It's Brave to Look for Blessings in Battles

By Mim

God's Brave Women - Mim's Story

Happy 2020! Here we are at the start of another year ladies. Does the new year fill you with dread, the post-Christmas blues, or excitement for the coming year?

I personally love the start of a new year — twelve months stretching out vast; a blank canvas of possibilities! All those unknowns and potential adventures yet to be undertaken.

Looking to the future, however, hasn't always filled me with excitement. In fact, rather the opposite. For as long as I've been a Christian I had looked at the Proverbs 31 woman with confusion and a tinge of envy – “She laughs without fear of the future." (Proverbs 31:25)

What kind of person does that? Didn't she know what kind of awful experiences could befall her in the future? Job losses, financial insecurity, ill health, unexpected bereavements…

Have you ever heard the saying that "worry is like a rocking chair? It gives you something to do but doesn't get you anywhere?" It's rather like running to stand still don't you think? You are exhausted, but have remained stationary, using all that energy to have gone nowhere.

The last couple of years have been a journey for me, as I have learnt (and failed) to live and navigate life, not in my own strength, but rather with God and in His strength. During this time God has impressed upon me time and again "The Lord will fight for you, you need only be still." (Exodus 14:14)

For me personally, this has meant not fighting my own mind or wrestling my anxious thoughts, but rather, through soaking in the presence of God, allowing Him to quiet my mind and give me peace. Is it always easy? Nope. Do my anxious thoughts still sometimes escalate? Yes.

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