God of Encouragement

I'm the strong one. 

I'm the one who is the rock when the rest of the world is shaking. I'm the one who can buck up and get through it, no matter what it is. I'm the one who never gives up, who keeps pushing through. I'm the one who can be going through absolute Hell and you'll never be able to look at me and figure out that anything is wrong. I'm the one who can say "yes" when I'm already running on empty and pretend that everything is fine when I really just want to curl up into a ball and quit. 

Yes, I'm the strong one. It's the way God made me. 

But I still need encouragement. 

I still need someone to notice how much work I'm putting into it. I still need someone to notice the victories I'm achieving. I still need someone to notice that it's not easy. I still need someone to notice that sometimes, I'm not okay. And I still need someone to notice how strong I'm pretending to be. 

I need someone to speak truth into my heart - the truth that they see me, that they know, that they get it. The truth that everything I'm putting in is making a difference, that something good is coming out of it. That I'm making a difference. That I'm appreciated. That it matters...that I matter. 

Just because I'm the strong one doesn't mean I don't need someone to strengthen me. 

I'll tell you - speaking for all the strong ones in the world? - that kind of encouragement is hard to come by sometimes. Most of the time. When you're the strong one, the world kind of just takes you for granted. Takes it for granted that you'll be fine. That you'll get through. That you'll be okay because you are okay because you're the strong one. It doesn't look like you need anything. 

Can I tell you something else? Being the strong one is exhausting. Having to constantly find the strength, somewhere, somehow, to keep going when you've been running on empty for a long time? It's hard. There are more days than you'd think that it's almost impossible. 

But here's a third thing I want to tell you: on those days? It is God who strengthens me. It is God who encourages me. 

Really, it is God who encourages all of us (2 Thessalonians 2:16-17). It's just what He does. 

He just keeps showing up, pouring Himself into our emptiness, filling our hearts all over again. He tells us that He sees us, that He hears us, that He recognizes what we're putting in...and He gives us more to keep putting into it. He notices how strong we're pretending to be and then comes alongside us with real strength, exactly what we need to keep going. 

See, I'm the strong one, but God made me the strong one. God formed me from the dirt with the kind of character and resiliency that makes me the strong one, and He gave me the life experiences that would form and strengthen and solidify my capacity for that kind of strength, and He has come alongside me through every season to keep filling me with that strength, being for me the encouragement that the world seems to forget that I need as "the strong one," but that I desperately need and that hits my heart like drops of rain in a desert. 

God made the strong one, and He's the one who keeps making me strong. By being my constant Encourager, my ever-present Companion, and my faithful Friend. 

So that maybe I can be the strong one for you when you need it...and let my strength lead you back to His.