“He (the righteous man) is not afraid of bad news; his heart is firm, trusting in the Lord.”Psalm 112:7
Sometimes it’s easy to look ahead at life with fear.
I look ahead to the days after our precious baby boy will be born and I worry, “How will my body react to having a baby? Will I struggle with postpartum depression?”
I heard to the news of a friend whose mother just found out she has several tumors in various parts of her body…cancer. And I worry, “She is young, healthy, and active. It seems so sudden and unexpected. What if that happened to me? My husband? My mom? Any of my loved ones?”
And it’s overwhelming to know that there is no way I can guarantee myself or my loved ones health and safety. So much of life lies so far outside our control, and the weight of that can be crushing if we let it.
I will not ever have full control of my hormones, my physical health, or the health of my loved ones, but I can, by the grace and help of God, choose the habits that I will carry with me into seasons of pain that will come.
Because it’s now that I can learn to run straight to Jesus when I feel tired and broken.
It’s now that I can learn to find my peace and comfort in God’s Word.
It’s now that I can learn the disciplines of prayer and praise and study and service.
It’s now that I can learn that Jesus truly is all that I need in every season.
I ask myself, “Who do I want to be on the day I die? What qualities do I want to characterize my life? What habits do I want have in place when I’m fifty? Sixty? Eighty?”
The hard times will come, we’re promised that, and the habits that sustain you through the hard times, are not formed in the midst of the hard times. The habits that I want to characterize my life will be solidified in the seasons of trouble, but they will be formed in the normal, routine seasons of life.
They will be formed now.
The habits I will carry into tomorrow will be formed today, whether they are good habits or bad.
So I’m asking myself, “What habits do I want to carry with me into the hard seasons of life? And how am I forming those habits today? What choices am I making that are building character and habits for good in me?”
Because I can’t choose what will come at me in life, but I can choose the way I will handle whatever does come. And that choice is made in the habits I form today.
What habits will you choose to form by there grace and help of God?
Be blessed
<3
