“God provides open arms of endless grace for us to run straight into, not away from.”

By Misty Strieff Prine

“Beneath the thoughts and feelings, you have worn on your shoulders for so long, there is the real you., who is worthy of freedom from what darkness said you would be. For you are more than what you feel, you are more than what you think, and yes, these things do matter, but they do not mean everything. There is still this open space deep within endless grace to let those old things go and start all over again.” – Morgan Harper Nichols

This touched the innermost part of my heart. I kept reading it repeatedly. Each sentence is so powerful and true and rings so incredibly true to me on a very personal level and beyond any words I could say. I’m sure we all have carried a multitude of thoughts and feelings on our shoulders and hid it from the world with a smile on our faces...as if all was well in our world. But it wasn’t. While on the surface we seemed strong, that wasn’t always the case. Even the strong people have real problems and endless valleys. We all have brief spells on the mountain tops, and then, poof...we may be in a valley. But in those valleys the Lord is STILL with us. He will be there, rescue you, forgive you, help you pick yourself up and love you through it. He will remind you time and time again that you were more than what you are feeling in that moment, more than the enemy WANTS you to feel. Can our problems consume us? Of course they can. But does that mean we have to dwell on them? Um...nope. But why do our problems matter in the grand scheme of things? The answer is this: within the problem lies a solution. To get to the solution, we must allow them to move us closer to the Lord. When He gets us through the problem, and He will, we will be better versions of ourselves. This brings me to my favorite part of this quote.

“There is still this open space deep with ENDLESS GRACE to let those old things go and start all over again.” Boom. There is the rainbow in the cloud. The Lord willingly provides us with endless grace and mercy that will never run out on us, never lack in forgiveness and a love that never fails even when we fail Him repeatedly. He never runs away from us when we run away from Him. Sure, life is difficult. God never promised an easy road, but He did promise He’d never leave us. He is a God of second chances! We need to use difficulties to become better witnesses and better people for Him. Just remember who you are, not by being defined by your failures or bad decisions, but who you CAN be in Christ! Don’t try to run FROM God but instead run TO Him. Let HIM define your life, not your mistakes.

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