“Weary traveler, maybe you are exhausted because you are carrying more burdens than you are suppose to. Let go of the past, and allow God to heal you and restore you. Because in that restoration, you shall see a loving God desiring for you to chase after Him, and you should finally have the strength to do so, because you no longer spend it on things that give you no joy at all; So live, love, forgive, and move on. This is worship, this is faithfulness, and this is obeying God even when it hurts.”

T.B. LaBerge

Ya know, I have had the weirdest start to freshman year of college. If you were to ask me last year if I would be in the position that I am, I would say that you are CrAzY!!!

Wear traveler. That defines me in a heart beat, but being honest, that wasn’t who I was before. Before now, I knew where I was going and I had everything set in place. I had a guy who I loved, and I was on the right path with God. Little did I know that I would be taking a step back.

So this last week I decided to start fasting social media. Not because I’m tired of it, but because I need to find who I use to be and be better. I still have my relationship with God, but I know that I need to improve greatly. With all of this, God has led me to write a message on the topic: weary traveler.

Since its the month of Christmas, I think it’s fitting for me to talk about the story of Mary and Joseph. 

God literally looked at Mary and he saw someone who is capable and who is faithful and someone that he loved, which is why He gave her this challenge because God doesn’t give you things that you can’t handle. God doesn’t put struggles in your life that you can’t overcome because duh. But there are going to be struggles so that you lean on him and learn to trust. But of course Mary was obedient and it still took faith to be able to do that. God basically said to Mary, “Yo Mary, I have this kingdom and I have this son who is gonna come save the world. And I think that I want to make you pregnant with him, but just you. It’s not from Joesph but you better trust me because I think he’s gonna be really mad at you and everyones gonna be so confused because you’re suppose to be this holy lady who now just has a baby out of nowhere”. So she had to trust that it was going to be ok. She just had to keep having faith and she had to keep her eye on the promise ahead. When Joseph and Mary had to make the journey from Nazareth, they still had this baby. There were so many obstacles that they had to face just to get to Bethlehem. And when it was time to have the baby, they had no place to stay. Mary was like “what the heck do I do now”. The only place that they found was open, was a barn, which then lead to Jesus being born.

I can’t relate to Mary in this position because I’ve never been pregnant and never had to deal with what she had to deal with, but I do have struggles. My life is like an obstacle course that I’m trying not to trip over. Sometimes I might look at one obstacle for too long and freak myself out and run the other direction instead of having faith. In this story, Mary had faith through it all, which is definitely an area where I need to improve.

I think any time you are faced with a struggle, that’s a journey in its self. You have to get through the struggle and it can be hard sometimes and you can feel tired and you can feel like giving up sometimes, but you can’t forget the promise that lies ahead of it because if Mary would’ve said no or if she would’ve gave up, what would’ve happened. I don’t want to know. You need to have faith that you wouldn’t be in any struggle if God didn’t look at you and think you are capable. 

I know that life can be difficult, definitely when it’s dead week, but God believes in you and so do I.

I pray that you never forget how wonderful you are in God’s perfect eyes.

“But he answered me, ‘My grace is always more than enough for you, and my power finds its full expression through your weakness.’ So I will celebrate my weaknesses, for when I’m weak I sense more deeply the mighty power of Christ living in me.”

2 Corinthians 12:9 TPT

Much love,

Emily xoxo