Life Isn't Always Smooth Sailing - Sometimes All You Can Do Is Row

I got  an email recently from someone who was struggling in a certain season of life. Life wasn’t going real smoothly for her and she felt like she was just keeping her head above water.

We all are familiar with those chaotic seasons. Especially young moms. We feel like we should have things all pulled together when in reality, we feel anything but.

It seems like we all think life should be smooth sailing all of the time when sometimes all we can do is concentrate on rowing. And that’s okay. It’s okay to only concentrate on rowing sometimes. Keeping the children fed, changing diapers, cleaning the house – it all seems so mundane. But it occupies our days and our minds and there are seasons where if that’s all we have time for, if that’s the only thing we feel like we can get accomplished – IT’S OKAY!

Life isn’t a perfectly oiled machine. We don’t run like clockwork. Things break, people get sick, plans get changed and so much more is out of our control. I think sometimes that God likes to keep us unbalanced for a reason. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t also times where things DO go well and seem to run smoothly. And when those times come, we can be blessed and thankful and get refueled and recharged.  But we can be guaranteed that our days won’t always be that way.

It’s the rowing in life that grows our muscles. Those are the times where we see just what our priorities are and what matters to us. It’s in those times that we dig deep and see what we’re really made of.

Some day, someone else will be rowing their boat and dreaming of calm waters. It will be our strength that they may need to help them not drown in the storms and waves they are battling. The very storms and waves that we had to navigate ourselves at one point.

Struggle IS a part of life. We can bank on that. It’s miserable when we are going through it but when we reach the other side; it is often the struggle that makes us who we are. It’s up to us to choose what the end result will be. A stronger person or a battle-weary one?

One of life’s biggest lies is that we should be able to do it all. We can’t. We won’t be able to – ever. Something will always give. Something will always suffer. Don’t let it be you, don’t let it be your family, and don’t let it be your faith.

Row. Row hard. And before you know it, the sun will come out again and the waters will turn to ripples instead of huge waves.  Then you can turn your head back around and see what God helped you survive. You will see. You will learn. And you will grow.