overcoming Adversity in Life" and not yielding or backing down but pressing on.

He made the point that adversity can help us go further assuming we survive and learn from it. And God wants to use even the worst times in our life to help us go further.

It's so true that we often learn the most in the difficult times in life. When things are going well, it's easy to speed past things, to not appreciate as much what we have been blessed with, and to not grow as much because things are going smoothly.

But when challenged with some type of crisis, that is when you find out more about yourself, are challenged about aspects of life you hadn't thought about before, and learn more about relying on others and God for your strength.

August 6 officially marks one year since Jenson has been on chemotherapy. In some ways I can hardly believe it. I flash back to a year ago when he was so sick and his narrowing in his GI tract so small that we almost lost him. So I'm incredibly thankful because he's still with us today and doing so much better.

I remember a year ago the feelings the first time walking over to "the other side" of the oncologist office... where the "treatments happen" and seeing a parent there with his daughter with no hair who looked very sick. I remember that father saying to me at a later date he remembered that day because I had "the look... the shell shocked, I can't believe this is happening to me look".

I think about how much I've learned about depending on God and others. In some ways thinking back to a year ago, I can't believe how far we've come as a family in terms of persevering. There have been days of extreme disappointment and discouragement. Where you truly thought to yourself "I'm not sure I have the strength for this". It's on those days, where God somehow gave just enough strength to make it through. Just enough.

It's truly through God's strength and the support of family and friends we've made it through this past year. I've certainly learned a lot this past year about leaning into others, accepting the generosity of others, and allowing others to care for me and my family. Definitely a good life lesson.

I can't believe the trials we've walked through simply by moving forward one day at a time and not backing down. But facing life's challenges head on and having a sense of moving forward. By making a conscious choice to not get stuck due to a commitment to moving forward by faith.

They played the song "Won't Back Down" by Mat Kearney at church and it really touched me so I've added it to my playlist with this blog entry.

Don't back down in life when adversity comes your way. Lean into it and keep moving forward.

Kristin