“How do you get through things you don’t want to do?  You just do.”  Jaycee Dugard

Recently I watched an interview with Jaycee Dugard.  Her first since her rescue.  She is an amazing young woman with a story of not only surviving but thriving in a captive situation filled with abuse.

Her quote from above has brought to mind another quote.  This also from a woman, a mom, that had lost her child not to abduction but death.  She was asked how did you survive?  How did you go on?  Her answer, “I didn’t mean to.  I just kept getting up everyday”. 

How do we survive difficult times?  How do we survive a scary, maybe even terminal diagnosis?  How do we survive broken hearts, abuse, neglect, infidelity, bankruptcy, loss of job, loss of spouse, death of a child, addictions and a host of other terrors? I have often said of a tragedy, “I could never survive that. It would kill me”.  You probably have said the same thing.  Jaycee addressed that thought when she made the statement, “You just do”.

In Lamentations 3:22-23 NLT it says, “The unfailing love of the LORD never ends!  By His mercies we have been kept from complete destruction.  Great is His faithfulness; His mercies begin afresh each day.”  Beth Moore said a couple of things on this subject in “A Woman’s Heart, God’s Dwelling Place”.
“God’s measure of mercy is offered according to need.  In the moment we say (we could never survive) those words, our ratio of mercy matches our present need.  But when the time arises and the need escalates, so does the grace required for us to make it!  God is always sufficient in perfect proportion to our need.  Every morning He has already set aside the omer for our daily need”.  She goes on to say, “God’s grace is always there prior to our need.  We must receive it.  You and I can survive anything but we must want to”.  In “The Word For You Today”, it defines grace this way, “This word “grace” simply means “all of God you’ll ever need, for every situation you’ll ever face.” 

Through the difficult times in my life, and believe me I haven’t faced any thing like Jaycee Dugard, I look back and ask myself “how” and just like Jaycee, I just did.

Jaycee didn’t sugar coat her ordeal.  She wrote a very candid book about it.  You don’t need to sugar coat your situation either.  Life stinks sometimes.  Really bad stuff happens to really good people.  The Bible says in Matthew 5:45 NLT “…He (God) sends rain on the just and the unjust”.  The difference for the just is that we have an advocate in Jesus Christ.  We are a patient of the “Great Physician”.  We have a power source, the Holy Spirit who prays for us when all we can say is “You know God” or “HELP!”  A power source that fills us and strengthens us to do anything that is required.

Why did God allow such a thing to happen to Jaycee?  I don’t know.  There are some things that we may never have the answers to on this side of eternity.  I have found in my life, often after, in hindsight, I can see how the situation grew my faith muscles and how God used the situation to work together with other things in my life for my good.  I also know this, I have much more compassion for others in an area that I have struggled with and I also have had some great opportunities to come along beside someone and say “Hey, I’ve been there and I survived and you will too.  This helped me…”  We live in a terrible sin sick fallen world.  The Bible tells us that we should expect trouble, trials and difficult situations.  They all have the potential to make us stronger.  In them, we learn that God’s grace is sufficient.  Jaycee not only survived, she thrived in a most difficult life.  She became better instead of bitter through her ordeal.  She has the opportunity to use her experience to help many others who have suffered child abuse.  God never allows His children to suffer for sufferings sake.  It is always for a greater good, because something in eternity is at stake.  Don’t misunderstand me.  Surviving is a process.  It’s not easy and it takes time. 
Remember the old Andrae Crouch song, “Through it all, through it all, I’ve learned to trust in Jesus.  I’ve learned to trust in God.  Through it all, through it all, I’ve learned to depend upon His Word.”  

As a dear old sister in the faith always said, “God’ll do to depend on.” 

Until we visit again…

Live blessed
Carmen