I will not give up until I see the sun

I was going to write about the shift that I feel in me, a shift toward resignation, but it doesn’t even matter. Because it is a lie. And it isn’t even worth talking about, giving voice to.

I will say this: I think it’s getting close, the breakthrough. Now, what “close” means, exactly, in terms of a timeline, I don’t know. But things are getting worse. Things are crumbling. The storm around me is intensifying.

This is what it feels like: Satan has stepped up his game. He sees how close the breakthrough is – and it is no longer something in the distant future. It is getting down to the wire. He knows he is about to lose, hugely, and he is scared and furious. He knows that if I continue on the path I’m on, it will be bad for him. I feel like something opened his eyes almost, and he panicked. I can almost feel his panic, his desperation to take me out. He is straining for any opening, any weakness, that he can find in me. It’s like he is hovering right above me, all around me, waiting for the tiniest thing to pierce me so he can slam me with the temptation to give up. Normally, he would take that opportunity to quietly lie to me, to get me to start thinking too hard, to get me spinning away into confusion. Now? He sees the opening, and he lets loose. It is no longer a subtle nudge; it is slam-me-to-the-ground-as-fast-and-as-hard-as-he-can.

His strategy is one thing: Get me on the ground and keep me there.

And when I hit the ground, his voice screams one thing: GIVE. UP.

And for a moment, I want to. For a moment, defeat washes over me, drowns me, and I see no light. I see no hope; it is eclipsed by every mountain that seems so insurmountable. I doubt everything God has promised me. I doubt that he cares at all. I believe the lies.

And then, I wake up. I beg God for help, and he helps. I surrender as best I can, and ask him to do the rest. I struggle, then lay down my hopes and desires at his feet and choose trust over fear and self-preservation. I choose his plan over my own. And truth washes back over me, and I see clearly again. And I get back up. And Satan rips his hair out. (If he has hair?)

And then he waits, watches for another opportunity to hit me with the desire to give up.

Don’t misunderstand. This is not me. This is not me trying to figure out what I want, whether I want to stay and stick it out in my marriage or cut my losses and go off to find myself.

This is not a civil war, between me and myself, or my heart and my mind, or between my faith and desires that don’t match up with my faith.

This is outside forces.

This is outside forces, who know things I don’t know, who see a future I do not see and who are panicking, trying to keep that future from coming to be.

This is outside forces who know that if I don’t give up, if they can’t break me down, it will be very bad for them. On the flip-side, if they can get me to give up, they win not only me but my husband and whatever ground we would have taken for God.

This is serious. This does not just affect me.

As usual, I am so focused on my own stuff, and I don’t hear God saying, “This is not just about you. My plan is so much bigger than just you and your marriage.”

And even as I wrote all of that, everything about Satan and the outside forces, these thoughts kept fluttering through my mind, “Aren’t you making more of a deal out of this than it is? You are being silly; you are being way too dramatic with this. This isn’t how it is; you think you’re smarter than you are. Thinking you know what Satan is thinking or feeling just because of how you are feeling. Silly girl. This is all you, all in your head because you have this weird need to always have some type of battle going on in your life. Because you think you are some sort of warrior or something. You’re reaching, and you don’t have a clue.”

Essentially, “I’m not here.”

No.

He is here.

I am not making any of this up.

I am not being too dramatic.

I am probably not being dramatic enough.

I don’t know what happened. I don’t know what caused Satan and his minions to intensify their attacks. I don’t know what they know, what they see.

But something is coming.

And I think it’s God.  

I am made for war.

I was born to fight darkness, to rescue people, to stand up to evil and vanquish it.

And I married a warrior.

A protector. A discerning man. A dangerous man who probably has no idea how powerful he truly is.

But he will.

He may not know it, may not believe it, but he, too, was made for war. He was made to fight darkness, to rescue people, to stand up to evil and vanquish it.

I won’t lie. This is hard, and it has been hard for a long time. It is hard to hope when things seem to just keep getting darker. It is scary to trust God when I can’t see what he is doing. It is painful to hold on when everything is pulling at me to let go. It is difficult to be strong when I am so weak.

But I think that is the key – that I do not have the strength in myself to stand. To fight. I have tried to stand against Satan on my own before. It doesn’t work.

But if I stand in God’s strength, then I can stand. And withstand.

I had a dream once; I don’t recall when.

All I remember is that there were mountains – mountains that I could not get over.

Then the sun came up behind them, and as it rose, white light engulfed every single mountain.

Until there was only white light left.

Joy comes in the morning.

And morning is coming.

It’s coming.

I will not give up.

I will not give up until I see the sun.