.defeated.

You aren’t good enough. You will never make it. You aren’t cut out for this. We have decided to go with someone else. You are a failure.

 

Ever had one of those seasons in life where the track of defeat is on replay in your life? If you haven’t, just wait. It is a tough time and one that can cause many tears to be shed.

This season in my life has been difficult to say the least. I am working about twenty-five hours a week in a high stress environment, I go to school four days a week, I volunteer every other Sunday at my church, and to make life even crazier, I am currently going through multiple interview processes. I have been stretched to the max and thought I was doing just fine.

Then I found out that I was being spread far too thin. I was allowing myself to shirk off responsibility and disregard the fact that studying is what allows one to actually pass a test. And I fell into the trap of feeling defeated.

I immediately wanted to drop out of school and change my entire plan. I don’t need a Master’s degree. I don’t need to put myself through this torture and constantly having to sacrifice my time for studying.

It is frustrating to say the least. It is difficult. It is not what I am used to at all.

But how do I ever expect to grow if there is no change in the difficulty of my situations?

God has never once called me a failure. No grade I receive, no choice I make (or don’t make), nothing I do will ever change how he sees me: as one who is loved deeply and his daughter.

It is this knowledge and reassurance that allows me to leave my pity party behind and remind myself daily that this is a temporary season in life. Few are given the privilege of gaining higher education. I can either complain my way through this time or put on my big girl panties and face the day with grace.

When you feel defeated, know that it is not God condemning you. It is merely a trap that the enemy is seeking to use to get you to focus on your human abilities. But with God on your side, it doesn’t matter at the end of the day whether you were the smartest person or you couldn’t even figure out what the value of one plus one equals. What matters is that God has called us his sons and daughters and he sees what Jesus has done for me when he looks at my heart.

Life is tough and difficult seasons come and go. But God has not forgotten about you and is still taking care of you. May we learn to not complain so much and to pick ourselves right back up when we get knocked down. God has already defeated the one who makes us believe we have been defeated. If God has called you to it, he will enable you through it one day at a time.