Someone once said, alright, I've actually heard many someone's say it, God said "be strong and courageous" not to someone who was those things, but who wasn't strong and courageous.

Well.

Deep breathe.

These days I am losing hope. When I think of the future for my little girls and how they must grow up learning to be very strong and courageous (and who is to teach them when I am so lacking?) to stand up and do what is right in a world where right is labeled wrong and wrong is made common, required, and glorified... it makes me cry.

Driving today, bombarded with campaign signs of every side, I thought of what the Bible says is right and how people who try to do the right thing or say the right words, even speak Love, are quickly labeled, (verbally) stoned, and abused. Yet when that happens they are not praised for doing what is right when everyone else is doing wrong, like the hero's in movies, but the people who do the easy, fun, and abusive things to them are praised. Take SNL for example... though personally I haven't watched that in years for that very reason.

My thoughts then turned to the battle Christians fight and how our army is shrinking! But then, it's not shrinking really; it's turning. Standing on the battlefield, horrified, I see the enemy winning without even striking once... just saying words that are only a little wrong in one aspect, but mostly dramatically right and all the rightness makes the wrongness nothing to notice.

But we should notice it.
WE SHOULD!

Just a little wrongness and my comrade takes an enemy soldiers hand to be lead out into the valley of questions- a no mans land. The ground is soupy and unless you stand on the Solid Rock of answers you'll be tempted to run to the wide grassy field on the opposite side- there are a lot of people there and the grass is quite green; greener, in fact.

And then there are those who are left standing without anyone to take arms up against because it is you, my friend and comrade, and no one is attacking... they are only whispering.

On another note.

As I grow older I've been expecting to be touched more and more by death; I am, after all, steadily growing towards it with every day that passes. Still, it has caught me by surprise and almost despair to be constantly bombarded by the death of babies. Just this week three more have gone... all were in the womb but one was 37 weeks... nearly born.

It just doesn't seem fair that mother's can murder their children in the womb while God allows the loved and longed for babies of my friends to die... perhaps it is for that reason it is very hard when I hear of someone asking for prayer about a baby or a child very sick for me to pray for them. I try, but... well, I guess I must admit my faith is gone. It does not seem to matter if we pray for our children- God allows one to live and the other to die without what seems human logic nor does He bow or sway to the human desires... "what will be will be" and at the risk of sounding Calvinistic, it has already been determined.

Yet I pray for my kids often with all hope, and yet a 'Your Will be done Lord and give me strength', because what have I but Him in heaven?

I honestly do not think I would physically survive if one of my babies died.

I know too many mothers who have and who do; I see them, some having held their babies and some who never did, as brave souls who've learned to fight the good fight while tears stream down their faces.
In the battle they are not just standing hopeless and useless as I am, they are fighting. Their clothes are worn and torn, their eyes red rimmed and puffy, but they do not look away and they do not listen to the lies as they swing their swords and bravely hold up shields; they have learned how to walk on the solid ground of the Word and truth despite blurred vision and faulty steps.
They are better for their loss and they fight all the more ferociously, even for people who don't deserve a prayer they remember all the more.

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So here I stand- sword and shield dragging in the mud, watching some walk away and some fight til the end, but I am left in hopelessness- they are both losing. One side, indeed, will win in glory but here on earth it is nothing but pain and tears and barely holding on... while the other side is losing indefinitely.

Some days I just don't know what to fight for anymore.