Life is hard.
Did you get that?
Here, let me repeat myself – Life is hard.
Do you disagree? If so, stop lying to yourself. I know, we all want to seem unbreakable, but it’s okay, everyone gets knocked down a time or two. There is no one on earth who lives this life without trials or affliction – it just doesn’t happen. Things get in our way, our plans get cancelled, we fail that test, and people leave. Life is hard.
Not only is life hard overall, but every part of life presents itself with unique turbulence that we’re often not prepared for. Being a 16-going-on-17-year-old girl finishing up her junior year of high school, just months away from applying to college and making huge, life-altering decisions is hard. There’s no one that can prepare you for the sleepless nights studying for tests you still might fail or the stress of deciding which college is for you and what the heck you want to do with your life. There’s nothing that can prepare you for the looming summer jobs and the need for remarkable time management. There’s no feeling that can prepare you for the heartache that comes with losing friends you’ve had for years and the thoughts of moving hours away from the people you love the most. Nothing leading up to this moment in your life prepares you for it – you simply dive in head first, and as I’m sure you can guess – it’s hard.
But that’s kind of the point of life, right? I mean, we live so that we can have new experiences and share them with those we love. We live so we can become who we’re really meant to be, and there’s no way of knowing who that is until we get there. It gets crazy scary sometimes, but I think that’s the point.
Now, I’m not here to have a pity-party, Lord knows I do that enough on my own time. I just want you to know that it’s okay that your life is hard – you aren’t alone. But, those moments when you don’t know what to do or how to keep going, those aren’t the important moments of your life. Those aren’t the ones that really matter. What matters is the moment you decide what to do with those feelings of uncertainty and discomfort; those times decipher who it is that you’ll become. A lot of the time, throwing in the towel is the first thing that comes to mind. Taking the easy way out. All it requires is very little effort and even less faith. I mean, you know what they say – when the going gets tough, the tough…. give up? No. They keep on going.
Self-motivation is a killer. It’s unbelievably hard to find motivation inside a soul that’s already beaten down. But there are people there for you that will lend a hand and probably a shot of espresso (My favorite little ‘pick-me-up’). Lean on those around and when they need it, let them lean on you. And when there’s no one left, lean on the One who put you here. The Creator of the universe has laid out his path before you (Jeremiah 29:11). On that path is a purpose – a meaning for the life he’s given you. There is power in that purpose, and for you to give up on his path is like telling the Father “No thanks, I’ve got it this time” and that breaks his heart. He gave you this hard, crazy, wonderful life so that you can live for Him and he sacrificed his son so that you could live it to the full (John 10:10).
So yeah, maybe it gets hard. Maybe you think you can’t do it. But you can. You can overcome whatever the world throws at you because there was a man, 2000 years ago, who overcame it first (John 16:33). So live, and don’t let “life” get in the way. We can’t make it out alive, but we can sure die trying.
Samantha Reynolds 
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