I cannot even begin to express how much this song has become my anthem. If you haven’t heard it take a moment and listen to the link I posted. Its a cover of my friend singing 10,000 Reasons…

I feel as though I am in a place where my faith is surely being stretched and, many times, my flesh wanting to quit. This has become an often reoccurring feeling. To just be done… with all of it. I know in the grand scheme of things looking at the problems other people have, I still have it pretty good- but that does not negate the difficulty I am facing. For the past two months specifically I cannot even begin to tell you how badly my finances have become because of mis-charges on my account, extra charging of my account, increase of ALL of my loan payments, etc. Yeah not huge things that will ruin my life, but it sure as heck does not make anything close to being easy. I pay my tithe… loans go up by several hundred dollars a month. I donate money to missions… PSE&G over charges my account by a few hundred dollars. I go on a mission trip to outreach to the sex industry…a certain AC casino falsely charged my account of over $500. This has all been in just the past month.

In fact I have had to really trust God. It goes beyond my finances.

The continued thorn in my side with my right foot and ankle is back again for another chapter in its own saga. With being on my feet all day practically everyday at Starbucks, my foot and ankle swell, not unlike a full term pregnant woman or that of someone obese. But just my right foot and ankle. Its uncomfortable. It hurts. I’m stuck with it. Not to mention the residual effects of having had pneumonia for 2 months and I guess my body still fighting something.

My sister is deployed to the Middle East. Yeah, I am so incredible proud of her. I am honored to have her as my sister. I believe in what she is doing, even if it may not be the popular vote. But I cannot separate the fact that we lost a friend in Afghanistan last year. He was KIA after saving his men from Taliban fire. Though I want to believe that she will return home safely, in one piece, the same as she left, I know that there is always the possibility of something else. A different ending to the story. I pray for her every single day praying that God protects her yet at the same time he being glorified.

But this is not just about me. The story is so much bigger than me.  Last week tornadoes struck Moore, OK killing many and devastating the region. People are homeless, jobless, school-less. A woman at church needs a kidney transplant. My friend in Korea is having a really difficult time because both her mom and aunt, both of which live in the USA, have cancer and she can’t say goodbye. Somewhere in the world, near and far, people are without: shoes, clothes, food, warmth, water. Somewhere people make the sacrifice of which kid gets to eat. Somewhere a difficult decision is being made to take someone off life support. Somewhere someone’s marriage is ending.

You see, no matter who you are, your problems will look different than my problems. Whether they are caused by natural disaster, personal [bad] choices,  someone else’s choices, or just humanity in general, we each have them. The difference is the response we can give when these things happen. When things are not going our way. When things are so difficult we want to quit. When things are so hard, we just want life to stop. When things are so far from being understood we want to blame and yell and be angry.

When David, the king of Israel, wrote Psalm 103, the inspiration for the song, he wrote it most likely at the end of his life when things hadn’t gone so well. Many times because of sin and selfishness or simple neglect, David had to get through and overcome difficulty. Other times, David had to fight for victory, flee for his life, and only rely on his trust in the Lord to get him through the struggle. By writing “Bless the Lord oh my soul” he was saying that because despite anything he had gone through, regardless the reason, he could worship the Lord and believe that God was with him. He was not forgotten. It didn’t mean he understood reasons for why things happen the way they do, but it meant that no matter what… he would still worship God.

Yeah… this is my anthem.